The bus was to leave at 8:30, so we all hit the restaurant at 7, overloading the kitchen, as predicted. My fried eggs were cold and burnt. How do you do that?
We had a guide/cultural interpreter today – James Williams. He was a Haida fellow the same age as Mark. He was the second son and a nephew of a deceased chief. That is all very important in Haida lineage, explained to us in detail, but not explained here. He has spent the last few years as a Watchman – one of the people taking care of the old village sites. He took us around to his uncle’s mortuary pole.
There are basically three types of historic totem poles: the classic pole we all know which is erected in front of the family lodge and has family crests on it, a memorial pole which has a couple carvings on the bottom and the upper part is a straight pole raised in memory of someone important, and a mortuary pole which has a box on top with the deceased’s remains in it. Today, the box on top is only symbolic, and the remains are in a cemetery. He was an excellent lecturer, and there is a lot more to learn in all of this. If I ever need to recommend a guide his name will certainly come up. I hope I can remember all he said when I need it. Incidentally, if you have recently seen in the news or on YouTube a video of an eagle taking off with a guy’s video camera, this is the guy. First Haida to hit 500,000 views on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VVXIYJNOaQ
The bus continued north to a small lake for a potty stop. Further on we stopped at a craft shop of a famous artist family. Vic knows all the names if you need them. We arrived at Old Massett/Massett just at noon as the totem carvers we were to see working were heading off for lunch, so it was off to another craft shop of another famous artist. Down the road from there was a famous totem pole, carved by Robert Davidson. It was erected in 1969, the first pole erected in 100 years, as a result of the removal of the ban on potlatches.
Then we drove east along the north coast on a very rough road to a beach known for its agates. We had lunch and picked up some white stones, which I don’t think are agates. After lunch the bus continued on the rough road to a large hill which was an old volcano core. We all took the one km boardwalk hike through the forest to the top – about a thousand feet elevation.
The return walk involved a shoreline blow hole which was not operating at this tide level. Then back on the bus and return to Charlotte by 6.
We dashed off to the high end restaurant to beat the rest of the people from our bus, and another bus which had just arrived at the motel. Unfortunately we weren’t fast enough, and we had to sit at the bar. Vic had salmon and I had squid.
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