It was July 5th, 2011 and it was getting late. The PULLING TOGETHER canoe journey had left Toquaht at eight in the morning and it was now almost nine in the evening. Our fleet had paddled from Toquaht, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, to Nettle Island in the Broken Group archipelago. From there, our flotilla of canoes and over 250 people had been “rescued” and transported to Bamfield some thirteen kilometers over Imperial Eagle Channel. Too exposed to the open ocean for a fleet of so many canoes and people, the decision had been made weeks earlier that everyone would be towed or transported from Nettle Island to Bamfield. In what turned out to be an epic evacuation, everyone made it safe and sound that day with the help of an armada of agencies and various motor vessels.
It took much longer than planned though simply because the restless waters of Imperial Eagle Channel dictated that our plans of towing more than one giant canoe at a time couldn’t be executed. So, rather than arrive at Bamfield at five in the afternoon, we were now drifting on the calm waters just out of sight of the community at almost nine in the evening. We were waiting for the last two canoes to arrive on a huge landing craft that had assisted in the evacuation of Nettle Island.
Being late had its rewards though. The light that evening, as the sun found the western horizon, was haunting and magical. The distant mountains glowed in a surreal palette of colours and hues. The waters wore a majestic cloak that hinted of royal purple, appropriate for waters known as “Imperial”. The stillness of the evening soothed even the most restless canoe crew. Waiting for those last canoes, even though we were hours late on this evening, was a calming medicine.
Then, as the canoe called Soul Entry paddled past on our starboard side, the entire scene came into focus for the artist within. The silhouette of that very special canoe spoke of the past. How many times over thousands of years had such a silhouette been seen in these waters? That classic line of a west coast canoe is older than memory. This canoe, previously owned by Chris Cooper, has seen years of experience here on the west coast of Canada but it pales in its acquired stories and wisdom to ancient canoes of similar design. No, as we sat waiting in our canoes that evening, and as we watched the silhouettes of our fleet lazily ply the ocean waters, we were witnessing the distant past play before our eyes. We in our canoes were merely one microcosm of time in the continuum of canoes on these west coast ocean waters. Being late has its merits, if only we can learn to relax and understand. As an artist, I guess I saw that when this image came to me as we waited that evening, the image of Soul Entry at Bamfield.
