The Magic Canoe

Wa’xaid was also known as Cecil Paul. He was Xenaksiala from Xesdu’wäxw, what they call the Kitlope on the British Columbia coast, and he lived to be 90 years old. It was transformative to be with Wa’xaid; he was an indigenous elder, activist, spiritual teacher, and the kind of person you always wished would stay for one more cup of coffee. As a young naturalist, I was honoured to travel with him to his birthplace in the largest unlogged temperate rainforest in the world. He said that it was not possible to leave the Kitlope the way you went in, and of course he was right.

Wa’xaid often talked about his Magic Canoe, which is one of many reasons I want you to know about him. This canoe has been both physical and symbolic.

As Wa’xaid said, “It is a magical canoe because there is room for everyone who wants to come into it to paddle together. The currents against it are strong, but I believe we can reach that destination, and this is the reason for our survival.”

The Magic Canoe carried Wa’xaid and the many people he invited on board to an environmental victory that now protects the Kitlope watershed from logging. And that is only one strand of the canoe’s braided journey. Wa’xaid was also central to the repatriation of the G’psgolox pole which was removed from Misk’usa in 1929 without permission and shipped to Sweden. It took decades to find and even longer to bring home again.

I spent a lot of this year in a process I can only describe as re-wiring. I stayed home and realized that the last time I stayed in one place for this long, I was eight years old. I read, a lot, which is what I do in times of stress. Between re-reads of my favourite childhood novels, I read about white supremacy, racism and colonization. I also re-read my own work, but I didn’t know what to do with it. And then I read a book by Wa’xaid, the first of two he wrote in collaboration with author Briony Penn. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

I had forgotten about the Magic Canoe. I had been there, with Wa’xaid, but still I had almost forgotten one of his central teachings—that there is room for everyone.

Once I heard it from him, again—an invitation that began in his homeland and has spread around the world—I began to hear echoes of it everywhere, from residential school survivors, to local activists fighting for justice for Abdirahman Abdi, to the public health messages about Covid-19. The work right in front of us is everyone’s work.

And with that, after several months, I got back to work myself.