by Helene Demers, Department of Anthropology, Vancouver Island University 

I acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory I am grateful to reside, and whose historical relationships with the land and the water continue to this day. I also acknowledge and respect the unceded territory of the Quw’utsun Tribes who have lovingly stewarded their land and water since time immemorial.

Almost every day as I drive or sit by the Salish Sea in the unceded territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples (Songhees and Xwsepsum Nations) I am reminded of what I learned by engaging in a contemplative exercise with my students several years ago. In my mind’s eye I peel back the layers of asphalt, the picnic tables, the grassy centre, the public toilets, the sewage pump station, and the sculpture of dolphins on Clover Point, adjacent to Ross Bay (no Lək̓ʷəŋən name found for these two places). The bay was named for Isabella Ross, a Metis woman married to Charles Ross, a Hudson’s Bay Company Trader. Clover Point was named by James Douglas, the Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay, for the wealth of red clover that covered it when he landed there in 1842. The next layer down I see small houses built by fishermen on the rocks until a storm swept them away in 1932. The first sewer line was piped out of Clover Point in 1892 and a rifle range was used by a local gun club and by soldiers for target practice during World War 1. Long before this, the Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples and their ancestors stewarded this land; utilizing the point as a place to gather food and a strategic defensive site and, according to oral history, used the nearby sheltered tidal stream to travel between Ross Bay and Victoria Harbour when the tides were high. Originally, the point was covered not only in red clover, but also tall grasses and ferns. The rhizomes of clover and ferns provided a valuable food source for the Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples. This is the final and most vivid image I see as I look over Clover Point.

The above is only a sketch of the ancient history of Clover Point–a kaleidoscope of narratives and images that reveal themselves as I drive, walk or sit nearby. The top layers are powerful and destructive symbols of colonization but they are only thin in comparison to the ancient layered connections of the Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples and their ancestors to land and water.

For several years, I taught a course titled The Social and Political Life of Water in the departments of Anthropology, Vancouver Island University (VIU) and Social Justice Studies, University of Victoria (UVic). Water, beyond its purely physical form, has multiple identities and meanings wherever it flows and is tied to many deeply held cultural values. This course title was borrowed from The Social Life of Water (2013), edited by my colleague, John Wagner. Each course was opened by an Elder-in-Residence (Elder May Sam at UVic and Elder Marlene Rice at VIU) whose words encouraged our direction and intent “in a good way.” One of two classes each week consisted of independent field assignments critically examining our relationships with water; these focused on researching a local water source and the indigenous and settler histories of human interaction surrounding it. As well, we fit in as many fieldtrips as possible, including visits to water restoration projects, watersheds, and community art installations, as well as walks with knowledge keepers. The generous support from both institutions made such rich site visits possible, and when funding was lacking I traded in-kind with guest speakers and facilitators. One memorable class in the Cowichan Valley, for example, was spent “singing with water” under the direction of Cari Burdett, a local community choir conductor. Post secondary classrooms are not commonly places of song, but drumming and singing is a frequent occurrence on the Cowichan Campus and it was a pleasure to hear water songs echoing through the building. 

In response to Veronica Strang’s writing on “thinking water” in her book, Water, Nature, Culture (2015: 51) and my interest in place and identity as well as contemplative practice, my students and I “sat with” a body of water of our choosing three times (approximately 3-4 weeks apart) throughout the semester. We carefully documented our observations as well as researched the known names (Indigenous, settler, renamed, reclaimed) of these bodies of water and their histories of indigenous and settler activities (ritual, fishing, gathering, recreation, industry). At the end of the semester, each student presented an image (photographic, cartographic, drawn, collaged, textile (see photograph)) of the body of water they observed and shared a summary of their findings in a flexible format (poetry, film, narrative, song, group exercise) with the community. 

In the rural setting of the small VIU Regional Cowichan Campus all had easy access to water–rivers, creeks, marshes, lakes, and the ocean were all within easy reach. Some of these bodies of water, along with the surrounding mountains that are part of local oral history and origin stories, could be seen from our second-floor classroom, thus framing our quest to “think water.” Except for one who commuted from a Gulf Island, students lived in the Cowichan Valley and were familiar with the geography of the region. Ages ranged from twenty to seventy. Several students had deeply anchored indigenous roots to the land and water in the Cowichan Valley. One student resided in a care facility and used a motorized wheelchair which prevented her from travelling too far. She chose to meditate on a water fountain at her care residence and researched the layers underlying the location of her residence and fountain. Her final submission was a collection of water poems that spanned her life.

At UVic, an urban and much larger campus, the students were mostly younger and all except one were from other areas in Canada or the USA. There was less of a shared sense of (local) place and less of a shared understanding of local history. We could not situate ourselves in a broader “place” from our dark classroom as bushes grew in front of the ground floor windows. Access to water bodies was not as easy as in the Cowichan Valley and they were not always reachable by public transportation or bike for students without cars. In this class we focused more on global water justice, community activism, the role of the arts in water activism, and water as a tool for peace rather than source of international conflict. Singer and performance artist Bisia Bellina led the class through an experiential water workshop which exemplified “thinking with water” globally through sound and movement. Site visits to locations such as the SṈIDȻEȽ (Place of Blue Grouse) Habitat Restoration Project, a small fjord and former W̱sáneć village site, led by Tiffany Joseph, and the headwaters of a local creek on the UVic Campus, along with our regularly scheduled “sitting with water” sessions served to enhance familiarity with local bodies of water. 

Every few weeks, we reported back on our contemplative water locations, the changes in seasons, vegetation, animal and human interaction, and our relationships with those water bodies as well as the progress of our archival and oral research. Our understandings of the depth (or the lack of record) of indigenous and colonial history increased as we moved through the course, as did our commitment to sitting with water and appreciation of its therapeutic value. One of the students limited by transportation sat in the Victoria inner harbor at Palah’stsis Point (Place of the Cradle), a large rocky point where Lək̓ʷəŋən rites of passage were held for toddlers in the past. We had recently discussed the personhood and rights of water causing the student to reflect on whether or not she needed to seek permission from the water to observe it. In her end-of-course summary she handed each of us a pebble and asked us to return it to Palah’stsis Point to pay our respects. This student’s journey feels exemplary of how our understandings of water changed throughout the course and through our contemplative practices.

We closed each course by sharing a meal and a collective mapping of the confluences of our findings as well as reflecting on the different directions that our experience of “sitting with water” might flow in the future. On the Cowichan Campus, a ceremonial steering paddle given to our campus by then-chancellor Sean A-in-chut Atleo to signify teamwork and pulling together, was brought in as a witness. While the conclusion of the UVic course did not involve such a widely recognized symbolic object, to me, the pebbles we were charged with introduced a more emergent form of meaning making and collective ritual. My hope for both classes was to connect us more deeply to place and potentially change our relationships with and care for water. For the students at VIU, the connection to place and the commitment to care for water was more immediate (e.g., they organized regular beach clean-ups on one of the student’s home reserves) whereas the UVic students’ experiences of sitting with water flowed further outward as they returned home or studied elsewhere. 

Participating in “sitting with water” was vital to my understanding of the role of contemplative pedagogy in deepening our connection to place. As we increasingly recognize rivers as living beings and legal entities, indivisible from source to sea, fostering connection and interconnectedness is crucial in all levels of education. I am reminded of this each day I peel back the layers and retrieve the image of a clover-filled point of land jutting into the Salish Sea.