Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter CANADA鈥橲 NATIONAL OBSERVER

The floodwaters rose swiftly and silently inside Nicole Norris鈥檚 family home and other residences of the Halalt First Nation on Vancouver Island when a storm unleashed a furious deluge of rain in November 2021.

Her brother, asleep in the home鈥檚 ground-floor suite, awoke when his leg, hanging off the side of the bed, became submerged by overflow from the Chemainus River, said Norris, an Indigenous planning officer for the B.C. Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness.

鈥淥ur home took on four feet of water in the basement. There was no sound to it,鈥� said Norris, also known as Alag瘫a瘫mi艂. 鈥淚nstantly, he yelled for my daughter and they were able to start pulling things from the basement.鈥�

Not everything of value escaped unscathed, said Norris, a regalia maker, weaver and cultural knowledge holder.

Prints and artwork on the walls were warped from the moisture in the house. Thankfully, Norris鈥檚 cache of wool, loom and cedar hat equipment escaped damage because they happened to be in her apartment off-reserve, she said.

Not all families were as lucky. A number of traditional weavers in the neighbouring Penelakut Nation lost wool used to make button blankets for the area鈥檚 famous Cowichan sweaters. It was the second back-to-back winter flood to take place in the Chemainus region in two years, only to be followed by another in 2022, she noted.

First Nations communities on Vancouver Island have suffered extensive flood damage and a rash of evacuations in recent years. Ongoing climate change is only expected to provoke increasingly intense rainstorms, compounding the threat of flooding in the region and potential damage to valuable cultural artifacts.

Now, a new initiative will help First Nations protect and restore sensitive artifacts from climate disasters such as fires and floods, Norris said. In the Campbell River area Strathcona Regional District, $250,000 from B.C.鈥檚 Community Emergency Preparedness Fund will go toward Indigenous cultural safety training.

鈥淲e鈥檙e inviting First Nations communities from across Vancouver Island and the central coast to come and participate in workshops to learn the skill set to take care of their sacred items for themselves,鈥� she said.

First Nations homes can resemble museums because they often house regalia, sacred objects or traditional artwork handed down through families, Norris said. While house and community infrastructure damage is generally insured and rebuilt following an emergency, the loss of valuable cultural artifacts like masks, carvings, blankets, paddles or totem poles often goes unacknowledged.

鈥淲hen I鈥檓 doing rapid damage assessments in the community after disasters, I鈥檓 looking at everything that didn鈥檛 get saved,鈥� Norris said.

鈥淪ome of these designs or artifacts were made by people who are long gone, and have been passed down through generations.鈥�

The goal of the funding is to co-develop a pilot training program and then offer five workshops for First Nations on Vancouver Island interested in learning hands-on skills to preserve, recover, salvage and restore community or generational belongings or artifacts, said Shaun Koopman, Strathcona Regional District鈥檚 protective services co-ordinator.

The first step is to team up First Nations regalia makers and cultural workers with emergency response personnel and planners and the BC Heritage Emergency Response Network (BCHERN), a volunteer network of heritage and restoration specialists.

Aside from developing workshop materials, emergency response personnel will learn to work in a more culturally sensitive manner with First Nations communities to recover artifacts after disasters, Koopman said.

There are gaps in the province鈥檚 disaster financial assistance to communities, which doesn鈥檛 consider the value of culturally important belongings, he added. BCHERN will also use input from First Nations to create guidance documents around the respectful and appropriate handling of baskets, masks, carvings, drums, feathers, regalia and other items.

Ultimately, the workshops will train a core group of First Nations responders to act as a 鈥渟acred cultural item salvage strike team,鈥� he said.

When disaster strikes, the end goal is to ensure that First Nations people are handling and restoring artifacts, especially sacred objects, which demand reverence and ceremony and which shouldn鈥檛 be exposed to people outside the culture, said Norris.

鈥淲e have rules around things that we are allowed to do and are not allowed to do when it comes to regalia,鈥� Norris said.

It鈥檚 important to identify items that are sacred and should only be handled by a First Nations curator, she added.

Norris has participated in a previous BCHERN restoration workshop and believes it is valuable at an individual and community level.

Sacred objects or articles crafted by regalia makers take a lot of time and money to produce and are often a critical source of income for those artists, she added.

鈥淚 personally would be devastated if I鈥檇 lost my wool or my cedar, or if my weaving loom was compromised,鈥� Norris said. 鈥淭his is about the preservation of that intimate cellular relationship that we have with our ancestors.鈥�

Aside from preventing losses locally due to climate disasters, expanding First Nations鈥� technical ability to protect and restore artifacts is also important for communities looking to repatriate artifacts from museums taken at the height of colonialism, said Mindy Ogden, heritage place specialist for Ka:鈥檡u:鈥檏鈥檛鈥檋鈥�/Che:k鈥檛les7et鈥檋鈥� (Kyuquot/Cheklesath) First Nation on western Vancouver Island.

鈥淲e鈥檙e thinking about the future, too, if we do set up display cases, or an artifact room for the repatriation of some sacred objects from museums,鈥� she said.

鈥淢useums don鈥檛 always release those objects too easily. They might have some questions about how we are going to guarantee the safety of this object.鈥�

Creating an inventory and assessing how the climate crisis or natural disasters, like tsunamis, might impact sacred sites or locations with cultural significance are of concern to KCFN鈥檚 emergency planners, Ogden said.

鈥淪ea level rise and worse storms with climate change, things like that are on our radar,鈥� she said.

鈥淭hings like middens and old village sites 鈥� they can start to erode away and then that information is lost.鈥�

Protecting or restoring important objects from climate or natural disasters is vital to rebuilding and safeguarding First Nations culture after it was nearly erased, said carver Matt Jack, who is in the process of sculpting KCFN鈥檚 first village totem pole in decades.

Totem poles, a form of historical record, capture and reflect a community鈥檚 culture and significant happenings at the time they are carved, said Jack, also an elected legislative member of the KCFN government.

鈥淭otem poles tell a story of the timeline we are in right now,鈥� Jack said.

鈥淎 lot of that鈥檚 been lost, like carvings, dance and songs. So, we鈥檝e been trying to rebuild and to do all this work, and to try to save it would be our story.鈥�

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