A transformational family
THE HARRY FAMILY HAS ROOTS AND WINGS IN SQUAMISH By STACY THOMAS
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HEN Alice Guss, Tsawaysia Spukwus, describes her mother, Gwen Harry, she turns to a Squamish legend to get her point across.
Raven, Seagull and the Daylight Box is the story of how Raven used wily means to get his brother Seagull to open the daylight box so the world could see. “My mom is like the raven, she’s like the trickster. She wasn’t really tricking people; when Raven did that it wasn’t just so he could benefit, it’s so the whole community could benefit. That’s 32 | Discover Squamish Summer 2019
what my mom is like. She helps the whole community. She’ll fight tooth and nail until we get what we need.” Gwen went through the residential school system, as did her husband Ernie, then acquired her high school diploma later in life while also raising a family and being an active volunteer in the community.
Guss says that her parents instilled valuable lessons in her and her siblings, which they carry now and which she is passing to her own children — two boys and a daughter. “If our community needed help with education, with funds, my mom would go out and do it. She’s the advocate for our community up here,” said Guss.
