I listened carefully, this past Sunday, to Robert Budd, on the CBC radio show, North by Northwest. He introduced the Imbert Orchard, 1962, interview of Anges Russ, Haida Elder, 105 years old. Robert has written a book "Voices of British Columbia".
She told of how a flood came to her family's village on the West Coast of Haida Gwaii. This story was passed down by her grandmother's grandmother. The flood came and they got in their canoes and tied to the rocks on mountain top, behind the village. There, her ancestor put her cane in the ground and she began singing songs belonging to her family. When she was done, she pulled the cane from the ground and a freshwater spring shot up. It is still there today, on the mountain behind the village.
I began to do the math backwards from 1962, to when the grandmother's grandmother would be alive. I figure it would be a circa 1700 story. Interestingly enough, there is evidence of an earthquake of 9.0 on the richter scale in 1699, that caused a huge Tsunami along the coast of British Columbia. Very interesting!
If there are some Haida folk out there reading this, I would like some help locating the spring and pursuing this story, further. E-mail: michael@blueecology.com
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