The last of the untamed: Wedzin Kwa and the Wetsu
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- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
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News feature by Brandi Morin
JANUARY 29, 2022
https://ricochet.media/en/3835/the-last-of-the-untamed-wedzin-kwa-and-the-wetsuweten-fight-to-save-her
Winding through mountainous wilderness in the heart of Wet’suwet’en territories is a glistening, sacred river. The Wet’suwet’en call it Wedzin Kwa — “the blue and green river” — and cherish it for its purity and healing powers.
This river system has been revered by the Wet’suwet’en since time immemorial. Ancient village sites around and along the Wedzin Kwa attest to the rich history and long connections the Wet’suwet’en have to this waterway. For millennia the clans of the Wet’suwet’en have depended on the river and the sustenance it provides — in particular, the different species of salmon that traverse this inland channel and its tributaries to spawn through most of the year.
“There’s one area you’ll walk through and you can feel the spirit from the water. You can feel it for probably just a second and then it’s gone. It’s just letting you know that it’s sacred.”
Elder Betty Joseph, 67, from the Lik’silyu Clan, is known as one of the greatest living fisherwomen among the Wet’suwet’en. She grew up helping her grandparents harvest salmon in the summer months... along the Moricetown Canyon, but it wasn’t until she turned 21 that she discovered she had a gift.
“My boyfriend went down with my kids to go fishing at five o’clock in the morning,” she recounts from her two-storey home on the Witset First Nation on a frigid January afternoon.
“They never came back so I went down to bring them some lunch. I was laughing at my boyfriend because he hadn’t caught anything. So I put a hook into the water and started pulling and I caught something pulling on the line. He was mad because he never caught one.” She chuckles, her wrinkled eyes gleaming with delight.
By the time Joseph was 24, she was working for the Wet’suwet’en fisheries department as its only female employee. It wasn’t uncommon for her to fill her fishing baskets to the brim before anyone else did. People from all around the world heard about her fishing abilities and some came to visit from as far away as Australia, she says.
“You have to be strong and brave to be a good fisherwoman. And not be scared of the river, the fish,” she says, as “the river knows the difference.” Her ancestral connection to the river helps her to instinctively understand how to fish, she adds. But she has other tricks up her sleeve too.
“I usually stand on a rock. Then I lure them in with a song I made up and I sing to them. Then, you have to pull like hell against the current because they’re fast and strong.”
The work continues after the catch. Joseph carefully debones, cuts, jars and hangs the fish in her smokehouse.
“First, when it’s slimy, you hang it for a day. Then when the skin is all dry, that’s when you put it on the table and start deboning. I take it right to the backbone! Mine takes longer because I debone the whole fish. I use nose pliers and pull all those bones out.”
In one corner of her cluttered kitchen are stacked rows of cardboard boxes filled with jarred, orange-coloured salmon. This will last her and her family until the next season. To her, salmon represents life, and life for the next generation, including her 10 children, 27 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
Suddenly her cheerful demeanour fades.
“This river system is.…” She squints her eyes in contemplation and sighs deeply. “Is at risk from these developments.”
She is referring, of course, to the notorious $6.6-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline.
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