In the Ayajuthem (ʔayʔaǰuθəm) language of the Homalco, a northern Coast Salish First Nation, the colours blue and green are the same word: kʷusɛm. The traditional lands of the Homalco are around Bute Inlet, a magnificent fjord that wends eastward from Calm Channel into the Coast Mountains. Eighty kilometres long and averaging four kilometres in width, Bute Inlet, known for its fierce winds, is one of the deepest inlets on the British Columbia mainland’s west coast.
The single word kʷusɛm well describes the many-hued waters of Bute Inlet. In spring, the normally dark blue sea changes colour to a brilliant emerald green caused by freshwater from melting glaciers descending into the inlet.
Naming and Claiming
In her 2010 exhibit, “Naming and Claiming: the Creation of Bute Inlet,” Judith Williams pointed out that the Homalco have always had names for locations in their homeland. However, when European surveyors arrived in 1792, they complied with their superiors’ directives to map and name significant landmarks. Spanish captains Cayetano Valdés y Flores Bazán and Dionisio Alcalá Galiano referred to the inlet as Brazo de Quintano; Captain George Vancouver renamed it in honour of John Stuart, Third Earl of Bute.
At that time, the main Homalco village sites were at the head of Bute Inlet by the Homathko River, near the Southgate River, and at Orford Bay. Another village sketched by midshipman Thomas Heddington aboard Vancouver’s HMS Chatham placed the Homalco on Stuart Island. He titled his drawing “Village of the Friendly Indians” to reflect the warm welcome the surveyors received.
Devastation for the Homalco band
The Europeans were pleased to receive fish and other fresh food from the Homalco and offered iron, copper, beads, and mirrors in return. Trade continued when the Hudson’s Bay Company came looking for fur in the 1840s: a time of profound population loss for the Homalco due to smallpox and conflict. Life changed dramatically when missionaries descended on the Bute in the late 1860s. Regalia and masks that tied the Homalco to the natural and spiritual world were destroyed, and cornerstone beliefs of Homalco society were forbidden. Many children were forcibly made to attend residential schools far from home.
In 1873, the land was briefly targeted for radical change. Marcus Smith, engineer for the BC portion of the transnational Canadian Pacific Railway, considered the area along the Homathko River to Bute Inlet as a potential rail route with a bridge connecting to Vancouver Island. Once the massiveness of the undertaking was realized, however, plans were altered.
In 1879, reserve lands were being allotted to First Nations in BC. The first reserve commissioner, Gilbert Sproat, asked the Homalco and their neighbours where the reserve areas should be. The Homalco chose Bute Inlet and five reserves were set aside: two at the head of Bute Inlet, and one each near the Southgate River, Orford Bay, and Potato Point.
Population loss
By 1888, a population count revealed only 74 members remained in the Homalco band. Although Muushkin (Old Church House) on east Sonora Island was referred to as a fishing station at the time, the remaining Homalco built homes there. Around 1900, a particularly fierce Bute wind blew down all the buildings and pushed people to move again.
Challenging conditions kept all but the hardiest settlers from the region. In 1913, the three intrepid Leask brothers from Scotland settled for a few years in protected Fawn Bluff. In 1926, August Schnarr, a hand-logger and trapper, towed a house to Purcell Point.
Homalco’s next home of Aupe (Church House) was the main village site until the 1970s, when a change in fishing regulations resulted in fishermen losing their licences. At this tumultuous time, the Department of Indian Affairs was persuading residents of remote Indigenous settlements to relocate to larger communities. The 25 people from Church House were dispersed for ten years before a deal with TimberWest to exchange Homalco land at Bute Inlet for property in Campbell River reunited many Nation members.
Efforts were made to revive the Homalco property at Orford Bay in the early 2000s. Roads, a fish hatchery, an orientation centre, a cookhouse, and camp accommodation were constructed. By 2009, viewing towers allowed visitors to marvel at grizzly bears feeding on salmon along the Orford River in the late summer and fall.
Homalco Wildlife and Cultural Tours
Tourism is a means for the Homalco Nation to educate visitors. Along with bear viewing and whale watching, Homalco Wildlife and Cultural Tours offers a cultural land tour to Church House. Participants disembark onshore for guided hikes through the old village site to see the remaining buildings and learn about Homalco history. Key to the Nation’s cultural rebirth has been learning Ayajuthem, a language that was almost lost.
Today, visitors are introduced to some Ayajuthem vocabulary on the boat, including words that describe colour. Travellers into the Bute area leave in wonderment, needing all the words they can find to describe the many-layered, stunning scenery, and the intriguing story of this region.
