LEGEND OF THE GIRL IN WETSUIT

GIRL IN WETSUIT There she waits, the girl in wetsuit gracefully poised on Stellar’s Rock, her diving mask pushed onto her forehead When the tide is high, she appears to float on the water When the tide is low, and you look at her quickly you might mistake her for Stellar, the harbour seal, who used to sun on the rock before he gave it to the girl And sometimes you may find her bird-friend Segal perched on her head to keep the girl company Waiting patiently, silently, for the Dragon to return That was not the beginning of the legend It seemed to be somewhere in the middle The only part she could recite from memory She did not say why she began it there Nor did I understand — until the end She told me that while still a child she was taken from her village to a residential school where her language and culture were spoken of no more Years later when she returned to her birthplace the elders were gone and the legend unknown Only fragments in her own memory remained I set out to reconstruct the world of her story by learning about her native culture She told me about the Great Forest at the edge of the Salish Sea About the Transformers Salish legends of the Lions and Siwash Rock She spoke of K’emk’emelay about the Great Land and the end of time immemorial Of lost generations and keepers of the culture The Haudenosaunee A Mohawk Chief of the Six Nations and Tekahionwake, Double Wampum living in two worlds Of big canoes pulling clouds Of the legend itself she could recall only simple phrases Words and images woven into a children’s fairy tale She spoke of a snake of wood and iron of paper drums a Dragon Empress and tea and silk from China A world of enchantment A shot from a musket, a great war and a great silence in the land A sea of red, a dragon painted green An unbeatable battle, a war dance a defeated dragon The act of remembering created a longing that stimulated her memory As time progressed, she was able to tell me more Fragments only, begging interpretation promising to reveal a deeper meaning Can you remember anything more your grandmother said to you, I asked She sat quietly, reflecting, then spoke in a soft voice Skalatitude, she said in her native Salish language What does it mean, I urged She was silent again and then she spoke The secret knowledge, she murmured for the re-enchantment of the world 2. THE SALISH SEA The girl would come to the Salish Sea to watch the salmon swim into the fishing weir She was Salish, the storyteller One of many indigenous tribes of people inhabiting the northwest coast of the continent Tribes with names like Musqueam, K’omoks, Qualicum Cowichan, Saanich, Squamish, Tsawwassen Tribes with distinct cultures and traditions united through speaking a Coast Salish language The Salish Sea, connected to the vast Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Juan de Fuca Waterways winding through a myriad of islands Important trade routes for the indigenous people and a source of food for their daily diet Many species of fish made their way into the marine ecosystem and the native people learned how to catch them Like the tidal weir beside the Great Forest large stones creating a series of circular mini pools Salmon swimming into the pools at high tide Unable to escape when the tide went out again And so, the fisherwoman tended her tidal weir within the mystical gaze of Siwash Rock 3. SIWASH ROCK The weir was near Siwash Rock, where the Transformers as emissaries of the Great Spirit turned a man into stone Siwash Rock A 32-million-year-old rock outcropping Magma forced to the surface through a fissure in the Earth’s crust creating a basalt stack Like nothing else in K’emk’emelay Siwash Rock, the Salish woman said where the Transformers turned a man into stone How did it happen, I asked It is a Salish legend, she replied told to Tekahionwake by a Squamish chief It tells of a man, committed to marriage How he trained for the coming of his future child by taking morning swims to a landmark nearby One day, when he tried to return the Transformers in their canoe blocked his passage They told him he could not pass   His determination told him what he must do for his wife and future child, and he disobeyed them The Transformers were amazed at his defiance Emissaries of the Great Spirit, they decided upon his fate He would be transformed into a rock outcropping for all future generations to remember his sacrifice for fatherhood His wife was also transformed into stone which is nearby Siwash Rock 4. THE LIONS And it looked out at the Lions on the mountains of the north shore where the two sisters were turned to stone There is another legend told to Tekahionwake by the Squamish chief It tells of two sisters who were daughters of a highly respected leader of his people The leader was at war with a northern tribe but the two daughters convinced him to end the war with them The Transformers saw their act of selflessness and transformed them into sister mountains for the people to remember their deed These two mountains are called the Lions Tekahionwake recorded the story told to her by Chief Capilano… You can see them as you look toward the north and the west where the dream hills swim into the sky amid their ever-drifting clouds of pearl and grey They catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold the last colour of sunset Twin mountains they are, lifting their twin peaks above the fairest city in all Canada, and known throughout the British Empire as “The Lions of Vancouver” She concluded her account of the legend And on the mountain crest the Chief’s daughters can be seen wrapped in the suns, the snows, the stars of all seasons, for they have stood in this high place for thousands of years, and will stand for thousands of years to come, guarding the peace of the Pacific Coast and the quiet of the Capilano Canyon