Video: Canoe Song

[A First Nations man wearing a traditional Cedar hat begins to drum and sing in Hulquminum.]

[Music performed by Clinton Charlie, who plays drum and sings the Canoe Song]

[Clinton Charlie] Welcome, that was our paddle song. That song signifies, before contact, that when you came into our territory, we sang the song to welcome you into this territory.

And if we travelled into neighbouring territories, our people used to bang their paddle on the canoe, and they would sing this song. And at each territory, there are always people on the lookout to look for people who are coming for war or raids, and once they heard this song (they were known), they knew we were coming for peace and friendship, not for war.

And so that’s the importance of this song. And you take a look behind me at our nanoway Q’uy†lulhqa, our very beautiful ocean, that was once the highway of our ancestors. We use our sni xwulh our xwunúnuça’ with our canoes and paddles to get around.

And the parts of this ocean are more than that because our Elders said, “Once a table is low, the table is set”. That means we can go find clams, we get oysters, we get crabs, prawns, fish, anything. And that’s how our people survived for thousands of years, by eating these traditional foods. At one time, we used to have Coho, Sockeye, Spring’s, and Dog Salmon, all in this area, but with the building of homes and highways and schools, a lot of these creeks were unfortunately destroyed. This is where our salmon used to come up and spawn, and now you rarely see a return of a salmon because they have nowhere to return to.

And so it’s very important to our xwu¬íxwu¬muxw because some believe that we come from a sockeye salmon. That’s where we originated from. And so, each of these things in our territory, there are songs and dances about, all these animals and the sea life, like the killer whale, the sea lions.

Yeah, everything has a high value and they’re very respected. We have songs, dances, memorials even cultural practices for the sea life and hope they return and come back.

A lot of these things are being lost amongst our younger generation, and it’s important that we bring it back and keep it alive.

[Music]