“Watch your step,” we were told by our soft-spoken guide.
And then a second time as we drew in close to see what he was referring to: “Watch where you step—this is a mass grave; you cannot step here.”
The second time, I turned my gaze from the mossy rise of green in front of me to watch as a member of our group silently lowered her camera, slowly mouthing the words mass grave to herself, a wave of disbelief and dismay sweeping over her face.
I had the same response when I heard those words the first time a year earlier. Now, I stood in the same spot and found myself experiencing the same emotions and questions all over again. Mass grave! How can it be?! Even as I type these words now, in the comfort of my own home, I find it hard to acknowledge such a thing can exist in Canada. Mass graves have to do with other places in other times: Germany, Serbia, Rwanda. Not Canada, not British Columbia—certainly not in my backyard. The words mass grave lead to an even more horrific word: genocide.
The truth is, we were looking at not one mass grave but at least three.
A Corner of Paradise
The contrasts could not have been sharper that sunny July morning. Behind us, the emerald blue-green waters of Hecate Strait were calm—rich with brown kelp forests swaying in the low tide. The skies were brilliantly blue and warm. In front of us, the Sitka spruce and cedar trees stood silently, hauntingly growing over the remains of what was once the vibrant Haida village of Tanu’u. All around us, there was evidence of Eden. And yet, it was not this abundance that we noticed as we stared silently at the moss-covered ground. I would learn later from members of our group (Christian school educators on a summer professional development learning experience) that each of us was simply trying to process an inconvenient truth: before us that beautiful morning lay buried the remains of hundreds of nameless victims of a smallpox epidemic that swept through this corner of paradise, destroying the Haida people by upwards of 90 percent.
Europeans who came to trade with the Haida brought more than new diseases—they brought new burial practices for the Haida to adopt as well. The custom of burying the dead itself was not a traditional Haida practice. The Haida interned their dead according to rank: nobility and chiefs high off the ground in cedar bentwood boxes placed in the top cavity of beautifully carved cedar mortuary poles. Others were placed in bentwood boxes in mortuary houses at the back of villages. Tragically, as the Haida were scrambling to bury their dead in mass graves during this dark time, newcomers would soon arrive to cut down those same mortuary poles in order to loot not only the bentwood boxes but the dead themselves. It was to protect the sacredness of the dead and their ancient village sites from this theft that the Haida created the Watchman program a generation ago. And it was a Haida Watchman who now served as our guide and graciously welcomed us as his guests in this remote ancestral location, even if it meant having to ask us to be mindful of where we unintentionally stepped.
The newly redesigned curriculum in British Columbia places a high emphasis on the inclusion of Aboriginal perspectives and principles of learning across K–12 classrooms. This is in contrast to the previous curricular model where Aboriginal content was restricted to select courses or special units within a course. Likewise, under this redesigned curriculum, teachers are being encouraged more than ever before to be creative and develop flexible learning environments that maximize collaboration with community members and cultural knowledge-keepers as a way to enhance student learning. With the 2015 publication of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report there has also been a wider, national conversation unfolding about the legacy and generational impact of the failed residential school system in Canada. Within this conversation, important words like truth, reconciliation, healing, and relationship are not only becoming commonplace but are now finding their way into our educational contexts as well. Christian educators would be wise to welcome into their classrooms and educational practices these words and the important meaning they carry with them, for they are clearly biblical concepts that need to be framed and understood within the wider context of God’s story of redemption.
Our ten-day, place-based trip was designed to provide Christian educators a chance to see and experience an Indigenous community where their way of being and knowing not only are thriving but are also the dominant cultural values. The expectation was that by being on location and learning from the Haida, these participants would be strengthened and equipped to become more effective educators when they returned to their classrooms in September. Valuing this form of learning experience, and wanting to encourage truth, reconciliation, healing, and healthy relationships, both the Christian Educators of British Columbia and the Society of Christian Schools in British Columbia provided financial grants to help make this unique learning opportunity possible.
For these reasons, being on location on Haida Gwaii demonstrated the importance of being intentional and mindful when learning from a people group that has been systematically marginalized by the dominant society. In our eagerness to become culturally aware so that we can be more effective educators, we nearly stepped on the mass graves directly in front of us that beautiful morning. Having good intentions is certainly important. However, it is clearly not enough. While I am certain our humble Watchman guide would have been gracious with us had we stepped all over the graves of his ancestors, it would have been a disgrace and a further loss of dignity to those who have already suffered far too much. In heeding his advice, we learned a valuable lesson that would never have been as effective if it had been prepared and scripted in a controlled classroom setting. Rather, like so many of the important learning opportunities on this trip, it happened because we were in that particular place on location and in dialogue with real people.
At this moment in our conversation with the Watchman, our attention turned to a rock outcrop that overlooked the beach behind us. In contrast to the unmarked mass graves, only a few feet from us stood a solitary headstone that marked the grave of the accomplished and celebrated Bill Reid. A descendant of Tanu’u on his mother’s side, Bill Reid requested to be buried in his maternal family’s ancestral village. Here we stood that morning between two very different grave sites, our minds swirling with questions that we could not find words to express. We simply stood and listened to our Haida Watchman relate the tragic history of his people’s struggle with injustice, steadfast in their refusal to allow the mass graves to be dug up and their ancestors be further violated. I wondered if our host might harbor a lingering distrust of us, people who seem to come to Haida Gwaii only to take away from these islands and its people.
Everything Is Connected
These were not the first remains we had seen on Haida Gwaii. The day before, we had walked parallel to the beach through the second growth forest near Mather’s Creek on Louise Island. There we saw the remains of a very different and more recent economic sort: rusted and broken machinery, rubber tires, tools and loggers’ boots littering the forest floor as evidence of what was once a busy Word War II logging operation. At the end of the abandoned logging camp, where Mather’s Creek enters the ocean, we found headstones marking the graves of Haida survivors of Tanu’u, evacuated from their village under the direction of Christian missionaries to attempt a fresh start in a new location. On each of the headstones, Christian names such as John, Thomas, and Mary have replaced traditional Haida names, and their epitaphs—“Asleep in Jesus”—testify to the massive social upheaval that the Haida were powerless to stop. What went through the minds of those born into one culture and location, only to die shortly thereafter in another with foreign names, foreign diseases, and foreign customs?
I cannot help but grieve the history of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples everywhere, and I wonder what could have been done differently. Christians especially have much to grieve as we slowly become aware of the destructive impact of generations of church-run residential schools. As we move forward in our desire for reconciliation and restoration, a good starting point in our relationship with Indigenous people is to consider a fundamental Haida teaching we learned at the Kay Llnagaay Heritage Centre: “Gina ‘waadluux̱an gud kwaagid”—everything is connected to everything else. What may be self-evident to the Haida (and presumably other Indigenous peoples in Canada) is slowly becoming evident to the rest of us—that we cannot address reconciliation and restoration in isolation from other complex and related topics: colonialism, resource development, education, and even mass graves in distant beaches on islands at the edge of the world. Perhaps even the Kingdom of God.
As we do, and as we move forward in reconciliation, may we heed the words of our Watchman: Watch your step.
Jonathan Boone lives in Smithers, BC, and teaches high school at Bulkley Valley Christian School.
