GILAKAS'LA

WELCOME TO CORMORANT ISLAND

Where, exactly, are we?
Many people, even close regional neighbours, might have to guess where Cormorant Island is. But if you mention Alert Bay, which happens to be on Cormorant Island, they have no problem.

Cormorant Island is about four km long and a little over one km wide. A glacial creation, it is essentially a high, curved ridge of gravelly, rocky soil over strata of compacted sand. This makeup, with no surface bedrock, is unique to the region. It may account for the island's wells, also unique, that produce water of such purity it needs no filtering or treating whatever to supply our public water systems.

As the raven flies our island is two kilometres from the northeast coast of Vancouver Island. As the car ferry goes between here and Port McNeill it's about 40 minutes and there are six return trips a day.

Long before ferry schedules and waterworks were even thought of the region was the territory of the 'Namgis nation, a member of the powerful Kwa'kwakawakw group. How extensively Cormorant Island was occupied by the original peoples is not clear. It was very likely an important internment site sacred to the residents of the large village at the mouth of the 'Namgis river.

Captain George Vancouver dropped anchor in 1792 off the mouth of what came to be known by Europeans as the Nimpkish River. In his log he referred to it as Cheslakees' Village after the name of the Chief. This site is long-since abandoned and overgrown, the occupants having moved to Alert Bay to work in the salmon canneries and, for better or worse, become part of the European-style wage economy and the abundance of manufactured goods it offered.

Alert Bay is a well-established place name with a colourful history on coastal BC. It fronts a deep-water bay in the inner, south curve of crescent-shaped Cormorant Island. In the 1870s it began its existence as a salmon saltery and soon became a busy fishing and fish canning centre. It also became the administrative, medical service, shopping and transportation centre of the North Island and the adjacent mainland. Until the 1960s Port McNeill was a logging camp, its residents looking to Alert Bay for their shopping needs and for medical care.

Port McNeill is a little over two hours' drive north of Campbell River on a good paved highway that winds in and out of a series of valleys past towering green ridges in a backdrop of snow-flecked peaks. But nowhere is it a "mountain" road; the passes between valleys are of modest elevation. In winter, when snow might linger briefly on the passes, driving takes extra care. Delays are very infrequent and short, thanks to excellent road clearing service. The new Island Expressway, augmenting the old and very congested Island Highway, offers straight-through driving from Nanaimo to Campbell River, cutting travel time considerably.
For an even quicker commute there are daily Port Hardy/Vancouver air flights.

Cormorant Island is governed by two principal jurisdictions, the village of Alert Bay and the 'Namgis First Nation. Reserve lands occupy about 30% of the island's area. Out of a total island population of 1500, over 60% live on the reserves.

What about THE RAIN?
We readily acknowledge that we're in a coastal rain forest, so bring your umbrella. But will you be sitting in perpetual gloom staring through streaming windows wondering if the downpour will ever stop?

No. Well, rarely. We're in the rain shadow of the Vancouver Island ranges. The western slopes of these front on the Pacific and some get around 20 feet of rain a year. Serious gloom. Cormorant Island's average annual rainfall is a bit under 60 inches, and most of this falls in the winter when we can get extended periods of rain. But these are regularly interspersed with stretches of nice, bright weather. Once or twice each winter there are opportunities for making snowmen, but with our average winter temperature at +6 C they have a very short life expectancy.

If you're still skeptical, come up in January and visit our Anna's Hummingbirds. They live here year 'round, and their numbers are increasing. Point made?

ISLAND LIFESTYLE - FUN AND FUNCTION

Sports and Recreation
Life on an island requires some adjustments. The most immediate is the need to synchronize your plans with the ferry schedule whenever you want to leave.

There is also something about a small island that imparts a feeling of comforting enclosure without any sense of being shut in. The rush and stress of the outside world are a boat ride away, the pace of life is more relaxed. You'll hear the phrase "island time" which means people aren't too uptight about letting the clock dominate their lives. It's very easy to get used to.

An advantage to being surrounded by water is that you have easy access to a double set of recreational options, one land-based, the other water-based.

Sports facilities on Cormorant Island include three paved tennis courts, a six-lane bowling alley, billiard tables in the Legion and in one of the restaurants, and gymnasiums in the 'Namgis recreation center, the community centre and the two schools for court games - floor hockey, volleyball, basketball, and badminton. There are four grassed playgrounds and two softball diamonds.

Soccer is a form of generally harmless mania that regularly afflicts many residents of Cormorant Island. A popular sweatshirt puts it this way: "Soccer isn't the only thing in life. Soccer IS life." Everybody who wants to play, from pre-school kids to men and women old enough to know better can indulge themselves to their heart's content.
A newly-created asset is a network of hiking/cycling trails that encircle most of the island, and cross it at several places. They afford scenic ocean scapes against a background of white capped peaks, a close look at inter-tidal seashore habitat, and a quiet interpretive walk through the hushed shadows of a stand of mature second-growth hemlock and spruce.

There is no golf course on Cormorant Island. But there are several good courses within reasonable distance on Vancouver Island. The closest is the 18-hole Seven Hills, a 25-minute drive from Port McNeill. There's a nice nine-holer carved right out of magnificent mountain scenery at Port Alice, an hour from McNeill.

Spectacular Mount Cain is the home of what is arguably the best skiing on Vancouver Island. It is a 1½ hour drive from Port McNeill. Amenities are basic, with a hostel-style lodge, two T-bars to the 5,000-foot level, and some cross-country trails.

Still on dry land, under it, actually, is another fantastic, unexpected asset. Huge tracts of the north end of Vancouver Island are composed of limestone karst laced with large, extensive caves. These are only beginning to be explored, but enough have already been surveyed and mapped to allow at least one cave outfitter to set up a summer cave tour business.

Moving from underground to underwater, the late Jacques Cousteau declared that a combination of crystal-clear water and abundant reef life make the waters around Stubbs Island and the Plumpers the second-best scuba diving place in the world. These lie just east of Cormorant, 15 minutes away in a speedboat.

The sport fishing members of the family will think they've died and gone to Heaven. The five species of salmon (six if you include escaped fish farm Atlantics) all occur in varying abundance during spawning migrations that go right past the island. Pacific Halibut lurk in the deeper waters but occasionally someone hooks one right off one of the docks. They range in weight from "chickens" in the 7 to 14 kg (15-to 30 lb) size to monsters that can go over 100 kg (220 lb). There are dozens of other bottom fish in varying sizes and often in spectacular colours, most of them delicious.

This is also a major dolphin gathering place. Pacific White-sided Dolphins show up regularly around Cormorant Island in summer. Now and then they form huge super-pods and put on a spectacular show of leaping and rushing. The less-numerous, fast-swimming but generally non-acrobatic Dall's Porpoises occur through most of the year and appear in small pods.

The marvellous scenery, sheltered tidal waters, hidden beaches and coves, and the benign summer climate make this area a kayaker's paradise. A dozen or more major outfitters bring people from all over the globe to explore the Broughton Archipelago and nearby mainland inlets. For Cormorant Islanders, the kayaking experience of a lifetime is only a short paddle from their front door.

Bird watching is North America's second most-popular form of outdoor recreation next to gardening and is the basis for a thriving bird touring business in many parts of the world, including Alaska. Queen Charlotte Strait, dubbed The Big Pocket because of its shape, has the potential to become a major destination for birders. It is a world-class migration stopover and wintering area for shorebirds, waterfowl and sea birds. The myriad islands, bays, lagoons, inlets and channels in the Broughton Archipelago and along the mainland coast provide endless feeding grounds for these birds, and sheltered waters where tour boats can seek them out safely and comfortably.

For the family speedboat, runabout or sailboat, Alert Bay maintains a well-protected, deep water marina as well as a dock with a float and a launch ramp right in the centre of town.

CULTURAL RICHES

As pointed out earlier, the lush coastal environment nurtured a populous aboriginal society with the resources to support a vigorous economy with surpluses for trade. They had sufficient leisure time to engage in politics and diplomacy, to develop a distinctive architecture, to pursue a rich spiritual life, to cultivate the arts of carving, weaving, song, and drama, and to conduct slave raids and make war. All of these activities had their complement of elaborate dress and complicated ritual.

An activity that brought much of this cultural vigour together was the potlatch, the purposes of which were, and are, largely misunderstood by non-native people.

In a culture with no written language the recording of obligations, the ratification of agreements, the settlement of debt, coming-of-age initiations, the transfer of privileges, services for the dead and other events were made binding by being carried out before a public gathering which became a highly formalized event, the potlatch.

Wealthy families would spend years readying for a potlatch, making loans repayable on demand with interest, preparing regalia, rehearsing dances, songs and stage effects, practicing sacred rituals, and making arrangements for the catering. The guest list was gone over exhaustively, the seating protocol worked out with great attention to status. Everything was planned down to the smallest detail.

People attended by invitation, and were paid well to bear witness and to remember accurately everything that was done and said. It was, and is, an affront to the host for a guest to leave while a ceremony was in progress or the business at hand duly concluded. Arguably, one reason why the houses of important leaders were as big as they were had less to do with their utility as dwellings than it did with the number of guests who could be accommodated during a potlatch.

The pressure to perform well, and to carry off everything without error or hesitation was enormous. Any dancer who tripped, any officiant who made a wrong move or flubbed a line disgraced himself and his family and had to pay dearly, in public.

Part of the accepted conduct was that the host chief and his important relatives had the chance to get old grievances off their chests, to stand up in public and call down those who had wronged or slighted them, often to the face of the alleged offender who was obliged to keep silent until such time as he had his own potlatch and could reply.

The potlatch was also a way of redistributing wealth. The host chief and his family would be rendered destitute by a major potlatch, with little left except the big house. But their social status, if all went according to plan, would be greatly enhanced. And they rested in the assurance that in future potlatches held by their guests, the wealth they had bestowed so generously would come back to them. And everybody remembered what and how much was due.

The potlatch was such a powerful institution among the Kwakwaka'wakw people that missionaries feared its influence and officials in the Department of Indian Affairs deemed it a major obstacle to their objective of integrating Indians into the mainstream European wage economy. The federal government eventually banned potlatching, confiscating regalia and jailing those who broke this repressive law.

In time, after decades of effort to redress this injustice, some of the potlatch regalia was returned. Part of it is housed in the U'mista Cultural Centre here, part in the Cape Mudge Reserve near Campbell River. "U'mista" means "a returning" or "a coming back".

For those wanting to revisit the mementos of those bygone days, the U'mista Centre is open to the public. Also on display, and for sale, are the works of modern-day mask and drum makers, carvers, artists, weavers, tailors and silversmiths. Many of the Alert Bay carvers and artists have achieved international reputations and their work is on exhibit in museums and galleries around the world.

Potlatching has now returned as a key element in coastal aboriginal life. Following the tragic loss by fire of the 'Namgis Big House in 1997, a new building was erected and formally opened in the summer of 1999. It will be the scene of many potlatches in future. Attendance is, as of old, by invitation. However, a host may wish to open parts of a potlatch, or even the entire ceremony, to everyone. The rule, if one is interested in attending, is to treat the occasion as one would any private gathering, and to ask if casual guests are being accepted, and when. There may also be a dress code.
Another surviving memorial to 'Namgis culture is the totem burial ground along Fir Street in Alert Bay. Here family totem poles and mortuary posts stand guard over the last resting places of the dead.

This site is only one of many in the area. River inlets, islands and secluded bays today shelter the remains of ancient villages, some abandoned long ago, others only recently vacated, some still occupied. Throughout this world of tangled waterways there are beaches whitened with clam shells, big, strong-flavoured butter clams that were a staple of the coastal diet. In places these shell piles, "middens", have accumulated to a depth of several metres.

Taking visitors to these sites, and giving them a "you-are-here" look into the history and culture of the former occupants is developing as an offshoot of the growing eco-touring industry. In Alert Bay it has afforded the opportunity for several 'Namgis fishers to put their seamanship, their converted fish boats, and their own cultural knowledge to work.

Part of the appeal of these tours is to also give passengers a taste of the distinctive coastal cuisine. Chowder, smoked salmon and clams, seaweed soup, steamed mussels, fresh prawns and other specialties are prepared in the galley while the passengers take in the superb scenery and keep an eye out for whales, dolphins and sea lions.
They may be offered the ultimate in memorable taste experiences, oolichan grease.

This was, and still is, a very valuable commodity. And it is, be warned, an acquired taste.

With so many natural assets to offer, why hasn't this part of our overcrowded world been overrun? Part of the reason is that it is just far enough away from the main population centres to be safe from inundation. The other is that its scenery, fishing, whale watching, birding, caving, kayaking and other attractions haven't been promoted to the outside world. The summers are getting busier, but for much of the rest of the year you are only a short walk or a brief boat ride away from finding a place you can have to yourself for the day.

Perhaps you might consider joining us for some of that off-season pleasure.