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. May through August, and b. Late September. Sockeye run from July through September. Chum run from October through November. Coho run from November through December. Pinks run from September through October. All of these runs come around S.E. Vancouver Island, work their way through the Islands into Boundary Bay and then into the Fraser River. The traditional territory of the SENĆOŦEN people is primarily composed of water. Courses of the salmon run, through Haro and Rosario Straits and Active Pass and the islands and adjacent mainland. (18)
55 Map 2: SENĆOŦEN Place Names and Reef Net Sites in LSA
ḴIȾEY !
LEPLIPEṈ !
ŚEḴŚEḴEM ! ȾEMȽTENEM TÁLEḴT SWÍNEM ! ! ! ḴEḴEW̱EKIȽĆ ! SENȻE,EȽEȽ ĆIWOK ! ! TEḴSENĆÁLE ! ḰEṈNI,ḴEN ȻESEWEL W̱ISTÁNEM ! SĆUOŦEN ! SETW̱EM! ! ḰIḰELEḴEN ! ! ! ! ! ! W̱PEYATW̱ MEK'MEK'IḴEN ! ! YALYALEM ! Ȼ!EȻELEX̱ SEN ŚȺW̱OM W̱EPITE!Ṉ ! ! STȺ,TO,LEU ! ḴELEX̱ LN ĆEL, ! ȽTENEM W̱SITES NEWENEWELA'Ć SȻEṈLI,N! ! F ! ! QELȺW̱EM SȻEȻE!CEṈELETĆ ! SȻEṈELIN W̱LEX̱ ṈȺ,LOY ! ! LEḴTELEĆ ! CW̱ILMEN ONEWEI M!ELÁX̱ EN ! ! ! MEMELÁX̱ EN ! ŚĆÁWOX W̱ELW̱ELEQ NȺ!WEḴSEN! ! SḰEM
TOMMEL SW̱I,LEMEṈ ! SḴELAMEḴS ! XIXNEŚETEṈ ! W̱CIW̱EM ! YÁYEMNEĆ F SYOW̱T ! F ! S,KŦAK WA̱ SW̱EN TEL,LAY ! ! ! TELLISI ȻAḴ,SEN ŦÁWEN ! ! ! X̱ EMYÁĆ ṮEPNATS ! ḴE,ḴEṈ,ES ! X̱ IX̱ YES W̱ḴIME,QEM ! ! W̱ṮEK,KIEM ! ! ÁKEUWEWEĆ XEO₭₭!EM ! X̱ EX̱ ÍÁĆŚEN S,DÁYES W̱ṮIṮKIEM ! ! ! ! ṮEKTEḴSEN PENÁW̱EṈ kEMI,ḴEN ȾUXILEM MENMONTOḰ TIELES ! TIȽES ! ! ! ! ȾESNDEṈ ILEĆEN ! ! W̱EN,NÁ,NEC ! ! SNEUES XINEPSEM ! SMONEĆ ! ! KELAKE ÁM,MEĆEN ! WȽAUḴENEṈ ! ȻAḴSEN ! ! ! W̱TEMEIEM ! SXE,ÁNEW̱ F E,HO ŚAḴETES ! XIX̱ ĆÁ!NEM ! WSEṈEN ! SX̱ TIS ! ṮELPOLES KOȾEḰ S,ĆUÁN ! ! ! ṮALEN SX̱ IX̱ ŦE YEUWE ÁLELEṈ CXEN.A DAMW̱IḴSEN ! ! F ! ! ! SXEĆOŦEN F ! ĆUÁN XEXOĆOŦEN ! QENENIW̱ ! ! PITEN ȽO,LE,CEN ! ! SJOS,S W̱MESMESILEṈ S₭EMIN ! ! ! ȾXENNI Ŧ!ELEḴS ! ! W̱LEMNI W̱TÁWIEM W̱EW̱NEĆ ! ! ṮXITEN ! ! ! WLEḰOI ĆELḰINES ! SQEQOTE ŚÁNNES ! ! ! ! HIHUḴS SWALEX̱ ! W̱S!I,I,KEM ȽEKTINES ! SEPELIḰ SMEW̱EMEN! ! ! ! ! ! ! SASIÁTEN SAI'TEN WELEḴIEM ! ! PEL!EP!W̱AṈ W̱LILEĆ TEL!Á!W̱EN SET'TINES ! ! W̱EMQIOŦEN ŚW̱ENḴEM ! W̱,SIKEM ! ! PW̱ÁṈ XELEXÁTEM ḰENNES ! TḴAYEĆ SḰELŦÁMEN F ĆITṈEW̱ MA'LEX̱ EȽ ! F W̱SÁNEĆ ! !! ḰELSET XOCEȽ W̱KIMIOQEṈ BOḰOĆEN S₭ŦAMEN ! YOS ! ! ! ! X̱ OX̱ DEȽ ! ! ȾELȽĆ ! XI,LEM S,LEḰTÁN ! SISȻENEM EWOEḰ ḰELES ḴELJIEU!EȽ ! MÁ!LEQE ! ȽAUW ELṈEW!̱ ! ḴELTAMAEḴS ! ! ! ! TḴAYEĆ ! ȽTÁĆSEṈ X̱ ENEḴSEN ! ! ȾELXOLU W̱ELALḴE TE,TÁET ṮTÁĆSEṈ ! ĆḰÁLETEN ĆOĆȻNEĆ!W̱Ȼ!AṈESEN ! ! ! XEMELOSEṈ ȽEȽINȻEI ! ȾKOLEḴS ! ! ! BOK!EC ! ! SEN,NI,NES ! ! ȽEL,TOS ! FṈEṈÁNET ! ! XELEĆEN F W̱EÁȻEĆEN ȾIEṈEȽNEȽ ! S,ŦAUTW̱ SX!̱ OX̱ ITEM ĆTESU ! ! ! ! XEMXEMIȽĆ XÍXÍṮEM Ḵ!ÁTEȽP ! ṮEMELÁĆEṈ ṮEKṮINES ! ! ! ! ! ĆTÍSU WICOSEṈ ! SȻEHENE WḰOŦEȽP W̱EĆE,ĆE FW̱,ÁYETEṈ ! ! ! S,TIKȻEL F ₭ĆEMES X̱ EOLX̱ ELEK F ! ! TḰOŦEȽP ! ĆITEMES FSW̱ELEĆ CELITĆ FX̱ ṮEC ! ! WȾISEĆEN !! SI,ĆENEṈ SNE,COVE ELE₭TEL XEUEṈ!EX̱ SEN ! ! I,OLEṈEW̱ ! ḴOḴOCINO,ŦEN! PKOLS FFSḰE,ÁNEW̱ SḰO,ANEX̱ PKOLS F KEXṈINEṈ PELȻECAṈ HELEṈIḴEN ! ! ! ṮIQENEṈ ȽEṈOLAĆEN ḴO!,LE ! ḴOṈEKSEN ! F ! KEMOSEṈ ! ! ! ₭OḰALEĆEC SXIMAȽEȽ !ŚĆO,Ƚ S,IĆONOȽ!! ! ! ! !BEḴKANEN !SW̱IṈW̱EṈ !! ŚȻOḴAḴOȽ! ! ! ! ṮĆÁS !W! ̱SA,ḴEM ! ! ! ĆIKAWE!Ć ! ! ! SK'AXA'NA ! ĆEK!OṈIN W̱ELAȽĆ !ĆIKAWEĆ ŦIȻA,NEṈ
X̱ EL,LEṈ ! Esri, DeLorme, GEBCO, NOAA NGDC, and other contributors
F Reef Net Sites ¯ ! Place Names Kilometers 0 3 6 12 18 24 Produced By: CloverPoint Cartographics Shipping Routes For: Evernorth Authors: Dr. Earl Claxton, Ray Sam, LSA 1:500,000 Gabe Pelkey, Philip Pelkey, Lou Claxton, Projection: NAD 83 UTM Zone 10N and numerous Tsawout Elders and members of the WSANEC Nation Printing Date: Nov 25 2014 Document Path: P:\Projects\Traditional Use Studies (TUS)\13029_TUS_Other_Support\06_EverNorth\03_MXDs\PlacenamesMap2.mxd
Map 2 Places named in SENĆOŦEN as recalled by W̱SÁNEĆ Elders. Each named place is connected by the Salish Sea, and elucidates the broad outline of marine territory used by the W̱SÁNEĆ.
56 3.6.3 Point Roberts
The Saanich have had a very long association with Point Roberts. According to Jenness, "the Saanich had an immemorial claim to [reef-net] fishing off Point Roberts." The available evidence, both from the 1827-1830 Fort Langley journals and from affidavits submitted in the 1895 U.S. et al. v Alaska Packing Association et al. litigation (eg. Old Polen 1895), indicates that the Saanich predominated those Natives camping and fishing in the Point Roberts vicinity from the 1820s through until about 1894, after which time a newly-constructed cannery's operations prevented reef-net fishing here. (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:31-32)
In their 1997 report on W̱SÁNEĆ fishing territory, Vanden Berg and Associates refer to the work of multiple anthropologists and ethnographers, including Wilson Duff, Wayne Suttles, Diamond Jenness, and H. G. Barnett, as well as the Fort Langley Journal of 1827, to substantiate the W̱SÁNEĆ seasonal occupation of sites in Point Roberts and their use of the waters for salmon fishing. Most of the natives regarded the sockeye as the choicest of all fish, but not all of them possessed fishing rights over waters where the sockeye ran; for, like the humpbacked, it does not enter the streams on Vancouver Island. The W̱SÁNEĆ had an immemorial claim to the fishing off Point Roberts, near the mouth of the Fraser River; and there, during July and August, they caught and stored for the winter large quantities of both sockeye and humpbacked (Vanden berg & Associates 1997:5).
Indeed, Suttles reported that, “most of the reef-net sites at Point Roberts belonged to Straits Salish people from Vancouver Island” (Vanden berg & Associates 1997:3), and that the Fort Langley journals put the Saanich “at Point Roberts in early summer, locating a Saanich village there” (Welsh 2002:51). In particular, he indicates that reef-net sites at Point Roberts were “owned” by people from Tsawout, Tseycum and Malahat, and that people from Tsartlip worked for reef-net owners there (Suttles 1974:269). A literature review conducted by the Ministry of the Attorney General in 2009 focusing on traditional Tsawout territory as it related to the Tsawwassen Treaty Area, indicates discrepancies amongst ethnographers with respect to which of the communities on the Saanich Peninsula the Saanich who used and occupied Point Roberts belonged. But because the Saanich are, for the most part, treated as a unified group, and the few descriptions of specific territories for individual Saanich communities are inconsistent and contradictory, the report concludes that “the ethnographic information is best treated as applying to all Saanich groups meaning that there is one use and occupancy area rather than four areas associated with the four Saanich groups” (Ministry of Attorney General 2009:31).
Kennedy and Bouchard (1991) report that an examination conducted by Easton in 1985 revealed that Suttles assertions concerning the ownership of reef-net sites were correct, and that “ownership can best be treated as if it were individual, recognizing that the owner may have felt obligations towards kinsmen who might be co-heirs but not co-owners” (42). Nevertheless, contemporary Coast Salish scholars reject this position, stating that reef-net sites could not be owned by individuals, and instead belonged to families who appointed captains to coordinate and manage the fishing operations (Claxton 2003:26; 2014; Naxaxalhts’i 2007:96).
Regardless of whether the individual responsible for each reef-net operation was an owner or a manager, the relationship between this captain and his reef-net crew was cooperative and essential to providing salmon for the families of all of those involved. Therefore, it would be difficult to argue that participating “only” as a crewmember diminished the fact or quality of a W̱SÁNEĆ fisherman’s use and occupancy of the fishing grounds at Point Roberts. For these reasons as well, it is problematic to suggest that the reef-netting sites were only part of territory belonging to specific communities on the Saanich Peninsula, as opposed to the territory of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation as a whole.
57
Point Roberts was a remarkable reef-net fishing ground for multiple reasons. It was the largest in the entire area, it was useable for longer periods of time each day – reef-netting was usually limited to three hours a day by the tides – and it “was a striking example of the cooperation possible between people from different households and different communities,” (Suttles 1974: 545) including the W̱SÁNEĆ, Semiahmoo and Lummi (Suttles 1974: 258-259; Welsh 2002:25). Welsh (2002) describes how this cooperation Suttles refers to extended beyond reef-netting at Point Roberts:
Southeastern Vancouver Island is poor in salmon streams but rich in camas. Semiahmoo, conversely is rich in salmon and poor in camas. The Saanich have halibut banks while the Semiahmoo have sturgeon. The mainland, around Boundary and Birch Bays has seven salmon streams and the Fraser River, as well as elk and bears. The Islands have deer and camas. Various rich reef locations are located through the territory. Several good duck net locations were located strategically. All of these resources were seasonally exploited and provided the motivation for internal movements within the territory. (17)
3.6.4 The Islands
When the Creator finished making the mountains he grabbed some of our people, he grabbed them and threw them out in the ocean. And as he threw them out there... as he tossed some of our own ancestors out there they became those islands... He made them to be those islands that are still there today, how they're all laid out there as you can see them on the map there. That's how they came to be. And when he threw the last one out and he turned to the people remaining there on the top of the mountain on that ledge facing east and he said to them... "You will look after your relatives of the deep."
… The Elders taught us that. And they were taught by their Elders, and those Elders were taught by their Elders. That what was given to us from one generation to the next until we arrive down to today, and we're still teaching it. And I became a teacher after spending many, many years with my Elders and learning and understanding what it is to be W̱SÁNEĆ. For when we throw away that belief, then we're no longer W̱SÁNEĆ. We lost our way. We lost the truth of who we are... And this story I'm telling you is why. Because when XÁLS spoke to our people, our ancestors, and said... "you will look after your relatives of the deep," and that became a law; that became a law. You must look after your relatives of the deep. -- John Elliot, 2014
San Juan and Southern Gulf Islands
As mentioned above, prior to the mid 19th century W̱SÁNEĆ winter villages were scattered throughout the San Juan and southern Gulf Islands. Wilson Duff recorded W̱SÁNEĆ villages on Sidney, Stuart, Saltspring and Mayne Islands in particular, and described W̱ SÁNEĆ territory as encompassing “the eastern shore of Saltspring Island, and the islands east of Saltspring and south of Active Pass perhaps as far as the Northern shores of Orcas and San Juan Islands” (Vanden Berg & Associates 1997:1). This would include, at the least, North and South Pender, Samuel, and Saturna Islands, as well as the several smaller islands between the Gulf
58 and San Juans. Suttles (1974:76,80-81) describes much the same territory and village sites for the W̱SÁNEĆ, and notes that the settlement on Stuart Island was occupied year-round with a population increase in the summertime. He also indicates an additional a settlement site on Pender Island. As has been discussed, both Duff and Suttles (1974:78-81) describe the relocation of the people from all of these island villages to the settlement site in Saanichton, where they established a new winter village (Bouchard & Kennedy 1991:18; Vanden Berg & Associates 1997:1). However, they continued to return to, occupy and use their previous home sites as part of their seasonal rounds (Vanden Berg & Associates 1997:1).
Elliot (1983) recalls that, “Saanich people lived on many of the Gulf Islands and most of the San Juan Islands,” and that the W̱SÁNEĆ leader CELOWENTET is buried on Samuel Island (5,7-8). The list of place names in Saanich Territory he provides also includes W̱SÁNEĆ names for nearly all of the southern Gulf and San Juan Islands, many of which indicate the likely resource or use traditionally associated with the location. Prevost Island, for instance, is called WASWEM meaning “place of seal” (Elliot 1983:66). Blakely Island is XEMXEMICL, which means “place of cattails,” Sucia Island or LAUKEMEN means “place of mussels,” and the northwestern San Juan Island known as Stuart Island is called KENES, which “means whale, (and) used to be (a) fishing camp” (Elliot 1983:67).
Elliot also refers to the islands of Spidon and Mandarte, the former a San Juan Island on the American side of the border and well east of Mandarte, a small island on the Canadian side of the shipping lane not far from the Saanich Peninsula. Spidon, known as XODEL in W̱SÁNEĆ, is “said to be the mother of Mandarte,” which is XOXDEL in W̱SÁNEĆ, and “said to be the daughter of XODEL (Spiden Island)” (Elliot 1983:67-68). The relationship these islands’ W̱SÁNEĆ names describe speaks to the unified and holistic view the W̱SÁNEĆ had of their territory, despite the apparent separateness of some of the lands within it. According to Claxton and Sam (2010):
Mandarte Island, our Bare Island 9 Reserve, was a place for gathering food: cod, halibut, and rockfish from the surrounding water; seagull eggs and camas bulbs from the land. There were clear, though invisible, lines that divided the camas- and egg-gathering areas. You didn’t go over those lines, because each area was owned and looked after by different families. (35)
Researchers Alison Davis and Bjorn O. Simonsen (1995:2) describe the W̱SÁNEĆ seasonal movement eastward through fishing and harvesting sites in the Gulf Islands to the reef-netting sites in Point Roberts, and back through the Gulf and San Juan Islands to the winter villages on the Saanich Peninsula. Along this route through the same waters that the salmon follow on their migration to the Fraser, Suttles (1974:251-252) notes W̱SÁNEĆ reef-netting sites, in addition to those at Point Roberts, off Stuart, John’s, Pender, and North Pender Islands. He also indicates a site, or “perhaps several,” in Active Pass, presumably off Mayne Island (Suttles 1974:252). Duff also makes specific reference to the W̱SÁNEĆ returning annually to reef net sites off Stuart and Pender Islands, in addition to Point Roberts (Vanden Berg & Associates 1997:1).
Kennedy and Bouchard (1996) provide a long and detailed list of reef-net sites owned or used by W̱SÁNEĆ throughout the Gulf Islands, as well as the American Gulf Islands “on the eastern shore of Haro Strait and Swanson Channel, [which] included a site or sites off the west shore of the mouth of Reid Harbour on Stuart Island (in Washington State)” (33-37). They also note clam digging at West Sound on Orcas Island in Washington, and at Ganges Harbour where “it has been reported that in the 1870s, early non-Indian settlers on Saltspring Island saw as many as 500 Indians gathered at Ganges Harbour during May and June to dig clams” (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:39).
59 Additionally, “ling cod and rock cod fishing throughout the southern Gulf Islands was popular amongst the Saanich,” with Active Pass being a particularly well used spot for rock cod and herring fishing (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:37). The importance of halibut fishing throughout the Gulf Islands, and at Mayne and Saltspring Islands in particular is also stressed (Kennedy & Bouchard 1996:37). According to Kennedy and Bouchard 1996:
Saanich fishermen described a special rite that was used to encourage the halibut to bite the hook. This involved hanging a small halibut by its tail and having young children beat it with fir boughs as they laughed and sang. The fish was then cooked and served to all but an old man who then went fishing, and if the rite had been successful, came back with plenty. (38)
Ducks and geese, which “were considered most edible… were speared, clubbed, or caught in aerial nets or nets thrown over a flock sitting on the water,” in the “myriad small bays, channels and islets throughout the Gulf Islands [that] were the habitat of waterfowl” (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:40).
Saanich, Songhees and possibly Lummi used the Mosquito Pass duck net location between San Juan and Henry Islands, although Louie Pelkey spoke of this site belonging originally to the Klalakamish people. The Saanich joined the Samish in their use of the Pole Pass location between Orcas and Crane Islands, but they recognized that it was in Lummi territory. Anyone with a net could catch birds here. (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:41)
Arbutus Island, located west of Piers Island in the waters directly north of the Saanich Peninsula, is called skewmin for the “name of little black duck you see there” (Bouchard & Kennedy 1996:69). The “Black Duck” is considered a sacred bird by the W̱SÁNEĆ, and remains a preferred species for ceremonial use today. It is harvested to make the traditional duck soup used in the smokehouse, and its feathers are still used in longhouse dances to initiate new dancers (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). Before a new dancer can touch the floor, the Black Duck feathers must be laid down to protect them (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014).
In all, Kennedy and Bouchard 1996 provides a list of 93 “ethnographically and ethnohistorically recorded Saanich village sites and resource procurement places” the vast majority of which are scattered throughout the San Juan and Southern Gulf Islands (45).
Sidney, D’Arcy and James Islands
D’Arcy, Little D’Arcy, Sidney and James Islands are the closest islands to Saanichton Bay on the Saanich Peninsula. Not surprisingly, Elliot (1983) lists W̱SÁNEĆ names associated with all of them, as well as nearly all of the small islands close to the shores of the Saanich Peninsula, including Coal, Shell, Piers, Arbutus, Moresby, Portland, and Halibut Islands, and the Gooch Island Group (64-68).
Tsawout researcher Jack Horne (2012:14) refers to a series of interviews with W̱SÁNEĆ Elders conducted in 2001 concerning traditional uses of specific areas within the Nation’s traditional territory. According to the Elders interviewed, “many of the islands contained specific areas where certain resources had been extracted for thousands of years prior to contact. There were also places for specific ceremonial uses and many areas held an attached spiritual significance” (Horne 2012:14).
60 James Island in particular, which, as Horne (2012:14) points out is so close to Tsawout as to be clearly visible from shore, is associated with traditional sites for harvesting salmon, halibut, rabbit, crab, and herring.
W̱ SÁNEĆ oral history relates the Nation’s use and occupation of James and D’Arcy Islands from time immemorial until early in the 20th century when they were ordered to move by governments of the day that had their own plans for the islands (Horne 2012:14). Suttles (1974:76,80) also documented W̱SÁNEĆ settlements on the west-shore of Sidney Island and on the lagoon south of Sidney Spit.
In their list of 93 “ethnographically and ethnohistorically recorded Saanich village sites and resource procurement places,” Kennedy and Bouchard (1996:45) note 11 locations on Sidney, D’Arcy and James Islands.
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Photo 1: Hereditary Chief Eric Pelkey instructs youth at Tsawout’s annual ceremony to welcome the first salmon.
Section II: Harvest Study Results
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4. Marine Use Harvest Study
4.1 Methodology
The Harvest Study component of the MUS employed two survey instruments to better understand Tsawout’s relationship to marine resources. In one, we marketed a one-off, online survey to the entire community of Tsawout, inviting members to report on their harvesting, reception, sharing, and consumption of marine resources over the course of the last 12 months. In the other, we targeted a group of highly active harvesters and surveyed them at regular intervals about their harvesting and resource sharing activities over the previous month.
Both survey tools document fishing, hunting and gathering activities over the course of one year. The monthly survey was designed to gather more detailed information through improved recall and regular reporting on marine resource use from a specific group of respected, active, expert harvesters during 2014. Most of these highly active harvesters are considered specialists in the procurement of a particular resource, or in some cases, have the role of “Provider” within the longhouse system. They were identified by examining the results of previous TUS studies, through input from Tsawout researchers Adelynne Claxton and Floyd Pelkey, who have been documenting traditional knowledge at Tsawout for more than a decade, by other staff, and through a snowball sampling approach--that is, identifying the individuals most often cited by peers as being the most active.
These eight Tsawout First Nation members reported every month on the frequency of harvesting and quantity of catch, the places they travelled to harvest, and what they did with harvested resources. In addition, the superharvesters undertook a long-form traditional marine use interview at the commencement of the survey program in which they addressed past use and commented on environmental changes over time. We have referred to these harvesters as “superharvesters” throughout this report, although we have also, where appropriate, used the culturally specific term “Provider.”
In addition to these monthly superharvester surveys, we cast a wider net to the entire community, through a one-off online survey asking members to recall or back-cast their harvesting activities over the previous year. The resulting data produces a broad outline of Tsawout’s current relationship with the sea, as seen through the harvesting, sharing, and consumption patterns of Tsawout members. When combined with the superharvester data, it has both breadth and depth.
Both survey tools were designed by Trailmark staff, in consultation with knowledgeable Tsawout community members, and based upon a review of published and unpublished sources focussing on the W̱SÁNEĆ seasonal harvesting cycle, and on species that Tsawout members prefer and/or hold traditional knowledge concerning. The final survey instrument and research design was provided for review and feedback to an independent, external expert on quantitative harvest study programs.
The survey aimed to gather information on the following subjects:
63 • Targeted Species: Species harvested in the last month; • Frequency: How often the species was harvested; • Quantity: How much was harvested, or how successful the harvest was; • Traditional Use: Whether the harvest was used for household subsistence, sharing with other households, ceremony, or trade; • Location: Where harvests occurred; • Environment: Species preferences and observations about changes in abundance; • Satisfaction: How content harvesters are with availability.
The results discussed below are based on analysis of surveys undertaken with superharvesters and with the broader community. The monthly surveys—referred to in the report as “monthly survey group” or superharvesters—depict the harvesting patterns of eight superharvesters for approximately 11 months in 2014, from January/February to November. The year-based community wide survey—referred to in the report as “community-wide survey group” was open to the community until early November, 2014.
4.2 Defining and Identifying Participants
As part of the study initiation process we designed a communications plan in consultation with Tsawout team members to: 1) identify potential audiences and study participants, 2) identify points of communication and potential issues, and 3) establish a common strategy for information sharing between the project team and the Tsawout public.
Communication materials to inform the public about the study and surveys included a brochure, posters, and announcements at community gatherings, as well as updates to Tsawout’s website (www.tsawout.com), Tsawout’s community newsletter, and its Facebook page. Recruitment of participants through word-of-mouth was encouraged by the community research team. While this approach raised awareness of the study, no nominations for participation in the monthly survey (highly active harvesters group) were received.
Instead, drawing on their deep knowledge of food sources in the community and of previous TUS studies, Tsawout co-researchers and other members of the study team identified a preliminary list of the most active and respected harvesters in the community. For ease of reference, these became referred to as “superharvesters” -- a term borrowed from harvest studies conducted in the Canadian north. Each recruited superharvester was then asked to nominate additional eligible participants based on their own knowledge and recognition of other specialists.
In order to take part in the monthly harvest study, potential participants had to meet the following basic requirements:
• Be a Tsawout Band member or a descendant of a signatory of the Douglas Treaty; • Self-identify as currently harvesting resources; or • Self-identify as belonging to a household that benefits from the distribution of wild foods from non- household members on a regular basis (or both); and • Be willing to provide information harvesting on a monthly basis; and • Have willingness and availability to commit to at least one initial interview followed by eight monthly surveys.
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Although the two survey instruments—monthly and yearly—differed in delivery and audience, they were similar in content and design, and posed the same or similar questions.
4.3 Study Limitations
Several obvious limitations apply to the study results. The self-report group, those community members who answered a call to undertake a one-time online survey, is relatively modest when compared to the on-reserve member population. In addition, the preliminary findings reported below reflect an incomplete annual cycle. The study provides a one-year “snapshot” of the geography, preferences, and cultural end uses of marine wild food harvesting in 2014. It cannot reveal changes over time in harvesting patterns, preferences, or locations that might come from surveying the same groups over a number of years.
In addition, while this survey captured information on the quantity, frequency, distribution, and type of marine resources harvested by the community in 2014, it does not delve into what is not being currently harvested, and why. However, concerns and observations about the marine environment were raised in the long-form traditional marine use and knowledge interviews conducted as part of the wider MUS, and data showing low harvesting rates of certain species elucidates effects on harvesting also discussed elsewhere.
The results of this study represent some of Tsawout’s current experience of W̱SÁNEĆ tradition and identity, and the ways Tsawout members reproduce the W̱SÁNEĆ cultural order through their relations with marine resources and with one another. It does not elucidate the shape of the broader networks of exchange, identity, and belonging that still criss-cross the Saanich peninsula and Gulf Islands, those lines of force and belonging along which flow goods, gifts, ideas, and relationships to flow between Tsawout members, other W̱SÁNEĆ, and other First Nations, both near and far.
4.4 Harvest Study Results
The aim of both the one-off online survey targeted to community members and the monthly survey targeted to specific superharvesters was to determine a) the distribution and frequency of major harvesting activities, b) the end use of harvests, c) harvesting preferences, availability and satisfaction and, d) the significance of these findings within the context of current and previous research. This data is gathered to provide information on Tsawout’s current marine use for traditional purposes in order to establish a baseline for predicting project specific and regional effects of the marine component of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. Information specific to harvest of species type is included in discussion of the spatial and temporal aspects of Tsawout’s harvesting practices in above.
Below we present findings from the superharvester group from February to November, 2014 (10 months of data), and one-off online surveys with 37 community members as of Nov 1st, 2014.
All survey questions were optional, and the results below are based on completed survey questions by members of Tsawout First Nation.
65 4.4.1 Subsistence
In this study, the term “subsistence”, as Natcher et al. note, is meant to capture the networks, relationships, and values captured in the harvest, process, distribution, consumption, and meaning or evaluation (our phrase) of resources.
The term subsistence has been defined as the local production and distribution of resources (Lonner 1980) where the objective is neither total self-sufficiency nor capital accumulation, but rather a continuous flow of goods and services (Sahlins 1971). Stuart Marks (1977) expands upon this definition by noting that subsistence, as a specialized mode of domestic production, also entails the transmission of social norms and cultural values, or what Walter Neale (1971) refers to as the non-monetary value of wildlife harvesting. In this way, one’s participation in subsistence activities is fundamental to maintaining the social and cultural continuity of one’s household and community (Freeman 1986, 29). (Natcher et al. 2012, 171) [Emphasis added]
The results of both surveys indicate that marine foods make up a substantial and preferred part of the diet of Tsawout members. Over three quarters (80 per cent) of the superharvesters surveyed monthly consumed marine foods once to several times per week (which they personally harvested or received from others). Responses from the community-wide survey are comparable in this regard yet, given the larger sample, wide ranging. On a scale between “Once a year (0)” and “Everyday (100)” respondents average a score of “61,” or several times per week. This suggests that Tsawout community members consume and rely on marine foods regularly.
As our analysis below indicates, the highly active superharvesters are relatively efficient in supplying resources to a community that maintains an active relationship with the sea, and thus relies on their output. We shall strive to shed some light on this phenomenon in the following pages.
Most community members who responded to the one-off online survey identify harvesting and receiving marine resources in the last year. Indeed, overall 76 per cent of respondents reported harvesting, and most (79 per cent) of these harvesters also reported that they were also recipients of marine resources from other active members, or community events. However, 20 per cent of respondents received marine foods but did not harvest them. The smallest group consisted of superharvesters who did not receive resources from others.
Most, if not all, community events held at Tsawout serve marine foods. These events occur frequently— during certain months within this study period we observed events, from fundraisers to funerals, once a week at the very least. The majority (88 per cent) of community respondents, both members and superharvesters, attended community events or feasts in the last year where marine foods were served.
Superharvesters reported that their harvests were either consumed within the harvester’s household, shared, provided for ceremonial or community gatherings, traded, and/or in few instances sold or used for bait.
The end use of each harvested resource varied according to how large the harvest was and the type of resource. Superharvesters distributed their catch to other households and/or for ceremonial/community events, 41 per cent of the time on average, and used it for household consumption 38 per cent of the time. However, because respondents could select more than one response, a deeper reading of results is available.
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Figure 2 Respondents could select multiple answers to record how they used each species harvest each month. For example, harvesters report on multiple uses for the same harvest, or multiple harvests over the course of the monthly survey period.
Seventy-eight per cent of the time, superharvesters shared their harvest with another household or provided it for ceremonial gatherings. In a few instances, resources were traded or bartered for other goods. In other words, while a harvest might be eaten within the harvester’s household, most of the time it was also distributed to other households or to provide for ceremonial use or other community gatherings.
Since three-quarters of community respondents reported eating seafood multiple times per week, and 78 per cent of the time the harvest was shared, a considerable amount of the marine resources in circulation in the broader community must be coming from the surperharvesters, who appear to be devoting a considerable portion of their time and resources to providing marine resources for the community.
Superharvesters indicated that they only consumed their harvests within their households--without sharing, trading or providing it for ceremonial gatherings--a mere 22 per cent of the time. Interestingly, this was more typical of resources such as salmon or flounder, which tend to be caught in smaller quantities, than, say, crabs or clams.
Superharvesters exclusively shared their harvest, ie. did not also use it for household consumption, 28 per cent of the time. Most respondents gave their catch to other households, or provided it for ceremonial gatherings, while a small percentage traded it for other resources. Instances where this occurred related to large harvests of urchins, clams, crabs, rock cod, and ducks.
4.4.3 Seasonal Round & Frequency
67 Tsawout members identified the most active period for harvesting runs from the summer months starting with June, and continues into the fall/early winter. The superharvesters begin much earlier in the year, reporting activity increases every month from February onward, with June as their most active month. The least active harvesting months for the community appear to be December and January, which illustrates that the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ calendar—where the winter moon indicated a season of dwelling at winter villages and participating in winter dances and other events—continues to resonate in Tsawout.
Many respondents noted that while certain months are busier than others, as different species become available, certain staple species are still harvested year-round.
The frequency with which harvesting was undertaken, and each species was harvested in a given month, varied widely among users and over the year, from weekends only to a almost full-time effort. Factors attributed to this variation include competing time commitments, availability of boats and other equipment such as gas or bullets, differences in accessibility of resources, and harvesting knowledge.
4.4.4 Species Preferences and Satisfaction
Survey results show a wide range of opinion amongst respondents on their level of satisfaction with the amount or availability of marine foods they harvest or receive from others. While a few respondents said that they were very satisfied with the level of marine foods/resources, the mode or answer that occurred most often was the lowest satisfaction rating of “0” or “not satisfied”, despite that marine foods appear to be consumed weekly, on average, and multiple times a week by the superharvester group. The desire for increased availability speaks to both the importance of these resources and current barriers and challenges to the availability of marine foods.
As also documented in a previous study on Coast Salish food security (Fediuk and Thom 2003) and MUS interviews, Tsawout First Nation members indicate negative health and socio-economic impacts from the replacement of traditional marine foods with foods from the grocery store. These issues weigh on the community’s well-being, happiness, and culture. In discussions of the marine environment and access to traditional foods, a desire for more local seafoods is entwined with recognition of the barriers restricting harvesting and the ability to exercise their rights and identity.
W̱ SÁNEĆ fishermen must navigate such things as declining runs due to climate change, pollution, other cumulative effects, over-fishing, as well as increasing competition from sports and non-Native commercial fisheries, restrictions on gear types, fishing spots and openings, and legal precedents that define the aboriginal right to fish for food as well as the right to sell fish commercially. These and other factors pose barriers to harvesting fish from ancestral fishing grounds, and many of these factors can be traced to a lack of formal visibility of aboriginal fisheries interests and management practices.
Because the survey of superharvesters approached satisfaction levels based on actual returns and perceptions of respondents every month, our results from this scale fluctuated from month to month. In general, superharvesters cited fairly low satisfaction with the availability of sought-after resources. In the summer and early fall months, respondents from the wider community, on average, felt more than satisfied with their harvests. This difference in response is a comment on the expectations of experienced harvesters and the fluctuation of availability and access to resources, but it also highlights the importance of the summer harvesting season to the production of marine resources within the community.
68 A majority of all respondents identified salmon as a traditional food that they would like to have more than they currently do, followed closely by halibut, oyster, clams and crabs, cod, shrimp, prawns, ducks, urchin, and herring eggs. A majority of community members who completed the online survey identified oyster as a food they would like to have more of. Halibut, crab, cod, and salmon were tied at a close second as species that community members harvest but which they observe to be in decline and that they desire more access to. Additional foods that community members reported that they desired more access to include clams, herring and herring eggs, seaweed, octopus, cockle, ducks, chitons, rockfish and shrimp. Despite actively seeking fish and crabs, respondents experience unmet expectations in regard to successful harvest quotas given how active they are.
69 4.5 Discussion
Monthly survey results of Tsawout First Nation harvesters on activities from February to November 2014, provide an illuminating glimpse into Tsawout’s subsistence economy.
These results show that Tsawout is an active harvesting community where members engage in traditional food harvests; however, the harvesting of large quantities suitable for sharing, community events, and satisfying community demand is concentrated in the hands of a number of superharvesters. These very active harvesters are often specialists in certain species and have often inherited the role and the traditional knowledge and expertise that accompanies it from parents and grandparents. Some of these harvesters have the designation of “Provider” within the longhouse tradition. For these individuals, harvesting makes up a full or part-time, non-market based commitment involving, in some cases, high fuel and equipment costs to the individual, and reliance on donations of equipment.
Part of their traditional knowledge requires the observance of customary laws governing harvesting and reciprocity. Survey data aligns with information gathered from Tsawout harvesters highlighting the extent to which the most active harvesters feel driven to provide their catch to households who may be less active, or who have specific requests often related to solemn or spiritual occasions, such as funerals, naming ceremonies, or potlatches. In so doing these harvesters formally or informally engage in fulfilling a Provider role that obligates the harvester to harvest and deliver resources for others in the community. In some cases, this is part of a formal Provider role that occurs within the Longhouse tradition.
For one participant, who serves as one of the Providers for the community of Tsawout and beyond, a key part of inheriting this as a child was learning the spatial dimensions of his responsibilities. He was taught that food gathering for specific families should be dedicated to certain gathering places in the marine territory. He explains:
Certain Islands are for certain people, certain families. There’s mostly the five families that I’m used to deal[ing] with. The Claxtons, Underwoods, Pelkeys, Sams, Josephs - that was five families I was to provide for. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
This Provider describes the typical scope of his duties as follows:
I’m doing it for 10 reserves. There is Tseycum, Cole Bay, West Saanich, Songhees, Esquimalt, Sooke, Jordan River, Mill Bay, Duncan and Nanaimo. I had three funerals in one day. And I provided for 2-300 people at each funeral. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
In addition to these highly active harvesters, others with knowledge, experience, access to boats and other equipment, adequate spare time, and good health, typically harvest and share their harvest with members who lack these factors. For those who are unable to harvest, accessing marine resources through these networks enables a meaningful point of connection to their territory, and provides a noteworthy demonstration of cultural values and relationships in action.
Tsawout’s social and cultural life is driven by the community’s relationship with the marine environment. The system of sharing resources—what anthropologists would call the system of reciprocity—is as much a part of W̱ SÁNEĆ subsistence economy as the practices of harvesting itself. On the most basic level, sharing increases food security to members. But it is also more than that: it is a part of Tsawout’s self-actualization, enactment
70 of identity and kinship, and celebration of the good life. It enables access to cherished food from familiar places, given and received by equally cherished family members, who in turn enact traditional roles and values by sharing. In this way Tsawout’s fishery is both the expression and the backbone of members’ ȾEX̱TÁLEṈ, or the sum of the traditions inherited from their ancestors.
Sharing, as Wayne Suttles (1987) observed, takes many different forms beyond the distribution of a catch, including the sharing of access to techniques and resource locations, which are also governed by varying degrees of access restrictions (20). Suttles (1987) observes that within W̱SÁNEĆ territory “abundance has always consisted of certain things at certain times and always with some possibility of failure” (47).
Historically, year to year fluctuations in species numbers, and differences in access to resources between communities put a premium on inter-community cooperation in order to establish security of access to traditional food (23). Today these factors are overlapped with additional restrictions to harvesting, and new, adapted forms of distribution. Factors such as the cost of basic equipment, including boats and traps, and ability to take time away from wage-labour jobs, highlight the importance of sharing on a more immediate, inter-community level.
Sharing of marine resources is a distinct part of traditional food harvesting, and it is central to how Tsawout asserts and maintain its cultural identity. As our co-researcher and Tsawout community member Floyd Pelkey explained, traditional foods deserve special treatment, and do not fall into the same category of meaning as food from the grocery store, which are not subject to the same system of sharing and reciprocity. Marine foods are considered by Tsawout members to be the antidote to prevalent health issues in the community such as anemia and diabetes; in other words, they are as much medicine as they are food. The specialist knowledge, time, and resources to access marine foods keep W̱SÁNEĆ communities moving toward building a better, autonomous future.
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Photo 2 Cooler full of urchins gathered by Tsawout Providers for Tsawout’s 2014 Seafood Festival disappearing fast into the hands of festival attendees.
Section III: WSÁNE̱ Ć Relationships with and Knowledge of Marine Resources
I go up there every day just to go, check out on things. Like my dad said, if we don’t look after what we got it’s going to be gone just like that.
-- Aaron Sam, 2014
72 5. Gathering 5.1 Crabs
Today, crab is one of the most commonly harvested and relied upon wild protein sources harvested from the marine environment for Tsawout members. Results of our harvest survey indicated that the most active individuals, at the height of the season, are harvesting an average of 300 crab per day. It is one of the most harvested marine resource commercially, economically, and nutritionally.
Determining a baseline for historical crab harvest is difficult, perhaps in part because ethnographers and others have tended to favour salmon in their accounts of W̱SÁNEĆ subsistence harvesting. The salmon fishery was an annual community event, where ethnographers could witness the whole structure of W̱SÁNEĆ culture in operation at the reefnet fisheries that dotted the W̱SÁNEĆ coastline.
In the past crabbing was more aligned in ethnographic accounts with the “gathering” “mode of production.” Wayne Suttles, for instance, treats crabbing as part of the gathering of mollusks, crustaceans, and echinoderms, including cockles, mussels, oysters, sea cucumbers, chitons, snails, and urchins. There is a popular expression in W̱SÁNEĆ and other coastal cultures that tells us about the gathering of many of these species: “When the tide is out, the table is set.”
Suttles (1974) noted that “the bivalves and crabs were by far the most important” (65). But he offers no information on crabbing, other than to say that “Crabs were picked up by waders or speared from canoes,” (65) and that they were “steamed and eaten fresh” (66). Either Suttles’ fieldwork provided little insight into the importance of crab within Straits Salish subsistence economy, or crab has increased dramatically in importance within the last five decades.
Crab harvesting lies somewhere between the gathering and fishing modes of production. Although there are a handful of commercial crab licenses held by W̱SÁNEĆ fishers and Salish Straits Seafood, and while some of the superharvesters and most of the community members who responded to the online survey use crab traps, others continue to harvest crab in a traditional manner, using long crab rakes. In fact, key Providers in the community prefer to harvest crab by raking.
Historically, rakes for crab and urchin were made with a long wooden shaft and deer antlers for the rake head. Contemporary crab/urchin rakes are constructed by bending hay forks and adding webbing in between the tines: “[We] used to take them [hay forks] and bend them. Heat them up and bend them and put them on a pole. Put a bunch of webbing on there too. Helps in catching them.” (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Rakes that were traditionally constructed with a deer antler at the end and may have been adorned with carvings, like the rake one interview respondent remembers DFO officers confiscated from him when he was a young boy. DFO prohibits the use of rakes for crabbing.
Crab raking requires clean sightlines through clear water. Ship vessel wake causes clear water to become too murky to harvest. As one Provider describes “I see them...I need to have clear water. Even a small speedboat will go by and it will get muddy. So I go to protected areas, like Sidney Island--there is a lagoon there.” (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
73 In choosing the rake over the trap, several respondents pointed to the cost associated with traps, and the ease and frequency with which they are stolen. Tsawout fishers feel that DFO has specifically targeted their harvesting practices in this ban. In the practice of raking, a fisherman can exercise his or her Douglas Treaty rights just as the signatories might have performed them. There have been many small encounters between traditional Tsawout crab fisheries and DFO over the years. For some respondents, the encounters have shaped the way they harvest and left lasting impressions:
[W]hen I use a rake it has to have rubber tips on it. If it doesn't have rubber tips on it I could get charged--I'm doing it illegally. I was brought up this way, now you got me fishing the white man way and using crab traps that are $100 to $200 a trap. You know. I'd rather do it by a pole because that's the way I was brought up. Even using a pole I could get twelve dozen crab a day, two hours work and I'm done. But now it is starting to change. They are trying to take my pole away. They took my other pole, the first pole I ever had in my life. They took that away. And these ones here I lost a couple poles about two months ago. Somebody just stole them.
Just like a pipe pole...... with a rake at the end. But I had one before and it was all carved, everything from the ocean carved on it and a deer antler for the hook. And you go to the museum now and its been in there for 33 years...... They took it away from me, eh...... Fisheries...... I was only nine when they did that... I think I was 11 when they took it away from me. Now its just supposed to be a wall hanger. Elders made it for me. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
A community Provider uses special tanks to flush water through the crabs in order to improve the taste:
Then I put them in a tank there which flushes them out. You know, it doesn't have that baity taste. Because when you commercial crab fishing out of the crab trap, you eat that crab and can taste the bait. So I fertilize it. You know, fertile it. I have it on a big thing like this off the ground and it circulates all the water, cleans it out. You know, I'll show you the difference. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Crab has become extremely important to the function of the W̱SÁNEĆ subsistence economy: Crab is one of the three main marine foods at community and longhouse events, along with salmon and sea urchins. Several of the superharvesters have described how important crab fishing is to the transmission of inter-generational knowledge about how to be a harvester as part of a wider community, and what it means to be W̱SÁNEĆ. As one respondent describes:
And the boy I got now, he just turned 3 and he's out on the water with me. And he handles crabs, puts crabs in the bucket for me...... Yeah. Teaching him how to count. That's the way we do it. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
5.1.2 Current and Contemporary Past Crabbing in the LSA and RSA
The MUS harvest survey provides an important glimpse into the role crab plays in the W̱SÁNEĆ harvest economy and culture. Every one of the superharvesters reported harvesting crab every month for the survey period of February through to November, 2014. In fact, crab was the only species that all of these respondents
74 harvested in this period. However, the numbers of crabs harvested in this time period differed in a distinct way. One half of the superharvesters took a modest amount of crab, and used the crab for household consumption as well as to share with other households. The other half of harvested a larger quantity of crab, and distributed the crab across a large network of Tsawout households and households in other W̱SÁNEĆ communities. In addition, these same superharvesters supplied large amounts to community events and ceremonies, including funerals and longhouse events. Community members put in large orders to these individuals, who sometimes “banked” the favour or received reciprocation in gas or other remuneration.
The results of the superharvester survey demonstrate that the Dungeness crab fishery is highly productive for those with the time, resources, and knowledge to participate. In one four-month period, the height of the season, the three most active respondents individually reported between 7000-15000 crabs. These individuals catch between 100-300 crabs per day on the water, and in many months within the survey period individuals claimed to have spent every day, or very nearly every day on the water. Of the respondents of the community-wide one-off online survey, crab fishermen and women maintained a range of catch between 4 to 100 crabs in one month, and harvested between 1 and 10 days per month.
Crab harvesting and consumption is widespread throughout the community. A majority (75 per cent) of the respondents to the online survey also actively harvest and/or receive crab through other harvesters or community events. Forty-one per cent of those respondents harvested crab for themselves, and 34 per cent received it from others. Most respondents who went crabbing typically got enough to supply their household with one meal, and a second but smaller group of respondents also harvested enough to share with other households in their social circle.
The widespread popularity of crab harvesting and consumption among community members, the high rate of sharing and reception of crab, and the amount of crab harvested and circulated within the community and beyond by the superharvesters, all demonstrate that crab is a critical material within the W̱SÁNEĆ subsistence economy and culture. Crab clearly contributes a significant source of protein for Tsawout households. In addition, respondents indicate that crab can be traded for other, less common marine foods.
Tsawout’s crab harvesters feel that their subsistence crab fishery is under threat from many sources, especially competition from commercial crabbers and casual non-aboriginal harvesters, climate change, vessel wake, and invasive species. Fishermen observe that wherever eel grass habitats have disappeared, clams have followed, followed by crab populations in their turn. Harvesters noted that this process happened at James Island, Melanie Bay, following recent dredging. As one respondent described: “It's all dredged out. You can't get a crab. You can't even get clams in there anymore” (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014).
Tsawout fishers believe that some commercial crabbers are not harvesting sustainably, and that DFO is failing to manage the fishery. The number of commercial crab boats in Tsawout’s traditional marine waters has exploded in recent decades.
Well, when I first started crab fishing I was nine, nine to eleven or something like that. There was only, I think, only 16 commercial boats, crab fisherman in here. Now today there is something like 90 boats that registered in commercial crab fishing. And that, mostly all these crabbers came from Steveston and Vancouver area.
[H]ere we are just getting the leftovers, we’re getting the rejects. We’re getting the crabs with one claw and like that. That’s what they throw back. But I seen the boats out there tiger shelling females, and that’s illegal. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
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Environmental impacts to crab habitat and competition from commercial fisheries has meant that this activity, as intensely relied upon as it is, is still heavily impacted by non-aboriginal activity. Nick Claxton said:
The abundance of sea life that has allowed Saanich peoples to prosper for uncounted generations is now threatened. An example of this that I quite often use is the Dungeness Crab, or Á,CEX as it’s known as in Saanich. The bays and islands that comprise the Saanich Territory were once teeming with the crab. Dungeness crab was once a staple in the Saanich diet. Now, when I take my family out there on my boat, I can’t steer my boat in a straight line for 100 feet without having to swerve to avoid tangling my prop in a commercial crab fisherman’s buoy. One time, I navigated my boat to a spot where I had success catching crab before, and set my lone trap down to the bottom. I retrieved my trap, mouth watering in anticipation of fresh crab, it was empty, and we went home very disappointed. One DFO [federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans] representative has told me that the DFO has at present issued 48 commercial crab licenses within our Saanich Traditional Territory. Each License holder allowed fishing about 600 traps, which is a total of 28,800 traps in our Saanich waters. This represents a tremendous fishing force against the limited Crab stock in this territory. This is a crisis situation given that DFO is mandating the over-harvesting of a valuable resource, leading to the devastation of one aspect of the Saanich way of life. And this is just one part of the total picture. What about the other sea life, the salmon, trout, herring, cod? The situation would be different if the Saanich were governing our fishery, as we always did. (MUS 2014)
Study results have identified current crabbing grounds within the RSA and LSA. Preferred harvesting locations include Saanichton Bay, and the areas surrounding Sidney, James, Mandarte, and Saturna Islands. Participants in the Sencoten Alliance’s 2002 Use & Occupancy Mapping Project for the Georgia Straight Crossing (GSX) Project also reported crabbing sites on the southeast side of Sidney Island, and at D’Arcy Island.
Of these, areas within the LSA include a large crab harvesting and multi-use fishing and gathering area starting from East Point, Saturna Island and continuing through the waters along the length of Taylor’s Beach, Saturna Island. The east side of Sidney Island, Mandarte Island and surrounding reefs are harvesting areas exposed to the LSA. According to the harvesters, current impacts to harvesting at these locations include:
• reduction or removal of the visibility required for harvesting due to ship wake disturbing the seafloor. • increased personal risk travel and anchoring by small vessel from shipping activity, including wake. • impacts to crabs during molting season from vessel wake. When crabs molt, they change their shells, and during this time they are very light and get disturbed and damaged by sudden changes in wave action. One Tsawout superharvester observed: “you go there [to Taylor’s Beach] at zero tide I could show you. Because of the [shipping] wake they don't have time to bury themselves in the sand and its just like a big windy day [under water]. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
The LSA and shipping lane bisects the travel route to the crabbing destination at Stuart Island, and will most likely make harvesting at this location both less accessible and less desirable. 5.1.3 Shrimps and Prawns
76 Few community members reported harvesting shrimp in 2014; however, more than one-quarter of survey respondents received shrimp at community events or via family members. Much of Tsawout’s shrimp catch comes through its commercial fisheries business, Salish Straits Seafoods Ltd. A majority of respondents to the community-wide survey did not fish for prawns during the last year; however 34% said they received prawns from a person or event in the last year. Those who did go fishing for prawns did so frequently (87 on a scale of 0-100).
Participants in the Sencoten Alliance’s 2002 Use & Occupancy Mapping Project for the Georgia Straight Crossing (GSX) Project reported shrimp harvesting sites on the north side of Portland Island, the east side of James Island, and at several places in Saanichton Bay.
5.2 Bivalves
I had to get up at midnight to dig clams, so my kids would have something to eat. We went at low tide in the fall, about 3 a.m., the start of a whole day’s work. We gathered bark and pitch for the fire. I walked behind Uncle Philip, with his axe razor sharp. He’d chop into a tree, look at me and point, saying, “it’s right there.” We’d go through the bush, collecting S’MANETC (pitch from the tree). We fished that night, cooked all day, then took our cooked catch to the markets in Victoria in the morning. We weren’t back home till next day – a two day job (Claxton & Sam 2010:75).
Along with crabs, bivalves were important shellfish for W̱SÁNEĆ (Suttles 1974:121). Mussels, oysters and clams were all harvested at low tide, the first two being pried from exposed flat rocks, and the latter often being “dug with digging-sticks at the lower edge of gravel slopes and horse clams out on the mud flats” (ibid).
Rocks clams and cockles could be broken and eaten raw, but they were also steamed. Mussels were simply thrown on the fire and roasted or were steamed. Butter clams (and oysters?) were usually, if not always, steamed. Rock clams, butter clams, and horse clams were roasted and dried for winter use… Clams were steamed in a pit upon hot rocks as camas was. But for shellfish the various leaves and barks used to impart fragrance and colour to the camas were not required. A woman simply put the clams on the hot stones and covered them with kelp blades or white fir bough. After about fifteen minutes she looked in and if they had opened she took them out. If they were butter clams and she were going to preserve them, she would then wash out the sand and thrust a sharpened stick or ironwood through several, tying each to the stick. She then leaned a number of these sticks, each holding several clams, diagonally over a fire against a horizontal pole supported above it. When the clams were roasted, she took them off the sticks and threaded a line of cedar bark through them. Thus strung they could be dried until hard. In this form they could be preserved indefinitely, to be used in the winter or to be traded away. (Suttles 1974:121-123)
Butter clams, cockles and rock clams were probably all preserved this same way. Horse clams could simply be placed on the stick raw, and Suttles’ W̱SÁNEĆ informant, Louis Pelkey, reported that people also just shelled and sun-dried horse clams on cedar planks (Suttles 1974:122-123). Some time approaching the middle of the
77 20th century Louis Pelkey’s wife was also known to roast butter clams “on spits lying across a metal bed frame,” to sell for two dollars a string, which held about 30 clams (Suttles 1974:125).
According to Pelkey, one person could process roughly six sacks of clams at a time. This was done in the winter villages on the Saanich Peninsula when bivalves were gathered nearby, and otherwise at temporary camps closer to the sometimes far-flung harvesting sites that dotted almost every oceanic shoreline within W̱ SÁNEĆ territory (Claxton & Sam 2010:72; Suttles 1974:123). Claxton and Sam (2010) describe the extent of clamming areas in Everything with a Prayer:
Nearly every bay and beach in our homeland was a clamming site. Many of these were extensive and had been used for thousands of years. We know this from our oral history, and we also know it from the kitchen middens that remain, full of clam shell fragments and other shell and bone remains or our activities. (73)
Some of these activities that put bivalves to use included the use of horse clam shells as bowls, and mussel shells as tools and as arrowheads for weaponry (Claxton & Sam 2010:74,76).
The Olympia oyster, or ŦEX̱ŦEX̱, is native to W̱SÁNEĆ waters and is the oyster that was harvested traditionally by the W̱SÁNEĆ. It was “abundant at one time and very good to eat,” but a combination of overfishing from the early 1800s until 1930, pollution and disease decimated the species (Claxton & Sam 2010:76). This decline was compounded when Japanese oysters were introduced to W̱SÁNEĆ marine territory in the 1920s to replace the diminishing Olympia stocks. As Claxton and Sam 2010 holds, “it’s the most common kind of oyster here now; it’s pushed out the Olympia oyster, which has little chance of coming back.” (77)
Despite their year-round availability on “nearly every bay and beach,” bivalves were traditionally harvested once a year from the same sites that were considered to be the most productive. As a result, certain select beds were visited at the same time every year by a variety of different people, often from different groups (Suttles 1974:123). Suttles (1974) indicates that, “as with camas beds, most shellfish beds were open to anyone, but a few beds, at least among the mainland groups, were private property,” noting that “these beds were inherited, I do not know in what way” (124,125). He records beds “owned” by Lummi, Samish and Semiahmoo families, but used by families from all these groups as well as W̱SÁNEĆ and Nooksack (123-124).
Claxton and Sam (2010) describe building “clam gardens in bays to increase clam production,” by strategically placing boulders to trap shellfish during low tides (73). They write that:
Some of these many sites were used and stewarded by Tsawout families. We have oral records of these places and the seasonal activities that took place at them. As explained before, where non-Tsawout families and tribes used our sites, they had family ties and/or permission to do so. (73)
MUS respondents reported harvesting butter clams, horse clams, littleneck or “steamers”, cockles and manila clams. Cockles are easy to harvest since they tend to be found just under the crab grass or seaweed. MUS respondents describe harvesting them by just feeling them with their feet and kicking them up or picking them up by hand (Tsawout Participants: MUS 2014). Cockles are harvested more frequently in the month of July, while butter, steamer and manila are harvested more often in the spring and early summer months.
78 A number of past bivalve harvesting areas are not currently active due to pollution or loss of habitat. Past dredging activity at Melanie Bay and James Island removed the eel grass habitat that geoducks, clams and crabs depended on to survive (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). In Saanichton Bay, habitat is only now starting to return at test holes sites drilled in the 1980s from the proposed Saanichton Marina Project.
Testing for Bivalve Shellfish Biotoxins (PSP/ Red Tide, ASP, DSP) and sanitary contamination is done at sample sites at specific locations, and not on every beach. According to one MUS respondent, some preferred harvesting areas by Tsawout members are not areas specifically tested for contaminants, and the actual safety of consuming shellfish from these beaches may not be clear to harvesters. As one respondent explains, issues related to harvesting and access require clear communication and information sharing, or perhaps include clam harvesters in the testing process:
It's Health Canada not DFO that does water quality samples to determine whether or not a beach is open or closed. They don't have a lot of money so if they test Cordova Bay and find that the fecal coliform --- cow manure- and PSP biotoxins are too high and then they test Sidney and it comes up the same they assume everything in between is closed and contaminated. They don't have money to go and test every beach or every bay, right? And it takes two years to sample one location to determine whether or not it is deemed safe for human consumption, so if DFO sees somebody digging in Saanichton Bay or off the Spit and its closed for PSP biotoxin levels they'll go make them dump their clams. And it's not because its not their right to [harvest]. It's because it's not safe for human consumption, right? You could die. That's a difficult one for me because I'm always trying to mitigate in these discussions between DFO and our clam diggers. The DFO is saying if you can access some other beaches that are clean, then fly at 'er. We just don't want you to get sick. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Finding clean beaches for clam harvesting means that individuals must travel outward toward areas closer to the shipping lanes such as Little D’Arcy Island and Sidney Island. MUS respondents indicate that pollution- free clam beds are becoming more difficult to find, and one respondent added that, indeed, he and his peers are concerned about the future of clam species.
The 2002 SENĆOŦEN Alliance study reports 273 clam, mussel or oyster gathering sites/incidents by Tsawout participants. 101 of those sites were reported by individuals under the age of 40, and 126 of them came from individuals between the ages of 40 and 59 (Aberley:20). The study aggregated data for cockles and geoducks, which are both bivalves, with the univalve abalone, and recorded 72 harvest sites/incidents, 41 of which were reported by individuals under the age of 40 (Aberley 2002:21).
Harvest survey and interview results show that, as with crab, clams are frequently harvested by many individuals. Dan Claxton, community member and president of Salish Seafoods, reasoned that this is because other traditional foods have become difficult to access by comparison. Claxton explains:
[Our people] they don't have the boats. There is a handful of people that have boats and are able to get out there and access a lot of the resources that we use. So that's why you are seeing high numbers of crab and maybe clams or species that they can access just by walking or going and raking on the beaches. (MUS 2014)
Eighty per cent of the superharvesters surveyed in the harvest study gathered clams in the early spring of 2014. Clam digging expeditions happened on a weekly or biweekly basis, and half of the respondents took
79 home enough clams for many household meals. These harvests were shared with other households or provided for community gatherings. The sharing of a harvest occurred more often than it was consumed within the harvester’s household. In other words, superharvesters share more with other households than they consume for themselves. As one respondent described, in a typical harvest “I would get enough to share with elders, 4 or 5 large buckets, and would gather more for the longhouse” (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). In the summer and fall, respondents who harvested clams decreased to 52 per cent, presumably as individuals switched to other seasonal harvesting activities. Of those who did harvest during the summer and fall, over half harvested enough for many meals.
Sharing clams is a conventional thing to do, and it is also an opportunity for youth to feel good about helping others:
Yesterday, I walked in to give clams to my uncle… He'd been wishing for them for like a year, and he finally asked me to go get him some. Yeah, I can get it, like give me ten minutes. And I went down to the beach and those little necks, they call them steamers, found him a big silver pot like that full. Took me ten minutes to get it. And he was like "oh thank you, thank you. What do you want for this?" I was like nothing, I just want you to be happy.” (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Of the community-wide survey group, 52 per cent gathered clams in the last year. Of those who gathered clams, 53 per cent gathered a large quantity that was then shared with other households. 24 per cent of these respondents received clams from others within their network.
Only one superharvester reported harvesting mussels in the Feb-Nov period. This was not a frequently harvested resource, however it was harvested frequently and it was used to provide for a ceremonial gathering, was consumed within the household and was shared with other households.
One-quarter of the superharvesters reported harvesting oysters in the first and second half of 2014, far less when compared to clam harvests at this time. They were also harvested with less frequency; but when harvests occurred, enough was available and harvested to provide for many household meals, and harvests were shared with other households.
In the broader community-wide survey group, nearly half the respondents reported that they harvested oysters. For those who harvested, a wide spectrum of days was spent harvesting, with about half harvesting less than five days and the other half of respondents harvesting well over 10 days in the season.
Interestingly, even though oysters appear to be harvested by a greater number of community members who answered the one-off online survey than the superharvesters focus group, the amount gathered with each harvest is smaller and shared with less frequency than other molluscs. It could be that the superharvesters do not target oysters because they cannot be taken in large enough amounts to fulfill all their social and reciprocity obligations. This difference in harvesting levels between the superharvesters and other community members might also reflect the noted decline in the health and availability of this resource. The most active harvesters and Providers in the community have simply moved on to target other more reliable resources.
The bivalves harvested at the mud flats of Saanichton Bay and the spit at Tsawout may not be safe to eat. Every two years, Health Canada tests the beaches at Cordova Bay and Sidney for fecal coliform (from cow manure) and PSP biotoxins. When the levels are too high, which currently they have been, Health Canada
80 deems that bivalves between these two areas, including the beach at Tsawout, are also not safe for human consumption. Harvesters must travel further afield to harvest clams that are confirmed to be safe, and to be free from the risk of having their harvest confiscated by authorities (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014).
5.2.1 Current and Contemporary Past Bivalve Collecting in the RSA and LSA
Traditional clam gathering areas on Islands reported in Webster (2000) include sheltered beaches on Pender Island, particularly Browning Bay, Saturna Island, especially East point, Piers Island, Moresby Island, Portland Island, Prevost Island, Saltspring Island, Mayne Island, Coal Island, and Forrest islands. Elders identified peninsula harvest areas including Moses Point, Saanich inlet, Saanichton Bay, Saanichton Spit, Bedwell Harbour spit, Plumper Sound, Cole Bay and Deep Cove.
Mussels were collected from Saanichton Bay and Saturna Island, and particularly D’Arcy Island and Saltspring Island (Webster 2000:16). Oysters were taken from Gulf Islands including Salt Spring, James, Sidney, and Piers. They were harvested on the northern side of Tumbo Island, the Reserve on Cooper Island, Browning Harbour and Saanichton Bay.
In 2002, participants in the Sencoten Alliance’s Use & Occupancy Mapping Project for the Georgia Straight Crossing (GSX) Project reported clam harvesting sites on Tumbo Island, along the south-eastern shores of Saturna Island, on the south-western shore of South Pender Island, and on reefs and beaches surrounding both Little D’Arcy and D’Arcy Islands. Clamming sites were also recorded near the north-eastern tip of Sidney Island, along the north and west sides of James Island, and dotting Saanichton Bay, the Tsawout Spit, and the shoreline immediately south of the Spit. Oyster gathering sites reported were located on Tumbo Island, in the canal between North and South Pender Islands, on the north-western shore of Moresby Island, the south- western tip of James Island, and in Saanichton Bay.
Tsawout members currently, and in the contemporary past, harvest bivalves from a number of concentrated locations. These include the shores surrounding Sidney and James Island, the spit at Tsawout, Bare Island, and Island View Beach, Willis point, Saturna Island, Pender Island, D’Arcy and Little D’Arcy Island.
Locations exposed in the vicinity to the LSA include, Tumbo Island, East Sidney Island, Little D’Arcy Island, North Henry Island, and Bruce Bight Saturna Island. East Point, Saturna Island is a harvesting area within the LSA.
Current areas requiring crossing the LSA include San Juan Island including Friday Harbour, and East side of Stuart Island.
5.3 Sea Urchins
The sun was stored in a box at the back of a deep cave whose entrance was guarded by Seagull. Seagull was blind. Raven scattered sea urchin spines around the mouth of the cave, then called Seagull to come out. Seagull trod on the spines and cried to Raven to help him pull them out. Instead of extracting them, Raven drove them more deeply into Seagull’s foot, saying he couldn’t see well enough to pull out the spines. Seagull told Raven to open the box a bit, letting out a little of the sunlight. Raven said he needed more light, and Seagull, in great pain, agreed
81 that he should open the box wider. Finally, Raven opened the box all the way, grabbed the sun and flew with it high up into the sky, thus bringing Light to the world. Ever since that time, poor Seagull has been crying piteously because of the sea urchin spines in his foot. -- As recounted by Nancy Turner (2005:43-44)
Claxton and Sam 2010 (80) includes W̱ S Á N E Ć names for two types of urchins, the large purple or red XIWE, and the smaller green SQITI or SQUITZI, although one contemporary interview respondent suggests that the SQUITZI are simply immature urchins that may take up to a hundred years to become XIWE (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). Traditionally both were collected, “but the green sea urchins tasted better than the purple” (Webster 2000:16).
Sea urchins are a favourite food, particularly amongst Elders, who consider these “sea eggs” to be both a delicacy and an important medicine (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014; Claxton & Sam 2010:80; Suttles 1974:121).
That's pretty much the way our elders, they call that medicine, eh. The sea urchins are like their medicine. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
They're really good medicine 'cause they have really good iron in them. Like if you got low blood or anything, you just eat that one little sea urchin, and you eat that yellow stuff in it, you clean it up and you eat it, and you got really iron and you only eat that one, your iron is like way up. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Suttles indicates that urchins were picked off of exposed rocks and “smashed and then the orange portions (probably the gonads) were eaten raw, or they were thrown into the fire and roasted first” (1974:121-122). Tsawout Elders report that urchins “were taken from a boat at low tide in March and April with a curved rake and later distributed at the longhouse” (Webster 2000:16). Claxton and Sam 2010 describes sea urchin gathering “with light cedar-bark nets about the size and shape of a bucket fastened to long wooden handles” (80).
Tsawout interview respondents describe “hooking” urchins off of reefs close to shore using a rake, a process that is adversely affected by the wake of passing freighters they say can take an hour to settle down:
When you are getting urchins they are right there on the drop off then you have to wait for the waves, the mud to slow down and start settling and start hooking away there. You get about 50 to 100 urchins and then you have to wait an hour just to get it. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
The commercial dive fishery started for red sea urchins in 1978, and green urchin in 1986 (Beamish & McFarlane 2014:101). Tsawout’s main marine resource Provider reports that availability of urchins remains low because divers harvest them from traditional sites (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). Claxton and Sam (2010) indicate that “there aren’t many left now; we can only harvest them for special occasions now” (80).
The 2002 SENĆOŦEN Alliance study aggregates sea urchin data with sea cucumber and chiton. However, in it, Tsawout participants identified 93 harvest sites/incidents. Significantly, a majority of those identifications, 75 of 93, came from harvesters under the age of 40 (Aberley 2002:22). This cohort would still be actively harvesting today, suggesting the continuation of urchin gathering.
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Between February and June, 2014, 36 per cent of the superharvesters reported gathering sea urchins. These respondents harvested urchins frequently and in large quantities, and reported to provide them for ceremonial uses. This reiterates information gathered from qualitative sources: urchin harvesting is done by a specialized harvesters within the community. Compared to crab, which is harvested to varying degrees by all active harvesters, urchin harvesting is done by individuals with specialized knowledge of urchin habitat, population levels at specific sites, and harvesting techniques. Each harvest would yield enough to meet requests for catering to private community events such as funerals or naming ceremonies.
These traditional foods carry great importance for the grieving process. When discussing requests for traditional marine foods funerals in particular, one Elder described the requests as coming from the deceased, or ancestors of the deceased. Fulfilling such requests is seen as answering a deep, ancestral craving, and provides a bridge between the past and the future. One year-based survey participant noted “[Urchin] is very special to me and I rely on others who have knowledge to harvest for me.”
5.3.1 Current and Contemporary Past Urchin Harvesting in the RSA and LSA
Tsawout Elders interviewed by Webster in 2000 recorded traditional harvesting sites along the shorelines of Saturna, Saltspring and Pender Islands, as well as the smaller islands such as Moresby, Portland, Piers, Coal, Gooch, and the Sidney Islands (16). Today superharvesters report a similar distribution of urchin harvesting sites within the RSA. However, one of Tsawout’s harvesters indicates the most reliable place to harvest urchins lies across the shipping lane from the Saanich Peninsula and within the LSA, along the north-western shores of Stuart Island. The shores of Stuart Island are cited by current harvesters to be the single place to harvest the giant red urchin (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014).
If I was stuck to get urchins and needed to get it fast, that's where I’d go, to Stuart...It makes the trip worthwhile, because if you go down in the area that I pointed at, the diver's been there, so I don't bother and I'll go to Stuart. Somewhere where I know it’s going to be reliable. It’s not like a 15 minute job. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Superharvesters report two additional active urchin harvesting sites within the LSA and the shipping lane, between Sidney and Henry Islands, and the reef along the eastern shore of Gooch Island (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). At these locations, harvesters recount that ship wake events from existing shipping traffic have a negative effect on harvesting. Ship wake causes an otherwise clear sightline to the bottom to become “nothing but muddy”, making the area impossible to harvest. Wake from shipping activity has disrupted harvesting practices on the East Side of Sidney Island. As one highly active harvester describes,
I used to rake crabs all along that side [east of Sidney Island]. You can’t even do it no more. You can’t even see the bottom. It’s only about a foot and a half deep from the drop off. We used to see the bottom crystal clear. But now you go in the summertime, it’s just like mud. (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014)
Participants in the Sencoten Alliance’s 2002 Use & Occupancy Mapping Project for the Georgia Straight Crossing (GSX) Project reported numerous urchin harvesting sites similarly exposed to the LSA near the southern tips of both Saturna and South Pender Islands, and dotting the waters from the south-eastern shore of Moresby Island to Gooch Island, along the east sides of both Mandarte and Halibut Islands, as well as north
83 and east of both D’arcy and Little D’Arcy Islands. Participants also reported numerous sites for urchin gathering throughout the Little Group Islands, and the islets west of Coal Island, east of Piers Island, and along the southern edge of Portland Island.
5.4 Seaweed - LEKES
Elsie Claxton recalls that as a girl of about 14 years old, she used to go with her family to Pender and other islands. Here they gathered edible seaweed to sell to the Chinese people in Victoria. They got the seaweed all along the coastline, and the offshore islands. She remembers going on a trip on Easter Sunday with her mother, father, and brother, in her dad’s boat. They also hunted and fished. They collected large quantities of the seaweed, then brought it home and spread it out on the rocks at the East Saanich Reserve to dry in the sun. They dried seaweed was in big sheets, and very brittle. The Chinese people came to the Reserve and to the camps in boats to buy it. (Claxton & Sam, 2010:86)
The various seaweeds available to the people had a number of different uses. Claxton and Sam (2010) write:
Our people harvested seaweeds to eat, for fishing uses, and for medicines. We tended eel- grass beds for a small part of our food and because they’re the nursery for so many of the sea animals we harvested. (85)
The gel inside the brown coloured rockweed or DE,LOEDC found on the shorelines throughout territory was used as medicine to treat sores, warts, burns and open wounds (Claxton & Sam, 2010:85). In addition, “Elsie Claxton recalled that people rubbed this seaweed on their arms and legs to strengthen them” (Claxton & Sam, 2010:85).
Bull kelp, or O,EN, was gathered year-round for use as food, medicine, and in cooking. For eating purposes “it was steamed, boiled, and dried to preserve it” (Claxton & Sam, 2010:85). For medicinal purposes, bull kelp roots, or “holdfast”, were collected from the water along the islands, grated, and mixed with hot water. “The resulting tea was considered effective for treating tuberculosis, hemorrhaging, or ‘any kind of sickness wrong with your insides’” (Claxton & Sam, 2010:85-86). Tsawout Elders reported bull kelp being gathered fin areas where clams were also found on Sidney Island, and then sold for use as medicine (Webster 2000:19). The broad, flat bull kelp fronds were also used in cooking, “to place in teaming pits above and below camas bulbs, clams, deer, seal, or porpoise. As well as providing moisture for steam, the kelp gave flavour to the food” (Claxton & Sam, 2010:85; Webster 2000:19).
LEKES, or red laver/red sea lettuce was gathered to be dried and then used as flavouring in clam and fish soups (Claxton & Sam, 2010:86). People were also known to harvest LEKES during low tides in the spring to boil or eat fresh with clams (Claxton & Sam, 2010:86). According to Elliot (1983):
They would be digging clams, roasting clams, drying clams. They took seaweed or LEKES at that time. It grows on rock between high tide and low tide. When the tide is partly out it comes out of the water, and in some places it grows very thick, and of course our people harvested it. They would pick LEKES and spread it out in the sun to dry. They had to be very careful it didn’t get rained on because fresh water would spoil it. It would turn bad. If it
84 looked like it was going to rain they would have to run out and cover it or pick it up and get it out of the rain. That was another nourishing food. After it was dry, it was pressed into blocks; pressed and compacted and put away for the winter. In the winter time it would be take out and used in cooking or just eaten the way it was. There was no way you could starve in this country. We had too much of everything. (24)
Claxton and Sam (2010:86) record that the base of the leaf of the eelgrass plant, or CELEM, is edible, particularly when found growing in the outflow of freshwater streams. These leaves were also added to steam pits to flavour meat as it cooked (Claxton & Sam, 2010:86). “They are sweet and somewhat salty. If you’re out of food, eat the roots to overcome your hunger” (Claxton & Sam, 2010:86). Eelgrass was also valued for providing habitat and protection to other important marine foods including crabs, and for cleaning lice from the bodies of smelt, coho and trout (Claxton & Sam, 2010:86).
Webster 2000 also details reports from Tsawout Elders of gathering and sun-drying seaweed in the spring for use as a flavouring, in pit cooking, as medicine, and as a commodity for trade and sale with the Chinese community in Victoria, in particular (Webster 2000:18).
Active harvesters and community Elders expressed serious concern about the disappearance of kelp and eel grass habitat. “It's a nursery for all of our resources” says Dan Claxton, president of Salish Straits Seafood and lifelong fisherman.
I'm really concerned about kelp. Kelp is disappearing. People don't think about kelp, right? They found that out migrating fry out of the Fraser River and the Cowichan River will hang out in the Southern Gulf Islands and stay within the foreshore for their first year of their life because within those kelp patches and seaweed and stuff there is so much food for those little guys to eat. It's disappearing and they don't know why. I remember as a kid, there used to be kelp all along the beach-- around James Island and down along the shore all over the place, and now there is not. It's like, there's the big kelp beds, the big bull kelp, but it's that different species, like a smaller bull kelp--it's disappearing. (MUS 2014)
The loss of bull kelp in the areas surrounding Tsawout is remarkable for Elders who have witnessed these changes. Elder and researcher Adelynne Claxton commented on the loss of kelp in the areas around Tsawout by recalling that her family used to anchor their fishing boat to the tops of the bull kelp forests that once surrounded Little D’Arcy Island and the beaches near Saanichton Bay (MUS 2014).
5.4.1 Current and Contemporary Past Seaweed Harvesting Within the LSA & RSA
In 2000, Elders indicated that gathering sites contemporary with their harvesting lives had included multiple locations on Pender Island, as well as sites on Saturna, Moresby, and Ray Islands, across the shipping lane on Stuart Island, and at 10 Mile Point (Webster 2000:18).
In the 2002 SENĆOŦEN Alliance study, Tsawout interviewees indicated 132 seaweed harvest sites/events, with 109 of those coming from individuals under the age of 40 (Aberley:33). Many of these sites are exposed to the LSA, including those along the southern shores of Saturna, South Pender, Moresby, Rubly, Gooch, Sidney, and James Islands, surrounding Reay, Brethour, Sheep, Domville, Forrest, and the Little Group Islands, and along the east side of Coal Island.
85 In contrast, only a small percentage of current harvest survey respondents report harvesting seaweed within the last year. However, a greater number of respondents reported receiving seaweed from another individual or event. It appears, therefore, that the few harvesters who gather seaweed also distribute it throughout the larger group. Correspondingly, one third of the active seaweed harvesters reported doing so only in order to distribute it to others. Female respondents are underrepresented in the survey group, and their specialist contributions to harvesting an array of species, perhaps including seaweeds, are consequently missed.
Superharvesters report a current seaweed gathering site surrounding Gooch Island and extending into the LSA, as well as numerous sites within the RSA, including all shores and the smaller islands surrounding both Portland and D’Arcy Islands, the south-west shore of Moresby Island, the western shores of both Sidney and James Island, along the shore in Saanichton Bay and at the northern tip of the Saanich Peninsula.
5.5 Seagull Eggs
This was the gift that the Tsawout people received at S’TAMEN (Sidney Island). These were the rights that the SXI,XI gave us to the lands and the waters. Two men, Tsawout persons, on their return trip from Mandarte Island where they went to harvest eggs stopped at S’TAMEN to rest, pulled their canoes over the arm of the spit, and made a fire to cook their eggs. While they were boiling their eggs two figures emerged from the sand up to their waists and went back down. The two men were so frightened they jumped in their canoe and left the Island with their eggs still boiling on the beach. They were left to wonder what message they may have received if they would have stayed to receive the message from the figures in the sand. (Claxton & Sam, CELÁNEN, n.d)
Dave Elliot Sr. (1983) describes seagull eggs as much larger than a chicken egg, and containing a bright orange yolk: “They’re huge eggs, sort of bluish grey with brown spots on them which is the same colour the young seagull’s going to be when he hatches” (23). Interview respondents, and Claxton and Sam (2010:101), report they were once a popular and important food item harvested around April during PENÁW̱EṈ. Elliot (1983:23) suggests this was the only time of year they were eaten. Popular locations reported for gathering seagull eggs include Saturna, Pender, Mandarte, Halibut, and Seagull Islands.
They would go to the nests that had less than four eggs, because a seagull only lays four eggs. If there’s one egg they wouldn’t take it, because the mother would abandon her nest. If there were two, they would take one. If there were three, they would take two. They wouldn’t take the only egg and they wouldn’t take from the nest of four in it, the mother could already be sitting on it… They would take eggs from a nest of two or three. While they were harvesting camas and putting them together to bring home they would be living part of the time on seagull eggs. They boiled them. (Elliot & Poth 1983:23-34)
Claxton and Sam (2010) describe “invisible lines that divided the camas and egg gathering areas (on Mandarte Island). You didn’t go over those lines because each area was owned and looked after by different families” (35). Tsawout Hereditary Chief Eric Pelkey describes similar divisions for egg collecting on Seagull Island, where “there was something about the camas that grew as a result of the seagulls that were on that island that made that camas on that island a real delicacy amongst our family, and so the family had rights to that” (MUS 2014).
86 15 of the 20 harvesters who reported gathering seagull eggs in 2002 study by the SENĆOŦEN Alliance were Elders over the age of 60; only one respondent under the age of 40 reported gathering them (Aberley:23-24). Many of the gathering sites they recorded are exposed to the LSA including the south side of the Java Islets south of Saturna Island, numerous sites on Imrie, Reay, Mandarte, Halibut Islands, and a site in the Little Group Islands.
Elders and interview respondents indicate that people stopped eating seagull eggs after they observed the birds consuming garbage (Webster 2000:9). Claxton and Sam (2010) explain that the eggs “taste a bit fishy when the birds are eating a good diet. When they eat human food and garbage they don’t taste fishy any more. Our people don’t eat them now because they don’t taste right” (101).
5.6 Chitons - TEṈSEWEĆ
According to Suttles (1974:121-122), people probably ate chitons occasionally. These mollusks, also known as “stick shoes” or “China slippers,” were picked off of exposed rocks along with other shellfish, and usually steamed. Claxton and Sam (2010:78) report traditional names for two types of chiton, the smaller DENSUIC, and the large OQES. Chitons are described as hallucinogenic, “and users were cautioned not to smoke when you ate them or you become dizzy” (Webster 2000:16).
According to Tsawout Elders, chitons were collected at sites throughout the Gulf Islands, including Pender, Saturna, Sidney, Gootch, the smaller islands off Sidney such as Coal and Piers Island, and at 10 Mile Point (Webster 2000:16). The 2002 SENĆOŦEN Alliance study groups chiton harvesting along with sea urchin and sea cucumbers, indicating that 93 Tsawout respondents reported harvesting sites for this group, and that the majority of these respondents were under the age of 40 (Aberley:22-23). Several of these sites are exposed to the LSA including southern Saturna Island, the north side of D’Arcy Island, and multiple sites at the southern tip of James Island. Participants also reported sites on the east and west sides of James Island, and in Saanichton Bay.
Respondents to the Tsawout 2012 TTUS indicated a chiton harvesting site within the LSA and the shipping lane on the eastern-most tip of Saturna Island. In interviews conducted this year in Tsawout, one respondent suggested that chitons used to be plentiful all along the shore of Sidney Island, but are increasingly rare there (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014); another reported harvesting in the Bedwell Harbour area on Pender Island while also gathering oysters (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014).
5.7 Sea Cucumber
Suttles 1974 indicates that sea cucumbers, or “sea sausages”, were picked off of exposed flats during low tides, and were only eaten by some people (122). Suttles’ (1974) informant, Louis Pelkey, described seeing people cut off the “head” of the sea cucumber, “squeeze out the insides, and roast the flesh in hot ashes. He also saw it boiled” (122). According to one interview respondent in Tsawout, sea cucumber can be prepared by slicing into fine sections to produce something like a noodle dish. But he adds, perhaps representatively, “I wasn’t interested in that” (Tsawout Participant: MUS 2014). During interviews in the summer of 2014,
87 harvesters in Tsawout only reported “snagging” sea cucumbers while bottom fishing, and none reported keeping the ones they catch.
The 2002 SENĆOŦEN Alliance study groups sea cucumbers together with chitons and sea urchins, indicating that 93 Tsawout respondents reported harvesting sites for this group, and that the majority of these respondents were under the age of 40 (Aberley:23-24). Several of these sites are exposed to the LSA including southern Saturna Island, the north side of D’Arcy Island, and multiple sites at the southern tip of James Island. Participants also reported sites on the east and west sides of James Island, and in Saanichton Bay. In Webster 2000 (17) Elders report sea cucumbers being captured by hook in the small islands off of Sidney and towards Moresby Island, on Pender Island, and at Mill Bay, “generally in the same places as sea urchins.”
88 Subsistence Gathering Locations in Relation to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project's Marine Shipping Component Local Study Area
Esri, DeLorme, GEBCO, NOAA NGDC, and other contributors
Legend BC Tsawout Reserves Shipping Lanes ¯ Kilometers Trans Mountain Expansion Marine LSA Gathering 0 2.5 5 10 15 20 Trans Mountain Expansion Marine RSA 1:600,000 Projection: NAD 83 UTM Zone 10N Data Sources: Urchin, Crab, Bivalve, Sea Gull Egg, Sea Cucumber, Chiton, Seaweed data compiled from 2002 Printing Date: Apr 16 2015 Sencoten Alliance GSX Study (Tsawout data only), Parks Canada 2012 TUS and 2014 Tsawout Marine Use Study.
Produced By: CloverPoint Cartographics For: Evernorth Document Path: P:\Projects\Traditional Use Studies (TUS)\13029_TUS_Other_Support\06_EverNorth\03_MXDs\Tsawout_Gathering.mxd
Map 3 Contemporary crab, bivalve, seagull egg, sea cucumber, shrimp, prawn, seaweed and urchin gathering sites in relation to the LSA, scale 1:600,000.
89 Subsistence Gathering Locations in Relation to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project's Marine Shipping Component Local Study Area
Esri, DeLorme, GEBCO, NOAA NGDC, and other contributors
Legend BC Tsawout Reserves Shipping Lanes ¯ Trans Mountain Expansion Marine LSA Gathering Kilometers 0 1 2 4 6 8 Trans Mountain Expansion Marine RSA 1:250,000 Projection: NAD 83 UTM Zone 10N Data Sources: Urchin, Crab, Bivalve, Sea Gull Egg, Sea Cucumber, Chiton, Seaweed data compiled from 2002 Printing Date: Apr 16 2015 Sencoten Alliance GSX Study (Tsawout data only), Parks Canada 2012 TUS and 2014 Tsawout Marine Use Study.
Produced By: CloverPoint Cartographics For: Evernorth Document Path: P:\Projects\Traditional Use Studies (TUS)\13029_TUS_Other_Support\06_EverNorth\03_MXDs\Tsawout_Gathering_Zoomed.mxd
Map 4 Contemporary crab, bivalve, seagull egg, sea cucumber, shrimp, prawn, seaweed and urchin gathering sites in relation to the LSA, scale 1:250,000.
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