CANADA BY SEA AND AIR

I caught the sailing bug as a little kid, only about six years old, on a small island in British Columbia. It wasn’t long before I was daydreaming of sailing farther afield than my tiny dinghy could take me. I’m not sure why my childhood mind got fixated on the North Coast, right up by the Alaska border, and in particularly the Haida Gwaii islands, a misty archipelago sticking out into the North Pacific. But somehow it did. Maybe it was the chart of the British Columbia coast on the wall in my parents’ house. Or maybe it was the Native Haida artist who was one of my parents’ closest friends. One of his woodblock prints hung over the fireplace in our house: a stylized raven that held your gaze with the tension in its form and lines. And whenever we visited his house, I was caught – even as a six-year-old – by the palpable spirit of his art, all around us. There were cedar bentwood boxes, masks on the walls, drawings, carvings: all of it imbued with the history, feeling, and spirit of his culture. I remember his house having a sort of hush inside, that the art inhabiting the place required respect and even reverence from anyone who crossed the threshold.

However it was, I was captivated by the islands of the North Coast. In my imagination they were cold, and swept with wind and rain, heavilyHaida totem poles and the people who created them reigned along the shore. Of course the true history of the Haida First Nations people is also one of tragedy, of the near loss of their oral history, dances, societal structure, art and customs, from colonization, disease, religious conversion, forced separation of children from their families, and all the terrible things that have sadly followed the Western explorers all over the world. In some ways, however, these tragedies make the islands and their people even more impressive: the fact that they have held onto their culture, revived it and passed it onto their children and grandchildren, is evidence of truly awe-inspiring resilience and fortitude.