Bella Coola interlude

The humid air and dense undergrowth of the area around Bella Coola and Hagensborg are completely different to the Chilcotin and Cariboo, with their dry hills and sagebrush, but entirely familiar to us being coastal people.

I had wanted to see the rock that Alexander Mackenzie signed but a boat trip to Dean Channel was necessary and there was no sign of any such trip being available. He was the first person to cross the North American continent - 12 years before Lewis and Clark! I've seen ice break up in his river delta in Inuvik (his first trip) and now here we are at the exit point of his second trip, the route of which followed one of the ancient grease trails.

I have never tasted eulachon or oolichan - depending on which book you read - oil from teh fish of the same name (but really it's a smelt). If what I hear from those who have tried it say is true it is truly disgusting, but there is not doubt it was a valuable commodity to the natives and then, later, the traders, who took the oil all over the province and into Alaska as a high energy source of food and fuel. Someone told me once that those small fish were so greasy that, when dried, they could be lit like candles. I will probably never get to test the theory as there is no longer an eulachon fishery in the province.

In the beginning in this place were the Nuxalk people, then Captain George Vancouver, then Alexander Mackenzie, then the Hudson's Bay post, then the Norwegians. There are still some Norwegian descendants here, but mostly it's the Nuxalk people, who are still here. Perhaps there's a parable in there.