This morning found the SEA LION cruising south down Johnstone Straight on her way to our morning destination of Alert Bay located on Cormorant Island. The winds and rain had been with us most of the evening and the rain had eased up a little this morning. At approximately 8:30 AM our expedition leader made announcements about our morning's activities. Vans would be arriving soon to take part of our group to a hike just above the town of Alert Bay, while the remainder of the group would be transported to the U'Mista Cultural Center. As the vans moved people to various points of interest, some of us took a walk to the nearby burial ground, home of several impressively decorated totem poles. Soon the vans returned and gradually we were all delivered to one of the three morning stops. A large group enjoyed a walk in Gator Gardens amongst the large Western Red cedars, mosses dripping with rain and many ripe blackberries! A smaller group of us went directly to U'Mista Cultural Center. The center houses a large collection of returned potlatch items, including several Coppers, and many, many masks all related to the potlatch ceremony and many aspects of the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw people. The Numgash band of Alert Bay finished building the U'Mista in 1980 fulfilling a request by the Canadian government to provide a "museum-like" space to house a large group of potlatch items that had been confiscated in 1920. The first nations people in this small community have maintained a strong influence amongst the many other bands of Kwakwaka'wakw people fostering a continued strong cultural identity through art, song and dance….all the things that make the Kwakwaka'wakw richly unique as a people. This was wonderfully summed in a quote raised on a wall in the U'Mista Cultural Center:

"When one's heart is glad, he gives away gifts. It was given to us by our creator, to be our way of doing things, to be our way of rejoicing, we who are Indian. The Potlatch was given to us to be our way of expressing joy."
Agnes Alfred, Alert Bay 1980

Throughout this museum we found old and new photos depicting the lives of this group of native people. We were guided by Lillian Hunt through the potlatch pieces in the lower part of the museum, then wandered through the many other exhibits that are housed in the Cultural Center. The rest of our group soon arrived and also enjoyed a visit to the potlatch pieces with time to wander through the rest of the exhibits.

At 10:30 AM we traveled by van a short distance to the Big House, where we had been invited to view an exhibition by the T'salala Dance group. Leader of the group, Andrea Cranmer, came forward to introduce the Big House and the meaning of dance to Kwakwaka'wakw people as she was taught by her mother Vera and other elders within the community.

"Our myths also tell how the ancestors of our families came to have the dances and songs that we perform at potlatches. Each of our families has particular dances that they have the right to do. Sometimes the families have these rights because their ancestors were given them by supernatural beings. But, in other cases the families' ancestors stole them, seized them as booty in raids, or got them through marriage. However families came to possess dances, they are among their proudest possessions. The Kwakwaka'wakw prize their dances because the hereditary rights to dances are a way of proving their families' history and traditions."

To our delight the next hour was spent watching children from two to seventeen dance with their elders. Children are considered our greatest resource amongst native peoples. Today we watched with the same joy as the native elders present as each child danced around the central fire, their small faces filled with pride.