A Short History of Indians in Canada (14 page)

Until Chief Justice Gordon Steels and the rest of the British Columbia Supreme Court decided that Owen Allands could not hunt on band land because Native rights in the province had been extinguished somewhere in the nineteenth century, the main topic of conversation in Fort Goodweatherday centred on why the town did not appear on any of the provincial road maps.

Amos Mischief insisted that it was because Fort Goodweatherday was an Indian community and wasn’t worth the ink. Everett Joe said it was because the name was too long to squeeze in alongside the names of the larger towns along the coast.

There was an “FG” on the map, stuck out in the ocean, and this could have been Fort Goodweatherday, but as Fort Gregory and Fort Gustave and Fort Godspeed were in the same vicinity, it could just as well have been them, too.

“The ‘FG’,” Wilma Tom said each time the discussion about why Fort Goodweatherday wasn’t on the map came up, “marks the spots where the fishing is good.” It
was an old joke. Wilma’s grandfather had told it all his life and everyone knew it, but because really funny jokes were hard to come by, and because Wilma could tell a joke better than most people, nobody minded hearing it again.

Amos Mischief didn’t have a great deal of time for jokes and whenever he got wound up about Fort Goodweatherday and discrimination and bigotry, Bella Tewksbury, who voted Reform in the last election and didn’t mind telling you, would jump in and point out that Point Waboose, Grimsley, Lacoose, Russian Sound, and Pilgrim’s Passage weren’t on the map either. And all of them, with the exception of Lacoose, were larger than Fort Goodweatherday.

“Russian Sound even has a post office,” said Bella. “What do you think about that?”

A year ago, Siv Darling, who was known up and down the coast for his bluntness, wrote a letter to the Minister of Tourism in Victoria and asked him why the town wasn’t on the map. “Why isn’t Fort Goodweatherday on the provincial road map?” the letter read. “Sincerely, Siv Darling.”

Four months later, a package from the Minister of Tourism came back. Inside were a guide to the provincial parks, a guide on where to go in Victoria and Vancouver, and a glossy magazine that arranged, by months, all the exciting things to do in the province. There were a dozen pamphlets that offered two-for-one deals on meals and tours, discounts on hotel accommo-dations and car rentals, a colour postcard of a bunch of
totem poles, a bumper sticker that said, “Visit Victoria,” along with a really nice map of the province, which, sure enough, didn’t have Fort Goodweatherday on it either.

There was a letter stuck on top of everything that thanked Siv for his interest in visiting British Columbia and hoped his stay would be a pleasant one.

So Owen Allands was in no mood to hear Chief Justice Steels tell him and the world that all the treaties and agreements made between Native peoples and the province were null, and forthwith abrogated. Owen was found guilty of trespass on Crown lands and was sentenced to six months in jail, but after he took the time to explain just where Chief Justice Steels could put the court’s decision, Owen’s stay in jail was extended to nine months.

“Throwing Owen in jail like that was a bit much,” said Everett Joe. “What the hell did the judge expect him to say?”

Bella brought a dictionary to the council meeting that was called to discuss the Steels decision, but she couldn’t find the word “abrogated” anywhere, partly because she was spelling it wrong, and partly because, as she was searching through the pages, she hit upon the word “abort,” which looked close enough. Rather than forget about it or leave well enough alone, Bella read the definition and was drawn into a heated discussion on abortion, and, by the time everyone had a turn at the microphone, a second council meeting had to be called for the next evening.

The second meeting started off with an impassioned
plea by Father Maris, who alternated months between Fort Goodweatherday and Lacoose, to stay calm and let the authorities do their jobs. It was the same speech he had made when the band closed the logging road that ran between Gull Point and Nadir to protest the clear-cutting of tribal land and very similar to the one he gave when Jimmy Turman’s son, Dustin, was found hanged in a cell in Campbell River.

It was not a long speech, and, after he had finished, he thanked everyone for their patience, and went home.

As soon as Father Maris was gone, Bella Tewksbury pushed her sleeves up and knotted her arms across her chest. She leaned forward on the chair and said in a very loud voice, “So, what are we going to do about this?”

For the next four hours, everyone in the council meeting took turns at the microphone.

Crystal Kingcome brought a box of three-by-five cards on which Crystal and her three girls—Sheri, Terri, and Mari—had written the eight hundred number of the Minister of Justice. Crystal urged everyone to call the number as often as they felt like it, and, if enough people called, it might do some good. Best of all, Crystal pointed out, the phone calls were free.

Everett Joe thought a trip to the United Nations in New York would do more good, and, because he had lived in Toronto during the war, Everett volunteered to head the delegation.

Siv Darling wanted to close the Gull Point road again.

At around one o’clock in the morning, Florence Skloot, who had been sleeping in the second row next to
the radiator ever since Father Maris got up to speak, woke up, hoisted herself on her walker, and shuffled to the front of the room.

Florence was between eight-six and ninety-seven, depending on whom you talked to, and, even as a young woman, she had a reputation for speaking deliberately. But as she got older, everything had really slowed down until the distance between each word and gesture allowed that you could get up and go to the bathroom as Florence was sneaking up on the noun, and get back before she had found the verb.

There were several glasses and a pitcher of water on the front table and Florence took the largest glass, filled it and drank it, and filled it again. Then she began.

“I’m ashamed,” she said, and she paused to catch her breath and take another drink. “All we ever do is complain.”

This was as fast as anyone could ever remember Florence moving, and Johnny Whitehorse, who had been thinking about stepping outside and having a smoke, decided to put it off until later.

“Complain, complain, complain,” Florence continued. “No wonder the white peoples don’t like us anymore.”

Florence leaned over her walker. “Those white peoples are like little kids, you know,” she said. “They don’t know any better. That’s why they do these things.”

Florence stopped there, and, frankly, no one knew what to say. And no one left. Everyone just sat and waited. Finally, Florence cleared her throat and shifted her weight.

“What we need to do,” she said in a clear, strong voice, “is to give them a hand with their problems instead of always complaining about ours.”

Florence pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her sweater and wiped her face and cleaned the sides of her mouth. “We got to show them how to be friendly and generous,” she said. “We got to be the adults.”

Florence drank another glass of water. “So, I am going to that town and give those white peoples some help,” she said. And she sat herself back on the walker and shuffled to her seat.

As soon as Florence was settled, Bella Tewksbury stood up and looked around as if she was trying to locate a forest fire. “Damn it!” she said in a booming voice. “Florence is right. And I’m going to drive her to Victoria.”

Bella balanced her hands on her hips and squeezed her lips together. “So,” she said, “who else is coming?”

This led to about twenty minutes of grumbling and mumbling and arguing, but Bella stood there like a light-house in a storm and waited. Finally Lillian Armstrong got up and then Betty Tom and Phyllis Aubutt joined her. Before long, everyone was up and standing with Florence and Bella.

The next morning Amos and Wilma and Siv got on the phone and began calling around to relatives and friends to see if anyone else wanted to come along. Bella and her sisters and nieces made sandwiches and packed cans of pop and bottles of water into cardboard boxes.

Amos Mischief’s daughter Laura lived in Victoria and Amos figured that she wouldn’t mind putting up a few people at her place, but Bella said no, that they should treat the trip like a vacation and stay in a nice hotel.

Whereupon Everett Joe began telling Bella about his two years in Toronto and the kinds of prices that he had had to pay for hotels.

“Some of the fancier ones like the Royal York and the King Eddie were fifteen to twenty-five dollars,” Everett cautioned. “For one night.”

“That was years ago,” said Bella. “It’s going to cost us a little more than that, even in Victoria.”

“We should stop off and see Owen,” said Wilma.

“He’s in jail,” said Amos.

“If I was in jail,” said Wilma, “I’d sure want friends to stop by and say hello.”

There was a festive atmosphere to the caravan of cars and vans and trucks that headed out of Fort Goodweatherday. Florence rode in the front seat of Bella’s station wagon and as soon as they turned left at the Petrocan station and headed inland, Florence rolled up against the door and went to sleep.

Larry Pugent was on duty at the reception desk of the Empress Hotel and thought that the fifty or sixty Indians walking through the lobby in his direction were part of a tour from Nagoya, Japan, that was almost a day late. He quickly called Laura Okazaki to come to the front desk and give him a hand.

“
Ko-nee-chi-wa
,” said Larry, and he bounced his head a little the way he had seen Laura do it.

Bella looked at Larry and then she turned to Amos and Wilma and Florence and the rest of the people. “Jesus,” she said, “any of you guys speak French?”

“
Oui, je parle français
,” said Larry, delighted that he wouldn’t have to depend on Laura after all.

Bella leaned on the counter and smiled at Larry. “How about English? Anybody here speak English?”

“Yes,” said Laura Okazaki, who had just finished talking long distance with the tour operator in Nagoya, “I speak very good English.”

“Good,” said Bella. “How much for a room?”

“Unfortunately,” said Larry, “we’re all booked.”

“That was Nagoya on the phone,” said Laura. “They’ve had to cancel the tour.”

“So,” said Larry, hardly missing a beat, “how many are in your party?”

“The whole lot,” said Bella.

Larry smiled at Laura, opened a book, counted heads, and ran his finger down several columns of small print. Then he went to a calculator, added up a line of figures, and wrote a number down on a piece of paper that said “Empress Hotel, Victoria, British Columbia,” at the top in gold lettering.

Bella looked at the figure. “That much?” she said.

“It’s a world-class hotel,” said Larry.

“For two weeks?”

“No,” said Larry, “for each day.”

Amos called his daughter who called her boyfriend Brian who called his cousin Gerald who, as it happened, was related to Bella by marriage. Gerald called Reuben Lefthand who ran a Native arts and crafts store on Fort Street.

Reuben’s uncle, Gus, ran a trailer park about twenty minutes out of town on the way to Sooke and would have been happy to put everybody up except it was tourist season and the entire park was full.

“But I got some tents you can borrow,” Gus told everybody.

“And I know just the place you can camp,” said Reuben.

Reuben and Amos and George packed the tents in George’s van and everyone drove back into town with Reuben in the lead.

“You think he knows what he’s doing?” Crystal asked Bella.

“Hard to say,” said Bella. “He’s not from around here.”

Which was partly true. Reuben’s mother was Salish, but his father was Crow out of Montana.

“But I suppose,” said Bella, “a person shouldn’t hold that against him.”

Reuben worked his way through town, down to the waterfront, and around to the far side of the quay. When he was in front of the provincial parliament buildings, he parked the car and got out.

“Here we are,” he said. And he grabbed one of the tents and carried it up on the lawn.

“You sure we can all camp here?” said Bella.

“Sure,” said Reuben. “All the protest groups do it.”

“We’re not a protest group,” said Wilma.

“Some of them even build little houses out of wood and cardboard,” said Reuben.

“What are we going to do for bathrooms?”

“See that over there,” said Reuben, gesturing to a large greystone building at the head of the quay. “You can use the bathrooms in there.”

“Is that a government building, too?” asked Amos, who was thinking he had seen that building somewhere before.

“No,” said Reuben, “it’s the Empress Hotel.”

Later that evening, after Reuben and the men had set up the tents, two RCMP officers stopped in.

“You can’t camp here,” said the second RCMP officer.

“We’re not camping,” said Bella. “We’re protesting.”

“Protesting what?” said the first RCMP officer.

“The Steels’ decision,” said Amos.

“And Owen Allands being stuck in jail,” said Everett.

The officers walked back to their car and talked for a while, and then two more cars came along. Before long there were eight police cars parked in front of the provincial buildings and close to sixteen provincial and RCMP officers talking on their radios and to each other and to tourists who had stopped to see what was happening.

Finally an RCMP officer walked over to where Bella and Florence and Amos and Everett and Wilma and the
rest of the people from Fort Goodweatherday were waiting.

“Okay,” said the RCMP officer, “do you have any drums?”

“Why?” said Everett, who still wanted to go to New York and was not completely happy about camping out.

“The last Native protest group had drums,” said the officer. “They made a lot of noise and disturbed the tourists.”

“We’re here to help you people,” said Florence.

“Appreciate it,” said the officer, and she tipped her cap to Florence. “We can use all the help we can get.”