Summary
Future Ecologies is recorded on the unceded territories of the Musqueam (xwməθkwəy̓əm) Squamish (Skwxwú7mesh), and Tsleil- Waututh (Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh) Nations - otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia. But what does that mean?
In this proto-episode of Future Ecologies, we talk to indigenous plant diva T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss, about how, as non-indigenous people, we can podcast respectfully on unceded indigenous territory. It’s our way of acknowledging the the land we live on and the ever-present role that indigenous peoples will play in the stories to come. Also, Cease tells some great stories of her own.
Show Notes
This episode features T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss. T’uy’t’tanat has a blog with lots of great information about medicinal native plants (https://indigenousplantdiva.wordpress.com/), as well as a tea company with her daughter, Senaqwila Wyss, called Raven Hummingbird Tea (https://ravenhummingbirdtea.com/). She was recently the indigenous storyteller in residence at the Vancouver Public library, and she does so many other things that we can’t possible list them all here. Follow her on twitter at @TuyTanat.
Special thanks to Khelsilem Dustin Rivers, who allowed us to use a short segment of a speech he made on May 29, 2018 in Vancouver, BC. Follow him on twitter at @Khelsilem. Special thanks also to Sara Brooke Cadeau, whose singing can be heard during the opening and closing audio clips, which were recorded on October 28th, 2017 at Whey-Ah-Whichen (Cates Park) in Deep Cove, BC. Both of these events were protests against the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Transmountain Pipeline on unceded indigenous territory here in BC - learn more about this at https://www.coastprotectors.ca/. Thanks also to Sarah Sax, Ilana Fonariov, and Nicole Jahraus for their ears.
Music for this episode was produced by PORTBOU and Sunfish Moon Light .
This episode includes audio recorded by daveincamas, protected by a Creative Commons attribution license, and accessed through the Freesound Project.
This season of Future Ecologies is supported in part by the Vancouver Foundation. Learn more at https://vancouverfoundationsmallarts.ca/.
You can subscribe to and download Future Ecologies wherever you find podcasts - please share, rate, and review us. Our website is futureecologies.net. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, iNaturalist, and Youtube. We’re an independent production, and you can support us on Patreon - our supporters have access to cool supporter-only mini-episodes and other perks.
Transcript
[River water lapping]
[Drumming & Coast Salish chanting]
Unnamed Security Guard 00:16
For your safety do not enter. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Approaching vessel stop! This is a restricted construction site. For your safety and the safety of passengers aboard your vessel, stop! [Inaudible] Do not come any closer for you and your passengers safety. Leave this area immediately. For your safety do not enter!
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 00:51
[Speaking in Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) language]. My traditional name is T’uy’t’tanat, and T’uy’t’tanat means 'woman that travels by canoe to gather medicines for all people'. I am Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō. And those are two Coast Salish nations. And I grew up with the [speaking in Skwxwú7mesh] - with the Squamish people and have lived around Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Regional District for most of my life. [Pause] And my nickname is Cease.
Adam Huggins 01:33
My name is Adam. I am from the San Francisco Bay Area, which is also the unceded and currently unrecognized territory of the Muwekma Ohlone. Um... and I am really grateful to be able to live here in Vancouver. Ah, which is also uceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory.
Mendel Skulski 01:56
My name is Mendel and, and I was born here and grew up here where we're - we're recording, so...
Adam Huggins 02:02
In the studio!
Mendel Skulski 02:02
Right here.
[Theme music: electric folk with acoustic guitar plucking] 'Light Bringer' by Sunfish Moon Light
Adam Huggins 02:05
[Laughing] Hi, I'm Adam Huggins.
Mendel Skulski 02:08
And I'm Mendel Skulski.
Adam Huggins 02:10
And this is the first episode of Future Ecologies. The podcast where we explore the shape of our world through ecology, design, and sound.
Mendel Skulski 02:19
We've got a wild first season lined up for you with stories from up and down the Pacific coast of North America, where we'll talk about: how to get rid of a dam -
[Unnamed Speaker 1] 02:26
- blast it, leave the rubble, and then that becomes, like, part of your stream structure.
Mendel Skulski 02:31
Where to find the rarest plants on the planet -
[Unnamed Speaker 2] 02:33
- the loneliest plant. It was discovered by the great botanist Peter Raven when he was 13, of course.
Mendel Skulski 02:38
And what might be behind those lights in the sky you keep insisting are UFOs.
[Unnamed Speaker 3] 02:42
- it is awesome to see something natural. But at the moment, I said, 'Well, I'm gonna die here' [laughing]. The city is going to be destroyed and I'm gonna die.
[Fade out of theme music: electric folk with acoustic guitar plucking]
Mendel Skulski 03:09
But before we get to all of that, there's something really important we want to talk about first.
Adam Huggins 03:14
Yeah, so this episode is a little bit different than what we anticipate the rest of our season to be. And that's because we're just going to be talking about the land that we're recording this on. So, we're in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. And this is not where I'm from. As you heard earlier, I'm from California. And where I grew up... I had no idea. It was never made apparent to me. There was no acknowledgement, at least not widespread, that we were on land that had an Indigenous history - at all. In fact, for most of my life, I-I didn't... I didn't know. And when I first came up here to British Columbia, every event that I went to, you would go and you sit down. And the first thing out of the presenter's mouth will be, 'We are on the unceded territories of Coast Salish peoples.'
Mendel Skulski 04:12
So this is... I mean, this has been evolving up here for a little while in the, in the name of Truth and Reconciliation, that the... the first step is that acknowledgement, that - that we make sure that everybody understands that that is the history of this land.
Adam Huggins 04:27
Right? It's like an Alcoholics Anonymous program?
Mendel Skulski 04:30
[Laughing] There is a first step, for sure, um -
Adam Huggins 04:33
- Colonizers Anonymous [laughing]
Mendel Skulski 04:34
- and as much as it might start to seem like, like rote behavior for, for a lot of people that there's just this perfunctory gesture that's made at the - at the beginning of any public event. I think that it is, in fact, a very powerful thing to make sure that that gets into people's consciousness.
Adam Huggins 04:53
It's really special. I've never been anywhere else, really, where this occurs regularly and it actually feels weird to me now when I visit other places that we don't routinely acknowledge whose territory we're standing on.
Mendel Skulski 05:05
Right? So for those of you - any of you who might not know what unceded territory means it's just that this land, BC, was never given by treaty to the colonizers. So, legally speaking, it's still native land.
Adam Huggins 05:19
Which essentially makes Vancouver the world's most expensive squat.
Mendel Skulski 05:24
[Laughing] Pretty much.
Adam Huggins 05:26
And the reason that we're bringing this up right now, ah, I mean, it's a good place to start. But also, we're going to be talking a lot about ecology, and a lot about how we design our natural spaces, and how that's going to affect our future. And one of the first and most important things you realize when you study this, is that you can't disentangle the ecological aspects of these questions from the Indigenous histories of whatever piece of land that we're talking about. Ah, and, so it's really important that we talk about this before we get in to any of the, uh, more 'science-y' stuff.
Mendel Skulski 06:06
[Laughing]
Adam Huggins 06:06
Especially since we're basically just two white guys doing this podcast.
Mendel Skulski 06:11
No. Speak for yourself.
Adam Huggins 06:13
You're mostly white passing though, right? [Laughing]
Mendel Skulski 06:15
White passing, guy passing, but...
Adam Huggins 06:17
[Laughing]
Mendel Skulski 06:18
Um. Yeah. So... we're just going to sit down with Cease, and we're going to talk about what it means to inhabit native land.
Adam Huggins 06:27
And we hope that, ah, you also get something from this conversation about how to podcast on unceded territory.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 06:35
Okay, so we can't see this, but I'm going to describe it for the podcast's sake, but on my arm is an image that is actually a signature of my great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. And the signature I found on a document - a court document from very, very early Vancouver records. Our family had started a ranch called Kanaka Ranch over where Western Bayshore is and my... I call her my 'Granny G to the Sixth Degree' instead of saying the g's all the way, but she is the one that went to City Hall, which was a tent at that point on Cambie Street [laughing]. And she was being bullied by developers for this place. She was like, 'I've had enough of this. I'm going up' and she got squatters rights to stay on the land. And they did a court document that she had to stand there and explain in the little bit of English she knew, because she spoke, ah, Coast Salish, she spoke [speaking in Skwxwú7mesh], and the court secretary typed it up and read it out to her, probably explained what she said. And then my grandmother made this mark and it said, in brackets, 'The mark of Mary See-em-ia Eihu.'
[Electric dream folk with percussion] 'True Dreams' by Sunfish Moon Light
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 08:00
You know, when you think about that, like, that was a document to save our land. Before there were land claims, made by a woman [laughing]. Women weren't even recognized, right, until like, until 100 years after she signs this. And with that mark, and then my dear friend [name], who's a freedom fighter, land defender, water defender, does hand poke tattoos. So she did six marks to mark the generational gap between myself and my grandmother. So I can carry that and have that as my reminder of that work that she did and how brave she must have been to go into this environment that was completely foreign to her. At the time that she's doing this, there weren't even proper roads because it wasn't a proper city. It was like the late 1800s. In its own sense, that's a treaty. Right? And it's a signed treaty and she didn't sign it in English. She signed it in her mark. This is her name.
[Electric dream folk with percussion stops abruptly].
Mendel Skulski 09:18
So, Cease was full of great stories just like that one.
Adam Huggins 09:20
And in keeping with the idea of this being a guide to podcasting, or doing literally anything on unceded territories, we've organized our conversation with Cease into little bite-sized lessons for you to take home with you.
Mendel Skulski 09:36
The first one? Good intentions do not excuse you from doing your homework.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 09:41
Well, I think when people are going into a place where, ah - whether they're familiar with it or not - it is always good to research what, you know, the stories of that land has been over a long period of time. And I kind of veer away from 'His-story' [laughing] because there's Her-stories and Their-stories. And so, looking at the Land's-stories, and understanding how long the psychology has existed. Because when you look at it from an Indigenous worldview, ah, it goes far back in the timeline - to the beginning of time. And we always say that the rocks are our grandfathers. They're the oldest living beings on the planet. And the plants are the second-oldest beings on the planet. And humans come a long way, far away from that timeline. They're way - like, the world exists for thousands, millions of years without humans [laughing]. And then humans come along and in a short time, we destroy a lot of things. So... if you really want to remediate and restore and help wetlands and other parts of the environment, you need to go and allow it to know you. Because that forest is our grandparents' home. So you don't just walk into your grandparents' home and start doing whatever you want. And then your grandparents come in and go, 'Why did you move that chair? Why did you...?' [laughing]. 'Why did you change the design of my living room?' There are all those things, right? And then we just all come in like, well, we're people and we want it this way. And, you know, we can easily think we're doing something really good. All our intentions are good. And then it's like, oh, why did I do that? And... I've done it too. I've caught myself on things and I had to step back and... And, ah, I'm not, you know, above being humble. I'm not above being called out. That's why I hang out with really young people, especially kids, because they will totally say everything that's on their mind. And often you're like, 'Oh man... like, a little eight-year-old just schooled me!'
Mendel Skulski 11:59
Which brings lesson number two: learning to take criticism.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 12:03
It's like, you know, people taking cough syrup they hate - they take it because they know it'll make them better, but they don't like it. You know, although I have to say my cough syrup always tastes good [laughing] so... I've made it so it doesn't taste disgusting.
Adam Huggins 12:19
Another big piece was seeking out and entering into a relationship with the Indigenous peoples wherever you live or travel, especially if you're intending to harvest something from their territory. Like, say, a plant -
Mendel Skulski 12:31
- or a mushroom -
Adam Huggins 12:32
- or a story.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 12:34
When I think about where I'm going to go, it's in a place I've never been, I'm going to find out where the local Indigenous people are.
[Chill electronic music fade in]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 12:43
If I'm not connecting, it-it sounds funny, but I'll type up a little status update on my social media and say, 'I'm in this area. Does anybody know...? Anybody here I can go visit and just bring a gift to say thank you for being here.' Because I know it doesn't matter. Who I, who I meet up with, I'm going to get a story. I'm going to share my story, we're gonna find out what we can offer each other. And then if it's meant to be for me to pick something, then I don't have to worry because I've made that contact and asked. Ah, and if I'm not allowed to, it's fine. It's also fine. I've learned that that's a place I can't go pick. So, case in point is the Nisga’a Valley, the Nass Valley, you... I can't go in there and just decide I'm gonna go mushroom picking and, oh, I want to get some medicines. I have to go with somebody who's Nisga’a. So that at any point - and you might think you're out in this vast forest, thousands and thousands of hectares, quote unquote, 'who's going to see you?' As soon as we're out with this guy - I go out a couple of years ago - everywhere we went in the forest, somebody showed up - randomly - and I was like, I'm so glad I'm with my friend.
Adam Huggins 14:02
[Laughing] Because that would have been an awkward conversation otherwise.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 14:05
I would have been kicked out.
Adam Huggins 14:06
Yeah.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 14:07
I had - I would have had everything confiscated. But they're like, 'What are you doing?' 'Oh, my friend Cease is teaching me about medicines'. And they know I'm not from there. And they're from there. But they realize I'm bringing my knowledge in and sharing that, just openly, and they're openly sharing their medicines with me. So it was total reciprocity.
[Chill electronic music fade out]
Mendel Skulski 14:31
Reciprocity was another central thread to our conversation. Specifically, how to practice it when giving or receiving valuable knowledge.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 14:38
When somebody asks you for something in exchange for what they're giving you, you don't question it and you don't sit and go, 'Oh, it's gonna cost me this much or that much.' It's insignificant because, ah... My daughter told me something really profound a few years ago, she said 'Money is alchemy. It doesn't exist.' Since I looked at it from that perspective, ever since... I don't care when - it's not that I'm filthy rich, and it's not that I make a lot of money. But if I have to get something and I know it's a certain price, I just get it.
[Minimal marimba]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 15:14
So, so this guy wanted a specific pair and size of cowboy boots [laughing]. I researched everything for these boots! I couldn't... I couldn't get the exact size. And then he stumbled across a store close to him that had them. He said, 'Come in, we'll order them from here.' So we ordered them. Well, then they didn't, they didn't come in, and four months went by and I went back and I said, 'Give me back my money.' And they're like, okay, but they screwed up and actually charged me again. So I was like really mad. I was like, 'Oh my god. I've just paid $600 for a pair of boots I've never seen!' Right? So I had to go back and get all my money back from them. Then we went down the street about two blocks away and there were the boots! The exact fit and the exact everything that this guy wanted. So I bought them. They were close to $300. And I just went in and I got 'em. And he was so happy. Like, he was so gleeful!
Adam Huggins 16:14
[Laughing]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 16:14
[Laughing] Like, the amount of knowledge that he has since, since then imparted to me is beyond what I would consider what I gave him. So, it was a big lesson for me to realize that, you know... Yeah, you think 'Oh, it's like 200 bucks' or whatever. But then you realize the amount of knowledge you're getting is like a lifetime of knowledge. And how long did it take him to acquire that? So, it cost me a pair of boots. And I think that that's awesome because he continues to educate me because I respected his - his request. I didn't hesitate. I didn't judge him. I thought it was kind of cute. I was, 'Okay, this is what he wants' and - [laughs].
[Minimal marimba stops]
Adam Huggins 17:08
And finally, Cease brought all the threads together for us.
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 17:11
When I think about ecology, I think about humility and reciprocity. And I think those are two things we have to work on, in a deeper sense with our environment.
[Ambient acoustic music fade in]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 17:23
It's about how we look at what is around us and how we create a better relationship with the land, with the ecology. And so when you look at the teachings that come from ceremonial people, and you actually live those lives and follow those, those teachings, you start to realize how that knowledge is so ancient, and it comes from experience and what people have witnessed and that it's not just somebody making something up as they go along. And my personal view and walk in life is to really try and listen to those ceremonial people. And especially grassroots activists who I believe are really following the teachings of their ceremonial people. It brings me to this ideology I've come up with called ceremonial activism. And it's about people using ceremonial activities to, uh, protect the lands and the waters and the ecology, and to do it through ceremony, to actively continue the work they do. But, uh, it often comes in the form of standing in the way of resource extraction.
Media Clip 18:49
[Field recording of Khelsilem Dustin River shouting on megaphone at a protest, speaking in Coast Salish language]. People in this province and in this city know that this coast is our most precious relative, that we have a sacred obligation, all of us, not just Indigenous people, to protect what was given to us by our ancestors for the next generation. That's a responsibility for every single one of you living on our territory.
[Cheering and applause, drumming].
[Ambient acoustic music fade out]
Mendel Skulski 19:35
So this is something that's going to come up again and again, in all our stories, even the ones that, at their face, don't seem like they're really about people. Resource extraction is often taken as a fact of life. The big question is, can we change that? Can we become more ecologically conscious, but without leaving anybody behind?
Adam Huggins 19:55
It's definitely something that we're going to cover in more depth later on. But for now, I think what we're trying to do is just listen to the Indigenous perspective that comes from the place where we live.
[Field recording: river sounds, traditional Coast Salish music and singing by Sara Cadeau]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 20:14
So going back to one of my cultural roots, the [speaking in Skwxwú7mesh], we are the people of the water - the clean water. So, we are people always stayed near a freshwater source so that there was always a way to access fresh water for people. And so that we could cleanse ourselves and that we could keep everything we carry clean - our baskets, our tools, everything - and keeping that water clean as well. So, being around moving water, whether it's a river or stream, whether it's the ocean with the tides, the lakes that have their water flowing from the highest sources of the mountains through them and carrying on through the watershed into estuaries and into the ocean. And for me, coming from a culture that is based on water, it's important to, to know that water has tremendous force. It can save us, it can kill us. So, we are humble to the water [laughing].
[Field recording: river sounds, traditional Coast Salish music and singing by Sara Cadeau]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 21:44
So let's hear you say that.
Adam Huggins 21:46
[Attempting to speak in Skwxwú7mesh language]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 21:46
[Correcting Adam's Skwxwú7mesh language pronunciation]
Adam Huggins 21:48
[More clearly speaking Skwxwú7mesh language]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 21:49
[Prompting next words in Skwxwú7mesh language]
Adam Huggins 21:50
[Saying the next words in Skwxwú7mesh language]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 21:51
Say it again.
Adam Huggins 21:52
[Saying both part of sentence in Skwxwú7mesh language]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 21:54
[Speaking a new phrase in Skwxwú7mesh language].
Adam Huggins 21:54
[Laughing]
T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss 21:55
So I said, 'My heart feels lifted.' But what we just shared, the word is... [Speaking in Skwxwú7mesh language] - that phrase means 'really good work'.
[Theme music: electric folk with acoustic guitar plucking] 'Light Bringer' by Sunfish Moon Light.
Mendel Skulski 22:09
And with that, thanks for listening to Future Ecologies. I hope you'll join us on the journey ahead.
Adam Huggins 22:14
Thanks again to T’uy’t’tanat for sharing her stories and wisdom with us, and for being my introduction to the extraordinary world of plants back when.
Mendel Skulski 22:22
Cease Wyss, T’uy’t’tanat, is currently the Indigenous Storyteller in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library, and has a herbal tea company with her daughter, Senaqwila, called Raven Hummingbird Tea. You can check them out at ravenhummingbirdtea.com. She's also known as the Indigenous Plant Diva. And if you have the opportunity to take a Plant Walk with her, definitely take it.
Adam Huggins 22:41
Our first full length episode is also available right now. It's called 'This is Where it Begins'. You can listen to it right now. This has been an independent production of Future Ecologies. Our first season is supported in part by the Vancouver Foundation.
Mendel Skulski 22:56
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and iNaturalist The handle is always 'futureecologies'.
Adam Huggins 23:02
Special thanks to Sara Cadeau and Dustin Rivers, who you hear singing and speaking, respectively, at several protests over the Kinder Morgan Transmountain Pipeline expansion. Find out more about that at coastprotectors.ca
Mendel Skulski 23:17
Music in this episode was produced by Sunfish Moon Light and PORTBOU. You can find a full list of musical credits, show notes and links on our website, Futureecologies.net.
Adam Huggins 23:29
If you've made it this far, thank you so much again for listening. We can't wait to share the rest of the season with you.
[Theme music: electric folk with acoustic guitar plucking. Music plays out]. 'Light Bringer' by Sunfish Moon Light.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai and edited by Bastian Fox Phelan