Field Reflection #3: The Secwepemc Museum

              I sat comfortably in a pit house that was located next to the Thompson river and on the Secwepemc reserve. I was on Sacred land and sitting in a piece of history; this pit house was a wintering home for the Secwepemc people. Just a few hundred meters from the pit house I was sitting in was the Kamloops Indian residential school that was established in 1893 and operated until 1977. Hundreds of children were removed from their parents and taken to this school to become Christianized and civilized. I listened intently during the museum tour, Stafford mentions in his writings: “I meant to stand apart from my century, if I could. I meant to stand apart from my own life and listen” (Stafford. 2016). I listened. I listened to every word our tour guide Jacquie spoke to us. There were certain details that I retained immediately as she talked about the Secwepemc way of life. She talked about the relationships that the people had with nature and the respect the people had for what nature had to offer. The people would take from the land to survive, and in return they would leave an area in better shape then when they first arrived, to enhance the land as a “thanks” to mother nature. A few additional facts I learned was that when the hillside was full of buttercups, this meant that the deer were pregnant. The people made hunting seasons in order to not interfere with nature. I thought these people were ahead of there time. More than we are today. They really knew how to take care of the earth. I was stunned to learn that the Secwepemc had extensive knowledge on burning the land in order to renew it. They would have so much knowledge on the weather that for instance, they would light a fire in an area in a valley that needed to be burned, then with the help of the wind, the fire would be put out at the end of the day. I stood in the museum absorbing all of this information. I thought about the “Christian white folk” and their interference with the Secwepemc nation. I though to myself: why would you try to ruin a nation by changing their way of life, instead of learning from them? Especially when they know the land more than you do. I found it ironic that the first nations people never even realized there was a depression or food shortage during the “Great Depression” between 1929-39, because they were still living off the land as they always had been.

I learned a lot from this visit and have realized that “Relationships to places are lived most often in the company of other people, and it is on these communal occasions-when places are sensed together-the native views of the physical world becomes accessible to strangers” (Basso. 1996).

Word count: 480

References:

Basso, K. H. (1996). Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Stafford, K. R., & Pyle, R. M. (2016). Having everything right: Essays of place. Berkeley, CA: Pharos Editions.