salmon. Returning through the San Juan and Gulf Islands throughout August and September, the cycle ended with chum salmon as the last major resource harvested in the Goldstream area from October onward. (2) Image 1: The W̱ SÁNEĆ Calendar, artist Briony Penn, copyright Tsawout First Nation. W̱ SÁNEĆ Elders Earl Claxton and John Elliot created a written version of the tradit ional 13-moon W̱SÁNEĆ calendar in 1993, which is included below: 51 The W̱SÁNEĆ Year ṈIṈENE – Moon of the Child ♦ Nettle twine made into nets. ♦ For those who would take the risk, Halibut fishing resumed. ♦ Grilse fishing in WJOLEP. ♦ Fawns born, deer hunting stops. ♦ Generally living off supplies, telling tales, instructing children, longhouse ceremonies continue. WEXES – Moon of the Frog ♦ Ocean travel safer. ♦ Fish for herring and gather herring roe. ♦ Duck nets were used. ♦ Sections of reef net sewn together, captains surveyed beaches for anchor rocks, rafts were assembled, floats and cables prepared. PEXSISEṈ – The Moon of Opening Hands – The Blossoming Out Moon ♦ Hunting of Brant Geese ♦ Clams, oysters and Mussels are at their best. ♦ Cedar logs felled for canoes, etc. ♦ Cedar bark gathered. ♦ Wool dogs shed – wool gathered. SXÁNEȽ - Bullhead Moon ♦ Gathered Bullheads. ♦ Harvested seaweed. ♦ Halibut fishery ends. ♦ Grouse snared in the woods. PENÁW̱EṈ – Moon of Camas Harvest ♦ Most families left the winter village for spring camps. ♦ Harvest camas. ♦ Gather gull eggs. ♦ Purple and green sea urchins gathered. ĆENŦEḴI – The Sockeye Moon ♦ Dropping of the anchor rocks at the family reef net locations. ♦ First salmon ceremony ♦ Start of salmon trade. ĆENHENEN – Humpback Salmon Return to the Earth 52 ♦ Reef fishery continues – especially at Point Roberts. ♦ Sport gatherings. ♦ Memorial potlaches, namings, weddings and society ceremonies. ĆENTÁWEN – The Coho Salmon Return to the Earth ♦ Cod Fishing. Sea urchins used as bait for tommy cod and tommy cod used for bait for ling cod. ♦ Deer hunting begins. ♦ Hog Fennel gathered. ĆENQOLEW̱ – The Dog Salmon Return to the Earth ♦ Hunting for deer and grouse. ♦ Dog salmon fishery at Goldstream. ♦ Langford area for cranberries, blueberries and grouse hunting. PEKELÁNEW̱ – The Moon that turns the Leaves White ♦ Splitting logs for boards, and completing canoes. ♦ Seal and sealion hunting in the San Juans. ♦ Cod fishing tapers off, grouse hunting ceases. ♦ Preparation for the fall deer and elk hunts. ♦ Deer are in rut – easily fooled. W̱ E S E L Á N E W̱ – Moon of the Shaker of the Leaves ♦ Most foods are in storage. ♦ Fishing close to winter village. ♦ Elk hunting in the mountains after the first snowfall. ♦ Winter fires are lit – Winter gatherings. SJEȻÁSEṈ – Moon of Putting your Paddle away in the Bush ♦ Clam digging. ♦ Weave mats, capes and knit wool. ♦ Tools and fishing gear repaired. ♦ Bark worked, lines, cables, baskets. ♦ Logs split into planks. ♦ Story telling and Winter Ceremonies, living off stores. (Welsh 2002:48-51) 3.6.2 W̱ SÁNEĆ Settlement Patterns At one time or another practically every sheltered bay and nook along the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, and on the small islands adjacent to it, carried a settlement of greater or less 53 size; but at the coming of Europeans late in the 18th century the Salish inhabitants of this area appear to have been divided. (Davis & Simonsen 1995:2) This is an accurate description of the history of W̱SÁNEĆ settlement patterns, which at one time covered the whole of their traditional territory, but were arbitrarily reduced to the handful of reserve sites where permanent villages remain today. Prior to about 1850, W̱SÁNEĆ winter villages and permanent settlements were distributed throughout the San Juan and southern Gulf Islands. As noted above, they also dotted the shores and every bay on the Saanich Peninsula (Davis & Simonsen 1995:2). Tsawout Hereditary Chief, Eric Pelkey offers the following description of W̱SÁNEĆ traditional territory and its boundaries: Our territory, the territory of Saanich people is not any different than the territory of the Tsawout First Nation because we are not a nation unto ourselves. We are the Saanich Nation. Our lands are not separated, we feel our lands are whole. We can't be separating ourselves into different pockets of territory within our territory as a whole. Our territory ran over here from the Malahat down across to what Ray explained to me one time is the divider between ourselves and the Lekwungen people, was if you go up to Mt. Doug he said, and you point over towards Discovery Island, and he said that everything this way is ours, was recognized as belonging to us. So he said that's how we always managed ourselves; that was the divider between us. He said that you know that a lot of Discovery Island was ours, and became later part of the Songhees territory... A lot of our people from Tsawout were all born out on Discovery... So, that is one side of our territory and our territory ran across the water, and the people in Semiahmoo are the same people as us, they're part of our family and part of our relatives. We had an ongoing village there, right beside the Semiahmoo village, so that is part of our territory, and a part of our rights. And they recognize that, and when we have things that we want to do together that's why it’s easy for them to join in. They speak the same language as us. And originally Tsawwassen was originally one of our fishing sites. That's where Tsawwassen is a SENĆOŦEN name, just like Tsawout and Tsartlip. That was a name that was born from SENĆOŦEN... So, that is originally one our fishing villages there, right along the front. So our territory ran across Georgia Strait and came back, and the historical divider between us was Active Pass, here. Active Pass was historically the agreed upon border between us and the Halkomelem people, and ran right through this island here and straight across and the north end of the island was allowed to be part of the Halkomelem land... So, we even went up into the Cowichan area, and had fishing stations and so forth up this way. So, that was historically the agreed upon border between us, Active Pass. Then it went through there, and then across over the Malahat, over here as part of our territory, ran all the way down here, and then to the border between us and the Lekwungen people. And also it went across into the San Juan Islands. (MUS 2014) By the middle of the 19th century, and due to a variety of factors, including population declines brought on by diseases associated with European contact, as well as raids by other northern first nations, and eventually land pre-emptions by white settlers, most of the families from the island villages relocated to Saanichton Bay, the largest of the settlement sites on the Saanich Peninsula (Bouchard & Kennedy 1991:18; Claxton & Sam 2010:20; Davis & Simonsen 1995:2; Suttles 1974:76-82). They did not abandon their former home sites, however, and continued to return to use and occupy them as part of their seasonal rounds (Vanden Berg 54 1997:1; Suttles 1974:76-82). In addition to these summer camps, W̱SÁNEĆ families traveled across the Strait of Georgia to a seasonal settlement at Point Roberts on the mainland where they owned salmon fishing sites alongside other Straits Salish-speaking first nations (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:31-32; Vanden berg & Associates 1997:1). References in the Fort Langley journals from the late 1820s indicate that this village was occupied between the beginning of May and the end of October. During this time, Saanich people were also observed going to the salmon fisheries on the Fraser River near Yale in July, and again in September (McMillan and MacDonald 1827-1830:17,25). The Saanich Peninsula villages were abandoned during July and August, according to Jenness. (Bouchard & Kennedy 1991:44) The winter villages served as the W̱SÁNEĆ’s most permanent home sites, from where their seasonal rounds embarked in the spring and returned in the fall. Still, no more than three to six months were spent in these villages each year (Welsh 2002:44). W̱SÁNEĆ families spent the remaining six to nine months on the waters of their traditional territory, harvesting resources or traveling between summer camps and established harvesting areas (Suttles 1974:76; Tsawout First Nation 2014; Welsh 2002:44). Elliot (1983) offers the following description of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation and its traditional movements through W̱ S Á N E Ć T e r r i t o ry: We can call the W̱SÁNEĆ Peninsula our headquarters because this is where we built permanent winter homes. This is where we stayed in large villages. Our land went east through the San Juan Islands and northeast across Georgia Strait to Boundary Bay... In the summer our families traveled through our territory to fish and gather food. When we traveled we made temporary homes near to places where we were fishing and gathering food... The lands and seas we called our territory were the lands and seas that we traditionally used. (15) Salmon fishing not only dominated the subsistence activities of all Northern Straits-speaking tribes, but was central to nearly every aspect of their cultural lives (Claxton 2004:9; Suttles 1974:170; Boxberger 2007:57). As Suttles (1974:189; 1987:35-36) observed, the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation’s seasonal round, and by extension its territory, was defined by the W̱SÁNEĆ people’s pursuit of the five salmon species, and the steelhead trout, in the straits between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia. Researcher Don Welsh (2002), writing for the SENĆOŦEN Alliance, which represents the W̱SÁNEĆ, and includes Semiahmoo, summarized the relationship between the salmon runs and W̱SÁNEĆ territory as follows: Spring salmon run in: a.