what was lost

 

what was lost

Today is Truth and Reconciliation Day.

And sitting here beside my murals at the bottom of Point Grey Road and Trafalgar, I can't stop thinking about what was here before us.

I have read parts of Survivors Speak. 💔😪

I think about the stories Indigenous elders have told — stories of a time when the tide went out and families went down to the beach to gather clams and shellfish.

A mother could make a small fire on the beach.

The boys might head out in a canoe to hunt.

Food came from the water, the land and the seasons.

And this wasn't 2,000 years ago.

It wasn't even 200 years ago.

It was less than 100 years ago.

That life is largely gone.

And here I sit beside my murals, looking at the water, wondering what this shoreline looked like when those families were still living that way.

I think about my Songhees great-great-grandmother and what she may have taught my great-grandfather.

I think about the generations before me.

My great-grandfather was fortunate not to be taken to residential school. But my third great-grandmother attended a Catholic mission in the Willamette Valley.

These aren't just dates in a history book to me.

They are people in my family.

And I think about what was lost.

Not only land.

Not only language.

Not only culture.

A way of living.

A relationship with the land and water based on taking what was needed.

Today, so much of our food comes wrapped in plastic, highly processed and shipped thousands of kilometres.

We have supermarkets overflowing with food while our connection to where food comes from becomes more distant.

We take.

And take.

And take.

More roads.

More buildings.

More ships.

More energy.

More money.

More growth.

When is enough enough?

I think there is something we could learn from the principle of taking what you need rather than constantly taking more.

I don't mean that Indigenous peoples all lived the same way — they didn't. There were many different Nations, cultures and economies.

But Indigenous knowledge has repeatedly reminded us that humans are part of the land and water, not separate from them.

And somehow, we have forgotten.

Today, as Canada talks about reconciliation while continuing to develop and transform the lands and waters around us, I keep wondering:

Can we ever find our way back to balance?

Maybe we can't go back.

The shoreline has changed.

The forests have changed.

The food system has changed.

The culture has been damaged by generations of colonial policies.

We cannot simply rewind history.

But perhaps reconciliation means something more than remembering what happened.

Perhaps it means asking what we are going to do differently now.

Because I don't want to sit beside my murals in another generation and wonder what was lost because we knew better and still chose more.

Today, I am thinking about the elders.

The families on the beaches.

The mothers gathering shellfish.

The boys leaving in canoes.

The fires burning beside the tide.

The people who knew that the ocean wasn't just something to exploit.

It was home.

And I am thinking about my ancestors.

And I am thinking about what we have lost.

🧡💔🌊

Truth has to come before reconciliation.
And reconciliation has to mean changing how we live.