July 23, 2020—Ha-Shilth-Sa—Page 13 “They died off.”
y, the land and the ocean
A deserted place
lage northwest of Tofino reflects on the passing of generations in the remote se•lement
Photos by melissa Renwick
Without any children to care for or pass their teachings down to, “some of them died from broken hearts,” she said. Dave would return home from residential school during the summer and help his parents take care of the Hesquiaht elders. “When Dave was growing up he was [often] in a house full of grandmas and grandpas listening to all of their Indian stories,” said Dianne. “He could understand the language, so he knew what they were talking about.” Those formative experiences allowed Dave to develop a deep connection to his culture and to the land, which he shared with Dianne. Before long, Dave’s father, Hypolite George, was the only one still living on the peninsula year-round. In his older age, Hypolite traveled for months at a time, roving from daughterto-daughter, before getting homesick and returning to Hesquiat. He was away visiting one of his daughters when Dianne stepped foot onto Hesquiat for the first time in February 1975. “The place looked deserted,” she said. The generator wasn’t working, the water was off, the telephone couldn’t dial out and there was no firewood to heat the house. Dave got everything back up-and-running in no time, leaving Dianne “right impressed.” For dinner, he took her out to the end of the reserve where he shot a duck and then led her to the sandbar, where they dug up clams. “I went everywhere with him,” she said. “Didn’t matter what he was doing.” After ten days deserted on the peninsula together, Dave proposed. Interracial marriages were still widely unpopular in the 70s and the couple struggled to find a preacher that would condone their matrimony. Unfazed, they marched on and held a small ceremony on Chesterman Beach in the summer of 1975, where Dianne donned a white dress with rose tinted glasses. After a brief honeymoon in Meota, they began their life together in Hesquiat. “I’ve never lived anywhere else since,” said Dianne, who has spent two-thirds of her life on the peninsula. “I’m as much in love with the place as I am with Dave,” she said. “I still love that bugger.”
The rattle of the elderberries
n living in Hesquiaht for 45 years. “ It was his place,” she said.
Dave Ignace’s father’s original artwork hangs on the walls inside the family home.
with the flow of changing seasons for thousands of years. Some would travel to Homis during halibut season, where they’d teach their young to go fur seal hunting. Others would deliver fresh fish from their canoes to the women who had set up camp at Chik nuu, or Smokehouse Bay, where they would spend weeks processing and smoking fish. It was also a change of atmosphere for the Hesquiaht and gave Usk-tua time to heal. “When you [create] a human footprint, you need to let things come back to life,” said Dianne. The village of Hesquiat went through a massive transformation in the 1940s when most of the young men left. They relocated to Hot Springs Cove where they could safely anchor their troller fishing boats. Wicked winter storms often left men stranded in the Hesquiat Harbour for nights on end. Back on dry land, they would occasionally awake to find their boats shredded to tiny pieces because they were smashed to shore by angry
waves. At that time, most of the children were taken away to the Christie Indian Residential School on Meares Island – Dave was among them. He spent a lifetime working through the trauma inflicted by the school,
where his brother, Joseph, was beaten to death at the age of 10. Through all of this, the elders were left behind, along with Dave’s parents, who cared for them. “The elders never left,” said Dianne.
Korianne Ignace grinds up dried mint leaves for tea that were grown in the garden.
They raised four children together. The two youngest, Jeffery and Korianne, never left. “It’s always been home,” said Jeffery. “I’m proud to be Hesquiaht. I love it here. Just look at my view – not a lot of people have a view like that.” Dianne often contemplates what will become of Hesquiat Harbour when she’s gone. “Jeff is the last of the tribe,” she said. While the future of the original Hesquiat winter village remains unknown, Dianne, Jeffery and Korianne continue to care for it, just like their family always has. They clean the peninsula’s shorelines of debris that gets washed to the 13-foot-hightide line. In the fall, they open up their coho salmon bearing river, so the fry can travel through the murky water out to sea. Dianne has kept a daily journal since the ‘70s. She logs everything from phone calls with family members to when the lawn was mowed last. The 67-year-old has come to know the place so intimately that she can tell when a westerly wind is blowing by the rattle of the elderberries behind her house. When Dave passed, many people expected Dianne to leave the peninsula, but even in his death he binds her to the land. “I want to be buried right next to Dave,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”