Camp established

Page 8

Several youths splash around in the waters of White Swan Lake, diving off a dock anchored not far from the shore. The water gets deep just a few metres from the bank, and it has taken a good portion of the intensely hot summers days to warm it to a comfortable swimming temperature.

In the cook tent, Hillary Vance prepares lunch, keeping one sharp eye on the swimmers. Vance is also the lifeguard for the Akisqnuk Rediscovery Camp.

"This has been a really good camp," said Vance. "Considering it is the first year, it's gone pretty smoothly."

Walking up the path from the tipis, which are a few hundred feet further up the shore from the eating area, is Olivia Phillip. She smiles quietly, stopping for a moment to shake hands and say hello before she continues on her way towards the cook tent.

"I love it here," she says, with another smile. "It is so quiet and peaceful."

It didn't take long after the first seed was planted in his head for Robert Firth to begin planning and formulating the Akisqnuk Rediscovery Camp.

In 2002, a friend mentioned she and her family had a cabin in the White Swan area, adding she always thought it would be a good place to have a camp for Aboriginal youth.

"Last year we sent four kids to the Ghost River Camp, so I thought, why can't we have a camp here?" said Firth, community healing co-ordinator at the Akisqnuk Health Centre in Windermere.

"Originally, B.C. Parks offered us the use of a piece of land near the day use park, but then they told me about the Cave Creek Campground," said Firth. "They said no one had used it in years, and there was a lot of work to do. So I walked over the ice to it during the winter and had a look around and realized it would be ideal."

The White Swan area is a highly significant and spiritual place for the Ktunaxa people, with evidence of their ancestors in abundance. Pictographs are visible in many areas, and stories about them have been handed down through the generations.

After more site visits with other members of the Columbia Lake band, Firth applied for funding from the Columbia Basin Trust and received 60 per cent of the needed dollars.

The Columbia Lake band, Ktunaxa Kinbasket Tribal Council and individual Ktunaxa bands also helped fund the project, which is owned and operated by Columbia Lake.

Soon "all the ducks went swimming in a row," Firth said, and this spring the physical work began.

"It's been a real learning experience," said Firth. "We had to clear dead trees, that kind of thing, but we did it. Just setting up the cook tent took a full day."

The camp's tipis are set a good distance away from the cook tent and eating area for safety reasons, and all of the guides have had extensive training in bear safety.

The camp's two senior guides were trained at Ghost River, and five junior guides at the camp are receiving further training on the job this summer.

One of the junior guides, 17-year-old Dwayne Burgoyne, said he is well aware of the meaning the White Swan area has for his people.

"This is where our ancestors walked by as they travelled back and forth to different areas," said Dwayne Burgoyne. "I feel very comfortable here. There is a lot of history in this place, like the pictographs."

Robert Firth said he has seen much growth in Burgoyne since the beginning of the summer.

"I think he has discovered some things about himself that he didn't know were there, like leadership skills," said Firth.

"A good example is the three-day trip to the Top of The World Park we take about the middle of the camp. Because it was a fairly large group, we had to take a lot of food along. When we reached the top, Dwayne and another youth put their packs down and headed back to camp to bring back two more packs. They did this without being asked. They just took the initiative. It is a two-and-a-half-hour hike, in hot weather, with heavy packs. That is role model stuff, the mark of a true guide."

Burgoyne ducked his head slightly at Firth's words, miling a little awkwardly at the praise.

"My grandma says I shouldn't have to be asked to do things," he explained. "I love this job. It is like, all the time you are doing nothing but having fun."

The camp's first two sessions-a boys' camp in July and a girls' camp in August-were well attended, said Firth. There were also two family camps in August.

"The next step is to find a way to make this financially stable, said Firth. "We don't want to make money with the camp, just keep it going, so eventually the junior counsellors here, and the youth who come, will take ownership of it and run it themselves."