Canoe families honour memory of one of their own

Sara Parker of Neah Bay, Wash. never really knew Jerry Jack of Tsaxana, Vancouver Island, but they are forever linked.

Parker was only 16 when Jack asked if he could paddle in the canoe that she skippered during Canoe Journeys in 2006, the canoe that was hit by a two-and-a-half metre wave sending all six of the crew into the cold waters of Juan De Fuca Strait.

Five survived the incident. Jack, 68, a Mowachaht hereditary chief, drowned at the scene. Parker stills suffers thinking about the accident. That’s why Jerry Jack Jr. presented her with his father’s paddle on April 3. Jack Jr. wanted Parker to know his family loved her and wanted her to heal.

The presentation was made during a two-day potlatch held to honor the memory of Jerry Jack and his daughter Colleen Pendleton, who succumbed to illness not long after her father’s sudden death.

Parker traveled from Neah Bay to Port Alberni to witness the family put away their grief through ceremony, drying their tears and celebrating the lives of their loved ones.
Jack Jr. told Parker no one was to blame for the incident as he presented the paddle that he cherished so much as a reminder of his father. Parker shed some tears and a prayer chant was done as she received the gift.

The potlatch was about four years in the planning, and the event was a highly anticipated one up and down the island, and wherever canoe people lived. The late Jerry Jack was widely known and very respected, and the large gymnasium where the potlatch was held was filled to capacity from morning and into the wee hours of the night.

A thousand meals were served on the first day alone. Many people who had hoped to honor the family’s invitation to attend the potlatch had to turn away because there was no room for them in the building.
The Kwagulth, relatives from the east side of the Island, brought out their songs and dances, including the Hamatsa, the dance of a wildman and the supernatural birds that bring him food.

Led by Elder Adam Dick, the Kwagulth were the first group to perform and they danced and sang for three hours.

Later the family of Kelly John performed. They had composed a song and dance for Claire Newman, the late Jerry Jack’s sister, and her daughter. The dance came from a dream where a young girl was being asked by her late brother to dance in the rain with him. The sister told her brother she didn’t like the rain and she didn’t have an umbrella. The brother told his sister that the raindrops were powerful and the water was pure.

Other nations performed, bringing out their treasured songs, providing money and gifts to help the Jack family care for their guests.

Dance shawls had been made for the Mowachaht/Muchalaht dancers with a design that showed late Jerry Jack in a canoe, underneath a representation of Luna the whale.

Luna made headlines around the world with the Mowachaht people believing he was their reincarnated head chief Ambrose Maquinna. Maquinna believed that he would one day return to his people as a whale.

So friendly was Luna, the killer whale, that officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans feared for its safety and hoped to remove the whale from the proximity of people, returning him to the open ocean to rejoin his pod.

A tug of war between the Native and non-Native populations over the whale’s future ensued.

Jerry Jack had a good relationship with Luna. He could stand on the wharf and chant and Luna would come to him. Luna would play with Jerry as he paddled his canoe.
Dr. Simon Lucas described Jerry Jack as an extraordinary man who stood up to government and Canadian law to assert his rights over his traditional territory. He advocated for a healthy leadership, making a resolution for the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council that no one could show up to a meeting if they had been drinking. It’s a policy that stands to this day.

Jerry Jack Jr. was overwhelmed by the response to his family’s invitation to honor the memory of his father and sister. His Aunt Claire Newman was astounded by the songs and dances that came out to celebrate her relatives.

“For our family it was the best medicine.”