This is a Cortes Radio update about reconciliation in action taken from the introduction that Carrie Saxifrage, President of the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative, gave to a meeting at Mansons Hall on May 22, 2019.

“For starters, I would like to acknowledge that we are acknowledge that we are on the unceded territory of the Klahoose, the Sliammon and the Homalco and I went to the Awaken the Canoes event at Klahoose. I was really struck by the openness and generosity that I experienced, of somebody who is non indigenous. I was fed; I was taught how to paddle; how to pull a canoe. It was really amazing to me.”

“It puts me in mind of the community forest and how I don’t think that we, without the Klahoose, would have a community forest. I think that they, without us, would have a community forest. The fact that it is shared is one of those acts of generosity and openness that I would like to acknowledge.”

“This is reconciliation in action and this is another big word that I do not know exactly what it means but it does mean what they demonstrated to me so directly over the week-end, which is openness and generosity.”

(Added by email) “I wish I’d concluded my intro by suggesting that we would do well by being as open and generous as the Klahoose as I don’t think reconciliation (openness and generosity) is really in their court, it’s our responsibility.”

Photo Credits: Friends and relatives sending the Tl’emtl’ems off from the inner area at Squirrel Cove at the start of the 2018 Power Paddle to Puyallup– Roy L Hales photo