23 minute read
OCEAN
Focus, Flow & Fish?
Maybe you need more freediving in your life?
Kar Morgan in Broughton Archipelago. JIMMY MARTINELLO
words :: Tim Emmett
Holding my nose between my thumb and index finger, I increase the pressure in my nasal cavity by pushing the back of my tongue upwards. My left ear pops as I equalize, then the right. I’m upside down and finning hard with straight legs, pushing headfirst into the liquid darkness below.
I equalize again, then again, and then once more. The only part of my body where skin is exposed to the water is around my mouth—I can feel the temperature dropping. The mask presses against my face, gripping onto me like a suction cup on the tentacle of a giant Pacific octopus. As the pressure increases, I equalize my mask by blowing in small amounts of air from my nostrils. The octopus relaxes, helping me to relieve any tension in my mind and body. It’s been a long time since my last breath of air.
The water temperature continues to drop as I suddenly start sinking. I’m past the point of neutral buoyancy and no longer need to move my fins to get propulsion. Motionless, I free fall into the depths as the disappearing light reminds me of dusk, then darkness. A small speck of light—a flashlight attached to the end of the line—offers my only point of reference in the surrounding space.
I equalize my ears and mask one more time. It’s like being on a vertical conveyer belt and the longer I stay on, the greater the pressure and the further I am from my next breath. At 30 metres, the volume of air in my lungs is one quarter of that on the surface. I keep sinking…now I am in a different world, I feel like I’m in space.
Unable to see the top or bottom, I am surrounded by the same thing in every direction. This is my happy place, a world I can only visit and appreciate for a matter of seconds before I must return to the surface.
When I started freediving in Indonesia more than a decade ago, the water was warm and clear. Unlike scuba diving, equalizing with your head down at the lowest point is preferred because it allows you to descend more quickly and efficiently. Back then, going past the point of neutral buoyancy was terrifying to me and accelerating away from the next breath set my alarm bells ringing. I’d always stop and turn around, swimming quickly to the surface to fill my lungs with oxygen and safety. These days, I enjoy the free fall and look forward to getting on that vertical conveyer belt. Now when I free dive, I close my eyes for the whole descent and only open them at the bottom of the line. This helps me to relax and focus on the subtle body control required to equalize efficiently. It’s more like Zen meditation than an adventure sport. I studied marine zoology at university and was fascinated by the Davids (Suzuki and Attenborough). My curiosity with the underwater world enticed me into scuba diving but, being an athlete, I wanted to play around more with the limits of human performance and soon immersed myself into the freediving world. I didn’t truly find my groove, however, until I heard about Sea to Sky Freediving and particularly Luca Malaguti. Luca is an effervescent and likeable character who runs freediving courses all summer in Howe Sound. He also happens to hold the Canadian freediving record of 84 metres on a single breath! “Freediving, much like high-altitude mountaineering, is about understanding your body and mind in the critical environment you find yourself in,” says
Luca, who started Sea to Sky Freediving in 2018. “The concepts of flow-state—staying mentally and emotionally in the moment—and 'letting go' are key lessons we learn in freediving. Letting go to the ocean, letting yourself flow deep down on one breath, trusting yourself, your adaptations, your very biological evolution. There’s no better way to connect with your breath, with your breathing, than to hold your breath. And there is no greater place to hold your breath, test your mind, your will, your presence and awareness, than underwater.” Howe Sound has several marine parks ideal for finding that flow and exploring the underwater realm. One breath, one fish. Chris Adair from Bottom Dwellers Freediving, Nimmo Bay Lodge. JEREMY KORESKI Porteau Cove, perhaps the most popular, hosts three artificial reefs sitting in less than 50 feet of water. But the Southern BC coastline is home to eight artificial wrecks created specifically for divers. Two of the most notable are a Boeing 737 near Chemainus on Vancouver Island. Originally part of the Canadian Airlines fleet, the aircraft was decommissioned by Air Canada due to age and structural problems. No longer airworthy, the plane was stripped of all usable components and the airframe donated to the Artificial Reef Society of BC. Closer to home in Halkett Bay off Gambier Island is the HMCS Annapolis—a giant 113 metre warship that served in the Second World War. Sitting in 100 feet of water, the wreck makes for an exciting free dive. Getting down there to explore the boat on a single breath is a good challenge, but diving in these waters also reveals a plethora of marine species. Star fish, sea cucumbers, crabs, plumose anemones, ling cod, and rockfish are the most common, as well as marine mammals like seals, sea lions, dolphins, and even orcas.
As my hand touches the weight at the bottom of the line, I reach my maximum depth, the deepest I’ve ever gone with one breath. Now it’s 35 metres (or 11 storeys) back to the surface, back to the air.
I pull on the rope and kick hard with my fins. The negative buoyancy puts up a good fight (the deeper you are, the more effort is required to ascend). I count my kicks to stay focused and relaxed.
Watching the line in front of my face, I push away thoughts of how deep I am, how far I have to go—panicking here would be a big mistake. I shut my eyes, focus on each kick, and count. It feels like forever, but soon the water warms on my face and I know I’m getting close… Then I break through, exhale hard and suck in a huge, deep breath, then three more. I feel reborn, the mind purged by the depth and the darkness and the singularity of intense focus on the right now, and the right here.
“I’m okay.” I say this to Luca who has been buddying me on the dive, but it feels a bit like I’m trying to convince myself too.
Next time, I think I can go deeper.
The concepts of flow-state—staying mentally and emotionally in the moment—and "letting go" are key lessons we learn in freediving.
Russell Wallace
Listening to: Unceded Tongues
Russell reaching for the high notes with Tia Taurere Clearsky.
With his album Unceded Tongues, an award-winning Lil’wat Nation composer blends his ancestral language with modern genres.
words:: Nikkey Dawn
I catch Russell Wallace on a Friday afternoon as he’s starting to think about dinner. I’ve called him on his landline (his only phone). It feels nostalgic in the era of Zoom and constant digital connection—I imagine us with tin cans up to our ears, a string of yarn connecting us across the Salish Sea from Sooke to Vancouver. Wallace, a composer from the Lil’wat Nation, released his latest album Unceded Tongues last January in the thick of the pandemic. It’s the first jazz, blues, and what Wallace calls “Indigi-pop,” album in the language St’át’imcets.
That should be a feat worthy of celebration, however a string of devastating losses after its release forced Wallace, 57, to take time off from promoting the album in order to grieve and be with family. His album took off on its own, partly due to his reputation as an award-winning composter with 30 years in the business. After a year of airplay across Canada, Wallace finds himself ready to return to Unceded Tongues. Mountain Life: Can you tell me about the title of the album?
Russel Wallace: Unceded means giving up something not on purpose, it is taken away, so I thought, “Well, land is unceded, land can be taken away, and you know, I think of my mom and dad who went to residential school—our language was taken away there, we never intentionally wanted to give up our language or our lands but they were both taken away. So Unceded Tongues refers to the language that was taken away from us.
But you know, there’s such a strong connection between land and language. If you’re going to talk about unceded lands, you’re going to have to talk about unceded language as well. My mom always talked about the music, that music comes from the land. So, the land is going to remember, you’ll hear the echoes coming back.
ML: Did you grow up singing, knowing you wanted to be a musician?
Wallace: I loved music as a kid. My mom tells me that I would sing with her, I guess I was like four or five and just singing with her in the community. And, you know, the first two albums I bought were Steely Dan, Aja, and the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. I think I was 12
and those both really had a big influence on me. Growing up in the ‘80s, New Wave, for me, was such a cool thing. You know, the B-52s and OMD and The Cure and Joy Division, that was another part of me as well. Also, Sheila Chandra and Fateh Ali Khan and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Brian Eno played a big part in my listening and recording life. It’s really dating me, but those were the big influences as a teenager and young adult
My dream job was working at a radio station. I wanted to be a DJ, and I ended up working in radio at age 16, it was co-op radio. This was in the early ‘80s so there wasn’t a lot of access to Indigenous music. We didn’t have computers to look up artists. And that made me realize well, there’s a real gap or a lack of Indigenous content.
ML: Does the St’át’imcets language lend itself to the genres you were working in?
Wallace: No! Actually, it was quite a resistance. There are a lot of consonants in Salish languages that are not in English. So that’s the other thing, making sure I’m pronouncing everything correctly. My cousin helped me with that because I’m not fluent. I’d take random phrases and string them together, My Lil’wat Love is like that. Everyday language became a love song when I strung it together.
My cousin Rosalin passed away this past year. I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish with her help. It’s a testament to her knowledge and her conveying that knowledge. We have to take what we learn and pass on whatever we can. ML: You mentioned knowing that the majority of people who listen to this record won’t be St’át’imcets speakers.
Wallace: Yeah. When I thought about it like, there’s only a small group of people who will understand what I’m singing. But you know I think of the song Tequila—an old song from the ‘60s— and it just has one word in it, not even an English word, and it’s still a big hit. So, you know, why not? If Tequila can do it why can’t Climb the Mountain?
ML: I wanted to ask you about Climb the Mountain because this magazine is Mountain Life. Can you tell me a bit about the lyrics?
ML: Is there a song on the album that stands out to you the most?
Wallace: I guess Moon of Open Hands was the easiest, it came to me. The other ones I had to work with. It was so weird, I was teaching singing, and singing with the group, and this other song popped into my head. Which is a testament to singing these songs over and over for years, your body kind of takes over and your mind can go elsewhere.
That song came to me on the equinox, a couple of years back, that’s why I call it Moon of Open Hands—which refers to the Salish moon of March/April when the blossoms are coming out.
Tony Wilson who’s the guitar player did the arrangements for a number of these songs, he took that one and yeah, it’s very jazzy. I have amazing players on a lot of these songs and I’m so fortunate that I can call upon them.
Another song, Please Come Back to Me, actually my mom sang it a lot and she talked about it… I just took the words from that song and put new music to it. And the words, basically, the translation is, “You know, my heart really aches for you. Please come back to me.”
My Great Aunt Edith, my mom’s aunt, wrote that song. And, I realized last year it was about 1918 and the pandemic that was going on—there was a lot of death in our community back then. Also, the soldiers coming back from war and it affected my family and affected my aunt. She was really young at the time and she lost a lot of cousins and relatives. I think she also lost her love interest and so that’s where the words come from. I realized that and I was like, wow, like I’m releasing it during this pandemic and losing a lot of family as well and like so it’s kind of, you know, coming around again.
Wallace: Yeah, it’s kind of saying, “Hey it’s time to get up!” Like, “Rise up and let’s go out,” and “Let’s go climb that mountain. Take my hand, I’m coming with you we’ll climb it together.” It’s kind of everyday language but it can fit into so many meanings. Climbing a mountain—it’s important to reach out to other people and let them know they’re not alone. We don’t have to be alone.
Watch for Russell throughout the summer performing with the Spiritual Warriors in Whistler, Lillooet, and Kamloops. He’ll also perform in concert at the Annex in Vancouver on May 21 with his family group Tzo’kam and Sawagi Taiko. Wallace’s composition, Journey, will also be featured at the 66th International Festival of Contemporary Music at the Venice Biennale until November. russellwallace.bandcamp.com
Reawakened, the 40-foot Xaays canoe is reunited with the waters of Howe Sound. MASON MASHON
The Great Canoe
Much more than a mode of transportation, cedar canoes provide an integral and tangible link to culture, history,community, and homelands for local Indigenous Nations.
words :: Feet Banks
“Canoes helped build this country.”
As young Canadian children, this was drilled into us in school. The idea of French Voyageurs paddling up and down the rivers and lakes of the vast new land, exploring and “discovering” Canada from east to west. I recall there were at least a few pages of history books dedicated to the fact that the canoes themselves were either built by or based on First Nations craftsmen—birch bark stretched over a frame usually—but, looking back, it’s both sad and shocking to realize how much we weren’t taught, and how many thousands of years of canoe history had been glossed over in our textbooks.
Thankfully, here on the Pacific Coast at least, a traditional canoe-culture revolution has been brewing for almost 40 years, with numerous Tribal Canoe Journeys connecting nations that had long been isolated from each other and introducing young people to ancient practices and traditions.
And those traditions are on full display down on the waterfront launch of the Skwxwú7mesh Nation. The Xaays canoe, a 40-foot ocean-going cedar canoe carved by Master Carver Chief Ses Siyam Ray Natraoro is about to feel the waters of Howe Sound for the first time since 2014. Since Xaays spends most of its time featured in the great hall of Whistler’s Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre (SLCC), it is important to re-awaken the canoe before putting it back in the water.
“A canoe is a living thing, with a spirit,” explains a Skwxwú7mesh Elder overseeing the ceremony. “It remembers the life as a tree before it was transformed by the carvers. It remembers the animals and birds that lived in its boughs, that passed by or rested in its shade.”
Amidst drummers and singing, and under the watchful eyes of Elders and official witnesses (and a few guests like myself), a team of traditionally blanketed women cleanse the canoe with cedar boughs while the paddlers drum and sing. Everyone seems grateful that things are being done the old way. “If you take care of the canoe,” Natraoro says. “The canoe will take care of you.”
To begin to understand the significance of the canoe to the local Skwxwú7mesh and Lil’wat nations, a good place to start is where the canoe comes from—an ancient cedar tree that’s between 400-800 years old.
“The cedar is the tree of life,” explains Mixalhítṡa7 Alison Pascal, a weaver and curator at the SLCC. “And all the properties of the tree and how we transform it into baskets, houses, canoes and artwork— that is all tied together. In each stage, we show appreciation to the tree for what it offers us and how useful it is in our lives.”
While the cedar still plays many of these key roles in the lives of Indigenous peoples, one of the major tragedies of colonialization and contact with settler culture is how few of these ancient giants remain after centuries of logging—and of those that do, how many are close enough to a village or waterway that they could be harvested, carved, and transported in the traditional ways?
With every challenge comes an opportunity to adapt, and when the SLCC and Natraoro began looking for logs to start a new cedar canoe project this spring, they were directed to a local resource: the longhouse structure in Whistler’s Rebagliati Park.
“That longhouse frame was there to give visitors a sense of what a traditional house would look like,” says Pascal, “but it had been there for a long time and some of the cedar had started to go back to the earth. The Municipality of Whistler called the Squamish Nation in to see if any of the cedar could be salvaged. Ray went to look at the pieces. He has worked with cedar for a long time, that is his specialty. He sensed that there were some logs there that could be canoes.”
And one of them will be by the end of this summer. The Community Reconciliation Canoe project was conceived as an invitation to build bridges between guests to the Sea to Sky, the locals living here, and the Nations who have stewarded the area since time immemorial. With cedar salvaged from the Rebagliati Park structure, Natraoro will mentor SLCC Cultural Ambassadors Brandon Hall of Squamish Nation and Q̓áwam Redmond Andrews, whose father is the late master carver Lhalqw Bruce Edmonds of Lil’wat Nation, in the art of canoe carving. Visitors to the centre, including a number of school groups, will have the opportunity to watch the carving firsthand, ask questions, and even contribute to transforming the ancient cedar into an ocean-going canoe carved in the traditional Skwxwú7mesh style.
“Ray has been very generous to take on our ambassadors as apprentices and spark this knowledge in them,” says Pascal. “There is no institution to attend and learn how to carve a canoe, so it’s very important to share this knowledge with young people. I think Nations around the world saw that with the COVID pandemic, if we had lost someone that was the sole person left with special skill or knowledge, it might take generations to get that back.”
“A canoe is a living thing, with a spirit, it remembers the life as a tree before it was transformed by the carvers. It remembers the animals and birds that lived in its boughs, that passed by or rested in its shade.” – Skwxwú7mesh Elder
TO CARVE A PADDLE
The most important thing to know about a paddle is to never put it down with the blade touching the ground. The other thing is to learn how to carve your own, because a paddle you put your own time, effort, and love into will always treat you better than one purchased at Canadian Tire.
To make that easier, Squamish artist/woodworker Lenny Rubenovitch started the Portage Paddle Workshop with Skwxwú7mesh carver Art Harry. Working with experts from the Squamish Men’s Shed craftsmen, and funded by the Squamish Arts Council with wood donated by Van Urban Timber and AJ Forest Products, the workshop’s goal is to guide participants as they transform a block of red cedar into a functional paddle, or an art paddle, or whatever kind of paddle they want.
And any paddle you make yourself will be worth the price of admission (which is donated to local Skwxwú7mesh youth programs). Time spent focused on and learning about anything new and hands-on is the best, particularly for people trapped at a desk typing all day. After three weeks, you come out with new friends, a deeper respect and understanding of the techniques and history of working with cedar, and a kickass paddle. – Feet Banks
Find @portagepaddleworkshop on Facebook to learn when the next workshop will take place.
ABOVE Blessing the pole with cedar bows is an important step before carving begins. RYAN REGGIE ROBINSON BELOW Skwxwú7mesh Nation carving apprentice Brandon Hall digs into the Community Reconciliation Canoe. SQUAMISH LIL'WAT CULTURAL CENTRE Back on the waters of Howe Sound, the protocol has ended and the Xaays canoe is awake and cruising through waters it hasn’t touched in eight years. At the back, Natraoro leads the paddlers in song as they rhythmically pull the ancient being forward. As a guest, I am forbidden from paddling, but have been given a seat up front with the wind in my face and unbroken views of the shoreline and towering walls of Siy’ám’ Smánit.
Beneath me, the canoe feels smooth and powerful—a piece of living art doing exactly what it was built for.
These great cedar canoes are much more than just a means of transport or hunting. They are a link to an ancient history, to living beings that predate settler contact on this continent by centuries. They are vessels of knowledge and craftsmanship stretching back for generations, but also symbols of hope for a future, for the healing and rebirth of a culture that came very close to being stolen away. And mostly, these canoes are a metaphor for community—they perform best when everyone works together.
After a few brief laps in the only window of sun Squamish had seen in weeks, the Xaays canoe was reloaded onto its trailer to return to the SLCC, where another ancient cedar—one that had already been transformed into a long house—was set to be given yet another life carrying, teaching, and building a stronger community.
Community Reconciliation Canoe carving will feature in guided tours at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre each Wednesday through Sunday until September 4, 2022. slcc.ca
DOUBLE TROUBLE
Eight-year-old twin rippers Lars & Axel Zeilberger ride it all
LEFT Axel (left) and Lars, ready to shred. TOP Axel, double overhead rock drop. MICHAEL SOUSA. BOTTOM Lars (age six) boosts the bike park while his brother looks on. RONIA NASH
words :: Todd Lawson
These days, most four-year-old kids are watching Paw Patrol and learning how to roll on a runbike. When Whistler twins Lars and Axel Zeilberger were four, they were studying videos of top-tier Red Bull athletes Fabio Wibmer and Brandon Semenuk while eating their breakfast cereal. Then, they’d put in an eight-hour shift on the dirt jumps and ride wooden bridges and technical features—day after day after day. Riding a bike became as much a part of their daily routine as brushing their teeth and taking a bath.
Soon after discovering the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, the boys’ riding flourished, especially under the guidance of DFX bike camp coaches Bernat Pou and Diego Herrera. Lars and Axel’s parents, longtime Sea to Sky locals Dr. Teresa Wood and dad Alfie Zeilberger, have watched their babies progress from flat-out toddler run-biking maniacs into parental-nerve-wracking eight-year-olds who drop rock slabs and shred gnarly alpine lines before ending their days cranking out umpteen laps at the pump track.
“I attribute their progression to their non-stop passion and drive to ride all day long,” says Teresa, who started riding when her sons learned to walk. The kids have long surpassed her abilities. “Uphill, downhill, XC, dirt jumps, pump track, bmx track, skate park—they love doing it all.”
Each twin brings his own style and flair to the shared passion. Lars likes jumps and whips and anything that gives him airtime. Axel is more into being the “guinea pig” on technical features like rock rolls and step lines. “Lars likes flips,” says Axel. “I like picking a sketchy line and riding it.” And of course, the two share a love of speed. Going downhill has become a part of their being and the boys list marquis events like Crankworx Joyride and Red Bull Rampage as future goals…as well as “Doing double backflips and Supermans on the Crabapple hits,” says Axel, and “Going down Goat’s Gully, dropping every rock roll that is droppable,” says Lars.
“If they stick with it and if they feel the same way about mountain biking in a few years as they do now, they’re gonna get there,” says coach and filmmaker Michael Sousa, who spent most
Rockin' and Rollin.' Axel takes the lead. MICHAEL SOUSA of summer 2021 filming the boys for RASCAL2, a short-film that features the boys charging through forest trails and catching airtime with calculated abandon. “Their drive is outta this world,” he adds. “They recognize, even at their young age, that they have quite a talent and they’re breaking the standard of what we understand young Whistler local athletes to be. Kids their size and age aren’t really supposed to be doing what they’re doing—it’s incredible to watch.”
Sitting at their kitchen table in Whistler, I ask the twins, “If you guys could pick one person to ride with every day, who would it be?”
Without hesitation, Axel says, “Lars. Because he’s the only one who wants to do everything that I do. And he’s also a really good friend, I know him better than anybody.” Lars chimes in quickly with his own answer. “I’d ride every day with Axel because he’s just fun to ride with. I just wanna ride, ride, ride.”
“Lars likes flips, I like picking a sketchy line and riding it.” – Axel Zeilberger
Check ‘em out on YouTube—RASCAL2
