Bella Bella - Travel Day
Such a beautiful day to travel to Waglisla (Bella Bella BC)!
Mentors Lisa w and Lisa g are excited to return and Glenn G flew all the way from Montreal to share his animation skills.
After the usual re-arrangement of gear at the airport…our carry-on weight had to be distributed among the three mentors - the laptops are heavy! And our check-in luggage grew from 4 to 6 items - we always have a lot of stuff to bring! And this time Glenn is packing his own cool animation set up! Super patient Pacific Coastal agent! Thank you!
Even though we were initially warned that Bella Bella was socked in with cloud cover we took off bright and early (8:25am) from Vancouver’s South Terminal and headed first to Port Hardy. Thankfully the weather cleared and we carried on to Bella Bella. The fog cleared and a beautiful sunshiny and blue sky day welcomed us! Howie and Lori were waiting at the airport. SO Nice to see them both. We all squeezed into the minivan - thanks Howie’s Mom! - and off to the youth centre to leave the gear…but first…we check out the NEW BIG HOUSE!
The Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation Big House official opening was Oct 13-17 and much like it looked in all the press and social media…It is gorgeous . Great trees from the Heiltsuk territory provide the beams and supports! You can smell the cedar as you first enter! A Big House is a representation of the human body with the roof and beams being the spine and ribs, the house poles inside representing arms and legs, the front the face and the drum representing the heartbeat. The sand and rocks are collected from different parts of the Heiltsuk territory. Carver Ian Reid gifted his 4 carved house poles to the Big House! The Haida gifted a pole carved by Christian White (brought over on the ferry on a flat bed from Haida Gwaii!) Maori from New Zealand gifted a carved wall hanging! Paddles and paintings, mugs and blankets were also brought. 1000 people came to the community to celebrate. The first and last dance of the opening ceremonies was the Children’s Dance! On the first day the celebrations were for Heiltsuk only and then the days that followed everyone was allowed to participate. It is the first Big House here in over 100 years. it is such a historic moment, a celebration of Heiltsuk culture that continues as a way of life.
Howie and Lori kindly walked us through the building top to toe. Then they made us lunch! Thank you so much! Then at 2:15pm some of the LRP (Leadership) students came by the Youth Centre and we all had a nice chat about the filmmaking opportunity. We all introduced and re-introudced ourselves. We have an enthusiastic group of interested folks ….
Astrid, Bella, Elle, Latoya, Aaliyah, Hailey and Ange are all returning to make new films and Sam, Kaitlynn and Georgia will join us for the first time!
We watched some films and threw around ideas ! Perhaps there will be a film with an original rap song… perhaps there will be a film about a filmmakers’ family…perhaps there will be a film about climate change… perhaps there will be a film about the Big House! We have some folks interested in animation some totally into photography and art! BRING it on! A super fun way to start things here.
SO EXCITED!
