Last Updated on March 18, 2025
According to Western history, my people, the W̱SÁNEĆ People, have been living on their traditional territory on southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf and San Juan Islands for many thousands of years. According to W̱SÁNEĆ oral history, our existence here goes back to the very beginning — to the time of creation. Embedded in the landscape, and expressed through our language, stories and place names are the laws, beliefs and teachings that were given to us by XÁLs (the Creator). This is an important consideration, because the way our ancestors viewed and related to the world in traditional times is very different from the way we view the world in contemporary times.
Everyday acts of resurgence are about relating to the land in the ways of the ancestors. It is important to remember, share and live these teachings everyday. The revitalization and resurgence of the W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net fishery – which is the W̱SÁNEĆ method to fish for salmon in very specific locations using a net that is suspended between two canoes and anchored behind a lead which funnels schools of salmon into the net – is a good example of an everyday act of resurgence through relating to the natural world through practice.
Thinking, acting and relating to our territories in ancestral ways should be fundamental to the healing of our communities, through the revitalization and resurgence of ancestral knowledge’s and practices. Marie Battiste, Mi’kmaw educator and scholar states that we are “marinated in eurocentrism” through what she calls Cognitive Imperialism[1]. This eurocentrism actually causes us to be and keeps us disconnected from our homelands in our hearts, minds and spirits. Alternatively, ancestral worldviews fostered a deep relationship to our territories, as if we were related to the natural world. Viewing salmon, trees, or other elements of the natural world as relatives is what Enrique Salmón calls a “kincentric ecology”[2]. As Indigenous peoples, we need to look at, and relate to the natural world around us everyday, as if we are all relatives. For the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples, the Reef Net technology is a perfect example.
In understanding the Reef Net as more than just a fishing method, but as a rich cultural and spiritual practice, we must start with the oral history of it’s origins. The following is a story that was shared with me by my late Uncle YELḰÁŦȾE (Dr. Earl Claxton Sr.) It is a belief of the W̱SÁNEĆ people that the SX̱OLE, the reef net, originated the following way:
A W̱SÁNEĆ couple had a beautiful and eligible young daughter. The family travelled together to ĆEȽTENEM to visit their relatives who lived there. While they were there, the young lady would often go sit alone on the shore and look out over the ocean. One evening, a young man came walking along the beach, and he spoke to the beautiful young W̱SÁNEĆ lady. After that first meeting, they met one another down at the shore many times and they became fond of each other.
The handsome young man wanted the young W̱SÁNEĆ princess to run away with him, so they could be together forever. Though the young W̱SÁNEĆ princess also wanted to be with the handsome young man, she was a strong believer in W̱SÁNEĆ traditions, and she told the young man that he must speak to her parents first and get their approval. The young man respected her wish and he spoke to her parents. The parents accepted the young man, but only if he stayed with the W̱SÁNEĆ people for a time. It was during this time, that the salmon became very scarce, and hard to catch. The W̱SÁNEĆ people began to suffer.
The young man offered his help to the W̱SÁNEĆ people. He asked them to bring him some SX̱OLE. This was a word that the W̱SÁNEĆ people had never heard before. They noticed that this young man spoke differently, and had many different names for the things he spoke of. No one knew that he was really speaking in spiritual terms, using sacred prayer words. They only knew that they had never heard those words before.
The young man requested many items with which he promised would help provide for W̱SÁNEĆ people. He requested a certain plant, and again the W̱SÁNEĆ people did not know what he was asking for. The W̱SÁNEĆ people brought the young man boughs, branches, roots, he rejected them all one by one, until one of them brought the pacific willow bush. The young man took the willow bush, and he stripped it of its inner bark. From this fibrous inner bark, he made cordage and began to construct a net.
The young man completed constructing the reef net gear with all of the other natural materials brought to him previously. He taught the W̱SÁNEĆ people the names of all of the different parts of the net and all of the terms used while fishing with the net. He taught the W̱SÁNEĆ people how to be reef net fishermen. The W̱SÁNEĆ people became successful in catching salmon, and became a prosperous people once again. The W̱SÁNEĆ people used the reef net, which was the gift of that young man, to catch salmon ever since then.
A short time later, the young man told the W̱SÁNEĆ people that it was time for him to take his new bride home with him. With all of their possessions loaded into their canoe, they departed, with the young princess’s family watching from the shore. The young man and the young woman, headed out to the deep water, and when they reached a distance away, they simply vanished into the water. It is now believed that the young man who came to W̱SÁNEĆ and married this young W̱SÁNEĆ princess was the spirit of the salmon in human form. He gave the W̱SÁNEĆ people the gift of their own way of fishing, and the W̱SÁNEĆ people gave him the gift of a beautiful wife.
It is a belief of the W̱SÁNEĆ people that the salmon are our relatives, and they were people just like us, and they must be respected as such. The W̱SÁNEĆ people have fished this way for a very long time, and this is what connects us to the Salmon people.
This story of the Reef Net encompasses the significance and importance of the Reef Net Fishery of the W̱SÁNEĆ People. It reflects the beliefs of the W̱SÁNEĆ people and how we relate to the land and to the salmon. The Reef Net Fishery is our way of life, or connection to our territory; it formed the spiritual, social, physical and philosophical core and backbone of W̱SÁNEĆ traditional society. In the summer of 2014, the W̱SÁNEĆ people brought the SX̱OLE forward through a sacred ceremony, and then went fishing at an ancestral fishing location at Pender Island, for the first time in about 100 years. Through this Reef Net resurgence effort the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation also renewed relational and community ties with the W̱ȽEMI Nation. The W̱ȽEMI Nation fishermen and leadership also attending the W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net ceremony in 2014, and then the summer of 2015 the W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net fishermen attended a W̱ȽEMI naming ceremony at a shared ancestral Reef Net location on the San Juan Islands. The Reef Net has brought the W̱SÁNEĆ and the W̱ȽEMI Nations together on a resurgent journey back to the Reef Net fishery.
While this is oral history, and it is often told as a story, it also fosters belief system and way of viewing the world. When our elders share this story, it is believed to have actually happened. It did actually happen. It is a record of an actual historical occurrence. It also reflects an important philosophy, that we are directly related to the salmon. This is an important idea for W̱SÁNEĆ peoples, that we are related to our natural world. This denotes a particular relationship and responsibility to the natural world. This is a worldview that needs to be brought forward, taught, fostered in our children, and lived in an everyday way. This revitalization of the Reef Net knowledge has begun, and continues daily in our community Tribal high school. A Reef Net curriculum has been implemented this academic year, and efforts are being made to incorporate the Reef Net technology across all of the subjects taught in our high school. Through this everyday resurgence effort, the minds and identities of the W̱SÁNEĆ youth are being recentered on the Reef Net technology.
The Reef Net as resurgence, as a practice helps the W̱SÁNEĆ people to restore our physical, and spiritual presence on the land and water of our territory. There are now 10 new W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net fishermen (myself included), who now know how it feels to fish in this ancestral way. Some of these new fishermen had never been to Pender Island before this act of resurgence. It also rebuilds our relationship to the salmon people, in traditional ways, particularly by nourishing the W̱SÁNEĆ people again physically and spiritually. The Reef Net practice has also brought generations, communities and families together. Moving forward with the Reef Net resurgence will help to transmit practical, cultural and spiritual knowledge across the generations once again. By doing this, over the long term, it is my vision that it will also start to rebuild and strengthen familial structures and W̱SÁNEĆ social and governance structures. In traditional times, the Reef net was also the core of W̱SÁNEĆ land-based economy, and it is hoped that it can once again grow to be that once again. By living and thinking in a W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net paradigm, there is a real opportunity for the W̱SÁNEĆ people to look backward while moving forward to a much better future as a W̱SÁNEĆ people and nation.
Metaphorically, it is time to draw in our net together, and be nourished with the catch. It will strengthen our communities, to once again be with the salmon on the water as the salt water people. It is time to reacquaint ourselves with the Salmon people. We need to remember that a W̱SÁNEĆ princess bestowed upon us the gift of the W̱SÁNEĆ Reef Net fishery, and we must honour this gift every day, and allow it to draw out of our people, the W̱SÁNEĆ way. The Reef Net is a blessing, a beautiful W̱SÁNEĆ practice, and an everyday act of resurgence.
[1] Battiste, Marie. 2013. Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing, p. 159.
[2] Salmón, Enrique. 2000. “Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous Perceptions of the Human-Nature Relationship”. Ecological Applications, 10(5), 1327-1332.
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