4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
All aboard magical canoe that carries voices of land and loss
Canadian First Nations elder Cecil Paul's canoe is, of course, a metaphorical one, evocatively described in his seminal Stories From The Magic Canoe Of Wa'xaid. Cecil cautions before we set out from Kitamaat in British Columbia: 'The currents against it are very strong, but I believe we can reach that destination, and this is the reason for our survival.'
Cecil's own survival – and his inspiring fortitude and forgiveness – verges on the miraculous. Born in the Kitlope, he was ripped from his parents and community in an attempt to 'Canadianise' him. Under a Canadian apartheid, he was imprisoned for sitting in a theatre seat not designated for 'Indians'. Battles with alcoholism and other demons descended, before Cecil found redemption in the battle he inspired to save the Kitlope – which he described as 'the largest unlogged temperate rainforest in the world' – from development. His canoe sent ripples around the world.
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My journey with Cecil begins by the Crab River. Here the MV Swell, our expedition boutique small cruise ship, crosses from traditional Haisla territory into the Xenaksiala lands where Cecil was born. Maple Leaf Adventures ( are deeply sensitive and respectful with First Nations culture, our onboard naturalist Ethan Browne performing a small ceremony as we enter.
Canadian Ethan explains, 'The special place we are going to is no doubt a beautiful part of British Columbia, but it really only comes alive in the cultural context of the First Nations, who have called this place home since time immemorial.'
I think I'm ready for the Kitlope, but no-one really is. I finish Cecil's book as we overnight at the mouth of the river. I wasn't ready for how triggering it is. His descriptions of being hit by teachers for speaking his native tongue echo with my schooling when I was slapped with a ruler for speaking Scots.
Also pinging my synapses is the familiarity of the vast, arresting beauty of the Kitlope. This elemental landscape of vaulting mountains, tree-shrouded emerald slopes and cobalt waters transcends Sir David Attenborough's purring in a BBC documentary. It also looks a lot like Scotland's Great Glen.
The similarities in the struggles of those who lived here before the British Empire descended are even more striking. Tales of people being torn from their homes and families devastated are all too familiar to a Scot. The arduous struggles to retain language, culture and a semblance of dignity painfully so.
I wake early to finish Cecil's book on deck as a bald eagle fights his own battles with a dozen haranguing gulls in a corner of Canada alive with flora and fauna. Then we are off, 11 passengers and six crew. Half of the crew have never been up this ultra-remote river. All aboard feel privileged to be here as we leave the cocoon of our luxurious ship to forge upriver through currents, logs and ghosts on a brace of small RIBs. And we all fear we might not make the lake as the river becomes shallower and shallower.
The journey is a testing one for the crew battling the shallows and currents, but spectacular too. The hills close in more and more as we feel smaller and smaller. Then we sight a local, the beloved animal the First Nations peoples see as a guardian of the forest. Bears occupy the foundation rung of the replica G'psgolox totem pole we see on the left bank of the river, supporting everything else. Cecil fought hard to have the original totem pole returned from Sweden.
It looks like we won't make the lake, though, as the water level plunges below two feet. Perilous for a propeller. But then, just as the rain eases, six hours after setting off from the mouth of the river, what Cecil called 'the theatre' unfurls in all its glory. Imagine Loch Ness with no villages, no houses and no hulking electricity pylons. Kitlope Lake proves as magical as the canoe that has brought us here.
We raft up together in the cobalt waters of this breathtaking natural amphitheatre. Ethan reads from the book about bathing your eyes and ears in the water so that you may see life afresh, becoming kinder to others on your unique life journey. We share the experience of cleansing in the cool water, then reflect in the Kitlope's deafening silence.
Cecil felt the Kitlope's raw natural power – 'Our people say that you will not leave that place unchanged … something touches you.'
It does. I head downstream with a greater respect and deeper knowledge of the First Nations people and of the beauty of this wild and wildly beautiful corner of British Columbia. I also hear the distant ghosts of the Scottish Highlands blowing in the Kitlope breeze. And I think of people who have been stripped of their lands – and dignity – the world over.
