Last month, I purchased five fresh sockeye salmon in Port Alberni, and brought them home and canned them up.  This weekend, coming back from Port Alberni, I saw a sign on the side of the road for fresh fish for sale – so scored another three sockeye as well as a huge spring salmon.

I was planning to can these ones too, but in the morning I ran into my dear friend Carl Martin, who said he’d show me how to smoke them.  Carl is Nuu-chah-nulth, and he knows more about gathering and preserving wild food than anyone I know – especially seafood.  So we borrowed my friend’s van and bought a little home-smoker, and there was our program for the day (yup, writing deadlines set aside for fresh fish…)

By the end of the day, I had another 16 jars of fish to add to my winter stores (some smoked, and some plain), as well as a few bags of smoked salmon in my freezer, a few more in my fridge, and a huge pot of smoked fish-head soup on the stove.

We’re so lucky out here on the west coast to have access to this amazing food source – which has been the staple food of Carl’s ancestors for millenia.  The salmon runs up and down the coast are threatened.  Fortunately returns up the Alberni Inlet have been good this year – but this is not the case in other areas.  For example, in the Fraser River returns this year are only 7% of what was predicted – and so the commercial fishery there has been closed for the third year in a row.  (Find out how fish farms damage wild salmon).

As I talked about in my last post, I really value living this way – getting my food directly, rather than sitting on my butt all day long so I can earn enough money to buy it.  I’ve now got a great veggie garden in Port Alberni (as well as a plum tree, cherry trees, and blueberry bushes) – and I’ve just been eating so much great, fresh, local food.  The gardening, the getting, the butchering, the preserving – it’s all physical work – but it’s just so good for you: the work, and the food.

And, for those of you wondering about the salmon:
Canning is done in jars, putting in the raw salmon and a dash of salt, nothing else, then placing on the sealing lids and cooking the jars up in a pressure cooker for an hour and a half.  The salmon keeps for years – just like a store-bought tin of salmon (but it tastes way better than store-bought).
Smoking can be done in a big smokehouse, or in a little smoker like the one Carl and I bought yesterday.  We set it up outside (the photos were taken after, when we carried it inside to package up the fish).  It has a little electrical burner on the bottom, and you just put a little pan of woodchips on the burner and it smoulders away and fills the whole thing with a smoke.  We left the fillets and fish-heads in for a couple of hours – then used the heads for the most tasty soup!  (In traditional Nuu-chah-nulth culture you don’t waste any part of the fish – and, once you get over the mental thing that our culture imposes on us, you’ll find out that the heads actually make the most delicious soup).

Signing books at the Port Alberni launch (photo D. Durocher)

And, all in all, it went really well – the crowds were not huge, but people were just so interested in this.  I had hoped that Joe Martin and other members of his family would be able to travel around with me but, because of work commitments and an illness in the family, they were only able to make the Tofino and Ucluelet launches.  So, instead, Joe and I made a little video of him speaking, so he was able to attend and speak at the launches virtually.  Listen to Joe Martin on my June video blog.

Several of my writing buddies from my online writers’ group the Page Turners showed up to help at the Vancouver and Victoria events, which was just wonderful.  I was a little bit nervous about presenting the book in Port Alberni – which is Nuu-chah-nulth territory,

Ha'wilth (hereditary chiefs) Jeff Cook (Ya-thlua) of Huu-ay-aht, and Hugh Watts (Wes-wii-sin-up) of Huupachesaht and me at my Port Alberni launch (photo D. Durocher)

but not the Nuu-chah-nulth tribes that I know personally (I live in the western part of their territory, on Tla-o-qui-aht land).  So I was thrilled that many Nuu-chah-nulth-aht came out for my launch at the Port Alberni Visitors Centre, including Ha’wilth (hereditary chiefs) from both Huupachesaht and Huu-ay-aht (and many thanks to Denny Durocher, from the Huu-ay-aht newspaper Uyaqhmis, for sending me these photos).

My Tofino launch was especially moving – it was the biggest crowd of any of them, with over 40 people present, and also with many of my Nuu-chah-nulth friends attending.  Levi Martin said an opening prayer chant, then Joe and I did the main presentation together.  When the formal presentation was over, I invited my Nuu-chah-nulth friends to speak.  It was just one of those amazing nights, of incredible communication and goodwill and understanding – the whole thing went on for over two hours, and nobody left early.  It was one of those special evenings that no one who was present will ever forget.

It was especially meaningful to me that Billy Keitlah and Annie George attended.  Billy is a former hereditary chief from Ahousaht – he has now passed his chieftainship on to his son.  Billy suffered terrible sexual and physical abuse for years when he was a little boy at residential school.  Back in 2004-2005, when I was doing the interviews for this book, he was still drinking heavily and struggling with his memories.  He was not in any state to speak to me about his experiences – although Annie did.  Her interview in this book explains how her husband’s experiences have scarred their whole family.

Two years later, however, Billy had given up drinking and had come a long way towards acknowledging what happened to him in residential school.  He wanted to talk to me – and he and I worked together on an article that I did for The Tyee newspaper in 2007 about residential school abuse and the struggle to get financial compensation.  Billy spoke eloquently at my Tofino launch last week, and it moved me so much to see how far he has come in the five or so years that I have known him.  His journey is far from over, but his strength and his desire to keep moving forward is just so inspiring.

I am really appreciative of the attention that this book has received so far – both from people who have attended the launches and spoken to me personally, as well as from the media.  Some of the media coverage about this book (with links wherever possible) includes:

___________________________

Article in the online newspaper www.westcoaster.ca

Article in Victoria’s newspaper Monday Mag

Article in the Alberni Valley Times (reprinted in Tofino/Ucluelet’s Westerly newspaper, the Harbour City Star, and the Ottawa Citizen)

Article in the Nanaimo Bulletin

Article in the Cowichan Valley Citizen

Article in the Nanaimo Daily News

Article in TofinoTime magazine

Article in online newspaper www.thetyee.ca

Radio interview by Gregor Craigie on CBC Victoria’s On the Island (June 11th, runs 5:03)

Radio interview by Stephen Quinn on CBC Vancouver’s On the Coast (June 10th)

Radio interview with Joe Martin by Geoff Johnson of Tofino-Long Beach Radio’s CHMZ (June 16th, runs 6:44)

This book was published by the Westfalian Museum of Natural History in Muenster, Germany, to accompany their exhibition on native cultures of the Pacific Northwest.

Tla-o-qui-aht carver Joe Martin, well known by most here in Tofino, is also very well known internationally!  The museum’s director, Dr. Alfred Hendricks, had heard of Joe, and commissioned him to carve both a fullsize dugout canoe and a totem pole for the museum.  When Dr. Henricks asked me to provide photographs of the carving, as well as of other traditional activities and food sources, I was most willing to be a part of this project.

Museum display and my photos

However, having made some very close friendships with Nuu-chah-nulth people over the years, I also felt that rather than focusing on the traditions and of how Nuu-chah-nulth people “were”, we should also talk about how they “are”, today.  Clearly, one of the biggest issues that affects native people right across our country today is the Indian Residential School system: the legacy of abuse, degradation and neglect that occurred at many of the residential school plagues communities and families today in the form of numerous social issues.  I was most pleased when Dr. Hendricks accepted my suggestion of also including a part, both in the museum exhibit and in the book, about the Residential School system, and its long-lasting effects.

When the museum exhibit was set to open, in the fall of 2005, Dr. Hendricks invited Joe and me, along with carver Lyne Desrosiers (who had worked with Joe and Henry Nolla on the totem pole), as well as Joe’s sister Mary, a cedar-bark weaver, and his daughter Tsimka, to attend the opening.

Joe, Tsimka and Mary Martin at the opening ceremony

In Muenster, we got to see the final stages of the museum exhibit being put together; in addition to the canoe and pole, works by other local Nuu-chah-nulth artists including Mark Mickey, Billy George Keitlah, Liz George, and Carl Martin were featured.  The museum also built a longhouse that people could walk right into, with great house posts carved by Joe and Lyne, and a central fireplace and drying fish hanging from the ceiling (plastic, fortunately).  We were honoured guests at the official opening, and then the museum generously treated us to a week-long visit to Muenster and Berlin!

I was extremely pleased to see what a quality book Dr. Hendricks had produced for the exhibit.  I had been expecting an “exhibition catalogue” in a magazine-type format.  But here was a well researched, and beautifully designed and printed hard cover book, with an incredible range of archival photographs mixed in with my colour photos.  (It’s always a pleasure for a photographer when publishers do a good job with printing!)

Photo display at the museum in Germany

I have always been disappointed that this book has never been available in Canada: especially the section on residential school.  The 16 people that I interviewed spoke so openly about events that are so painful for them – all for the purpose of helping all Canadians to know what really happened there, and to promote healing.  And that’s why I undertook this project too – how can we expect people to understand these things, and be able to make the right decisions, when they don’t even have the information?

So, that’s why I have taken it upon myself to import this book.  And I’m really pleased with the response so far, with nearly every book store that I have approached choosing to stock it.  I will be setting out on a multi-media publicity tour  this month (here are tour dates and venues) with a slide show and film clips, and members of the Martin family will be present at at least some of those events.  I hope to see you there.