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Strong Bonds in Telegraph Creek
A photographer soaks up some Tahltan hospitality.
Lyle and good friend Ray Henyu.
Gallery: At Home with the Tahltan »
The path to true understanding isn't always what it seems. For photojournalist Claire Martin, it was a rough road between two remote towns in northern British Columbia: Iskut and Telegraph Creek.
Martin traveled to Iskut early this fall intending to document what she thought would be a hot story.
A court injunction was potentially about to force a band of Tahltan protesters off a nearby road blockade they'd been manning all summer, set up to prevent oil company Royal Dutch Shell from rebuilding a road into Klappen Valley.
The area is a sacred place for the Tahltan, from whence the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers begin, and is also a possible source of coalbed methane gas.
An injunction never came down, and Martin says the blockaders were somewhat blasé about talking to another journalist from the south anyway.
But rather than turn around and go home, she made a tedious four-hour drive further north to Telegraph Creek. There she was able to spend some time with the Tahltan, and better understand this First Nation's struggle to protect the resources that have sustained them for so long while planning pragmatically for their children's future.
500 souls
"I learned that they're incredibly proud and amazingly hospitable," said Martin of the Tahltan people in Telegraph Creek, which has a population of about 500 (about half the size of Iskut).
Hunting and fishing are a big part of Tahltan life, and with winter approaching many residents were busy canning and drying their own salmon, says Martin. She found that nearly everyone is an artisan of some sort, and music is a part of everyday life.
"I was surprised at how in touch with their traditions they were," remarked Martin. "I honestly didn't expect them to be so connected to their land and their traditions."
She was welcomed into peoples' homes, which allowed for an intimate glimpse of a community closeness that she called "much stronger than I've ever seen in my own city."
It is the elders in the community who have been most vocal about having too much development too soon. They understand the importance of jobs and opportunity for young people, said Martin, but don't see the need for multiple projects at once.
A new purpose
"I spoke to some elders who were incredible," said Martin. "A lot of them spoke openly to me about having been alcoholics and having overcome that. Now they have a new purpose in life and that's to regain touch with their traditions and to pass that on to the young."
"The elders, they're fighting for their traditions and for their land and for their people."
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Lengthy battle over Sacred Headwaters continues this week. - Royal Dutch Shell Inherits Explosive BC Conflict
Don't light a match. - Tahltan Arrests Mark a Rocky Start to 'New Relationship'
BC government still pressing development without First Nations approval.
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30
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jayward
4 years ago
Photo essay
I really like this photo essay. Claire has given us a remarkable insight into life
in this remote portion of the province
not often visited in such an intimate way.
JWL
G West
4 years ago
Lovely
Honest human beings - living ordinary and uncommodified lives.
Thank you.
rangergord
4 years ago
Telegraph Creek
I took the opportunity to visit Telegraph Creek in the early eighties. The rough road is something that is unbeleivable until you actually see it. Lucky for me I was riding a small motorcycle. Telegraph creek is a stunningly beautiful village on a hillside on the Stikine River. The people are indeed very friendly, but lets not get overly romantic about it. Telegraph Creek is a geographically isolated community but it is far from an idylic paradise. The community is every bit as dependent on the outside world and maybe even more so despite its residents skills of self-reliance in providing some of their food and shelter needs. Gas was almost $4 a gallon over 20 years ago. Despite hunting and gardening, most food is shipped in from outside at very high cost, most buildings are constructed from imported materials, and its residents have most other modern conveniences as well. This includes sattelite TV, internet, telephones and electricity and running water. Thus the community needs cash and lots of it. Other than the traditional government sources of revenue that become scarcer by the year, there is little other economic activity other than resource extraction. The Tahltan elected a modern minded band council that made sweetheart deals with a number of industrial resource extraction corporations in order to boost community employment. The results were predictable, more jobs, cash, pickups, electronics, atv's and skidoos and household renovations along with booze, drugs and loss of a homelife in return for wage slavery. The elders are attempting to slow the downward spiral but the facts are that most of their people are younger and have no real interest in a "traditional lifestyle" nor can they afford one as they are just as dependent on the modern world as anyone else.
Lefty
4 years ago
Cool
Sure do hope you didn't embarrass us by not leaving your home address so they can return the gesture.
Right to Bear
4 years ago
beautiful...
That was a very special read... There sure is a lot to learn from these beautiful people.
Thanks Colleen.
Peace,
Bear
ME2
4 years ago
Thank you, Rangergord
your respectful, realistic and balancing comments were needed to erase the paternalistic, cloying condescension exhibited by the writer of this piece of fluff and also by some of the commentators.
Right to Bear
4 years ago
Me2...
You do have a hardened attitude when it comes to FN's and their issues, don't you Me2??
Why is it so hard for some people to get their minds around the fact that the white-man blew it...on many levels, and it is time to go back to traditional management of lands.
Hey, some FN's groups or individuals do sell out, but the clear majority of them do not. Clearly, "whitey's" can't say the same... And keep in mind Me2, they don't sell out because of GREED, but because of DESPERATION. There is a big difference. For now I will leave WHY they are desperate alone.
Have you EVER heard a white-man say: "Gee more\any industry is too hard on the land, and why do we need more of what we need, when we already got all we need??" Have you Me2??
Peace,
Bear
realisticman
4 years ago
Don't need it
Thanks Bear, glad to know that there are no needs. I mean, who needs 8 trillion feet of methane gas anyway? Hunting and fishing's enough.
G West
4 years ago
The French and the Indians had the right idea
Live within your means, at one with nature; struggle - not to acquire - but to leave behind something unspoiled and of lasting natural value for your children.
Piling up mountains of useless stuff is the way to unhappiness and a dead world.
It's surprising to me that most people I query about what means most to them respond with a description of a place in nature: a pond, a brook, a vista of the ocean through the trees, a walk among the cedars at twilight, the sound of surf crashing against the rocks.
Almost no one every mentions cars or trucks, bits of elevated steel, glass and plastic, sacks of money or vast fields of methane.
Right to Bear
4 years ago
RM...
...exactly RM.
The present industrial practises of whiteman demonstrate that they never seem to be satisfied, they always want more. In contrast the FN's are saying that they are happy with just enough, and no more...
When I think of "white-mans" industy, I think of Easter Island...
Cheers,
Bear
Right to Bear
4 years ago
True...
So true G. I have noticed exactly the same... G said:
So true G. I have noticed exactly the same... Beautifully stated.
Peace,
Bear
realisticman
4 years ago
Narrowing it down - poetically
Thank goodness that a satisfied belly and a roof covering a warmed abode has dropped off the must-have list. Obviously these are now taken for granted. We are fortunate.
G West
4 years ago
Too bad that's not true r/man
http://www.salvationarmy.ca/2006/11/
http://intraspec.ca/povertyCanada.php#NCW06
(please note Canada is no 19 on the list)
Some of us are fortunate - sadly many of the fortunate are also criminally self-satisfied
realisticman
4 years ago
Tings are good mon
What you smokin?
Canada's income advance tops u.s.
Nov 23, 2007 04:30 AM
OTTAWA–Income per capita grew significantly faster in Canada than it did in the United States between 2000 and 2006.
Statistics Canada reported that real income per capita in the United States rose 9.1 per cent, while in Canada real income per capita grew 15.5 per cent, nearly two-thirds faster.
G West
4 years ago
That's the problem with GDP as a measure
All the economic growth is jingling in the pockets of the wealthy, as you well know and working people are getting shafted - as always ...I see mortgage companies are now offering 100% financing on home purchases.
Won't be long now that we'll find ourselves in the same mess as the Yanks R/man.
Time from listing to sale is already starting to attenuate.
Wait for it.
G West
4 years ago
And thanks for proving the line...
...about the self-satisfied.
You were right on cue.
ME2
4 years ago
No apologies at all, Bear
Yes, Bear, I have a hardened attitude when it comes to FN issues. I've more than 50 years of fairly intense interest in the Archaeology and Anthropology of BC.
I've talked to old-timers of both our races who've lived fairly close to Contact times in BC, which as you know were fairly late, beginning mostly after 1850.
I watched the "Red Power" movement migrate to BC from the US in the Seventies and saw it derail the BC environmental movement in the 80's and render it into today's paper tiger by the turn of the Century.
Today's New Agey enviro/social activist is marked by his/her willingness to believe anything provided it supports her/his politically correct POV. This "End justifies the means" attitude is just an adaptation of the neocon's dictum that the "Bottom Line" over-rides all other values.
In following this line of reasoning we've lied to the public so much they are as unwilling to believe us as they are of the neocons - perhaps even less.
And that, Bear, is the ONLY reason I'm so bitter about you folk's bullshit. So I'll leave alone why it's BS, since I won't get by GWest's guilt complex anyway, and I don't want him to have a stroke to boot.
Right to Bear
4 years ago
Really Me2...??
Me2 said:
Thanks for responding Me2...Here is my thoughts.
Getting the "buck" bottom line often, not always, means excessive stealing from the Earth methinks, and once you stole from the Earth, you can't give it back. Having stolen lands, the children, the culture, and in many cases, the indomitable spirits of thes FN people, we have the opportunity to give back the land...and we should be grateful to the courts for allowing us to do just that.
We can't give back an unaffected child after the abuses we put upon them in the residential school systems (Last one closed in 96 in Tofino), nor can we help the parents heal from it, we can't give them back the spirits of innocence and trust, as it too is gone forever. But we CAN give them back their land. We, as I said, should be grateful to the courts for allowing us to do that in this precedence setting case last week with the Xeni people.
I am sorry that after all your years here on Earth, and all that you have seen, you are so hardened towards these people. To me, it is hard to imagine that they are still here after all we put them through, and then to know that you are dispassionate towards them like I see, is only sad.
One thing your attitude tells me a bit about is how they got to be in a desperate place at all…
Peace Me2,
Bear
ME2
4 years ago
Yes really, Bear
It's THEIR land, Bear? Seems to me that I keep seeing you say the land and its resources belongs to ALL of us. But FNs aren't just ordnary people, are they? No, they are FNs, and so the rules and obligations that apply to you and me don't apply to them, do they?
Haven't I seen you inveigh upon the neocons for their holding that the land they own is theirs to do with as they please?
The temptation to continue is strong, Bear, but doing so will be unproductive since dialogue is impossible, so I'll let you think you've "won".
Stump
4 years ago
what about the rule of law
C'mon ME2. What about the rule of law? You don't think we should give back that which was clearly stolen?
Stump
4 years ago
What ARE you talking about?
Would this be the environmental movement that is making gov'ts put sustainability at the top of their agendas (at least that's what they say?, the movement that is slowly but surely getting the populace to consider the long-term ramifications of consumerism, or the environmental movement that has made climate change THE political hot button issue of the twenty-first century?
Those are some pretty big achievements for a toothless cat.
Stump
4 years ago
we have a winner, or do we?
How exactly does one "win" a conversation? Why does superciliously deigning to award the victory make you the loser?
A fascinating insight into your perspective ME2. thanx.
Stump
4 years ago
And another thing
How does the treaty negotiation process resemble an end justifies the means attitude.
Clearly the attempt at recompense is a recognition that the means were wrong and the situation needs to be addressed. If the ends justified the means in this instance we'd be saying to the First Nations that their suffering was just water under the bridge on the road to wherever the hell it is we're headed.
shabbaranks
4 years ago
More diversity
It would have been nice to have seen more pictures of these activities rather than the numerous pictures of the hospitable folks who's kitchen tables are littered with rye bottles.
I understand that this is a big part of their music playing lifestyle, but some pictures to round out the goings on of Telegraph Creek would have done a lot more for me.
claire
4 years ago
Re: lefty
Quote:
Sure do hope you didn't embarrass us by not leaving your home address so they can return the gesture.
I am the photographer and of course I did! These people were awesome and it would be a pleasure to have them.
claire
4 years ago
Re: Shabbaranks
Quote:
It would have been nice to have seen more
the numerous pictures of the hospitable
folks who's kitchen tables are littered
with rye bottles.
Hi, I am the photographer and I wanted to let you know that I did submit photo's of the Tahltan smoking salmon, curing moose meat, roasting moose head and tanning moose hide the traditional way only the editors chose to publish the indoor photo's presumably to focus on their hospitality and personal nature rather than cultural attachments.
There are plenty of photographs of the cultural activities of the first nations people, but few documenting life in the home, I guess the editors were going for a fresh approach?
Personally I was surprised at their choice of photo's as the cultural shots have more commercial value.
Right to Bear
4 years ago
Me2...
Hi Me2,
You said:
...I think bud, you are mistaken me for someone else. If you find one of "my" quotes, publish it here. Any hey, Good Luck!!
Now, back to the buisness at hand, whether you respond or not dude.
Me2 said in a profoundly accurate statement:
Right, rules for white-man and Fn's in Canada is:
1)Whitey's are exempt from having our land stolen, and dissected into little whitey farms, but FN's rules are, they are obviously not exempt from this happening to them...
2)Whitey's never have and never will have to worry about losing a whole generation to the residential school system. FN's in recent history have lost a whole generation to this corrupt system (96, the last res. school in Canada, Tofino)...
3)Rule for whitely is they are free to practise their Arts and Culture in anyway they choose. Rules applying to FN's in recent history were that they were killed for doing so...
4)Whitey in general is exempt from any form of genicide. Not so to the FN's here in our country and it doesn't matter whether we are taking about past or present.
And the list goes on, and on...
Note: Good breakthrough last week for the Xeni people. This will affect many in a just way. So some good things that needs to be mentions btw. It is hard to acknowledge the breakthroughs when some peoplerefuse to acknowledge the wrongs... Sadly.
Peace
Bear
Note to Stump: Spot on with ALL your comments dude. ;-) ...you saved me the work. Thanks.
Right to Bear
4 years ago
Hi Claire...
Thank you so much Claire :-)
That was a beautiful peek into the lives of the Tahltan people. I couldn't have enjoyed it more, and I couldn't have appreciated more the spirit of which you shared it with.
Very, very special,
Peace,
Bear
BC Dude
4 years ago
This is what we can expect
This is what we can expect from Royal Dutch Shell!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E2D81139F930A25751C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
"Now, Royal Dutch/Shell is on trial in the court of public opinion. Critics here and abroad accuse the company of colluding in the brutal oppression of local people, of polluting Ogoniland and of failing to speak out against the execution of Mr. Saro-Wiwa."
Gordo and S Harper are allowing this murdering corrupt corporation on our sacred grounds to "FOREVER" kill this or any other land on our planet! "ENOUGH"
"SAY NO TO Royal Dutch S Hell NOW"
WATER
4 years ago
Sacred Headwaters
The end comes quickly to those who do not respect decisions of people protecting water. The Keepers of the Sacred Headwaters inspire the world's people. We will protect our environment and Royal Dutch Shell will learn as will Bechtel who works with Alcan trying to steal the Nechako from the Haisla that there is nowhere to go but back where you came from. Five hundred rivers are being stolen from the bears and the fish and the people. Private water power licenses must end. Coalbed methane extraction has no place in BC. It destroys water. The water has a voice and the voice has an army and the army is us and we are fueled by water and we are free independent, sustainable and renewable. Money cannot buy the Keepers of the Sacred Headwaters or the people who will take the message to predatory global companies and their collaborators here in BC and Canada. We are changing Gordon Campbell's and Stephen Harper's "Open for Business" sign to "CLOSED due to to illness".
We are sick of corrupt government.
WATER FOR LIFE