Built from a 600-year-old red cedar log and spanning 30-feet, Vancouver International Airport’s (YVR) hand-crafted canoe is not only a symbol of Musqueam culture, but of two communities coming together to practise traditions passed down for generations.
Musqueam and the airport began building the canoe in May 2019 after Mary Point, director of Indigenous relations at YVR, received a call from operations staff about the possibility.
“I spoke to our Elders about how we would be able to move forward with building a canoe,” she said. “We don’t want to build a fine piece of art. We want something that we can use for team building and learning and continued cultural sharing.”
Point also said she thought the idea epitomized a 30-year long friendship agreement the airport has with the Musqueam Nation, which is based on achieving “a sustainable and mutually beneficial future for (the) community,” according to YVR.
When it came to deciding on which type of canoe to build, Point showed Lyle Sparrow, a Musqueam Elder and carver, sketches from Spanish artist Jose Cardero of canoes Indigenous Peoples took when they greeted him during his 18th century expedition along the B.C. coast.
She said it was then that Sparrow told her the sketches depicted ocean-going canoes, which had not been built in the Musqueam territory in more than a century.
More than 120 YVR staff signed up for multiple lunch-and-learns to help strip, dig out, shape and test the canoe on the water along with 10 Musqueam Elders and their families. Point said staff also participated in a canoe-naming competition.
“Then, we invited others from (the) community to actually take it a little bit further,” Point said.
“Our cedar weaver Sandra Fossella came with her auntie, Thelma Stogan. They … taught the staff how to strip the bark off the canoe and then how to make cedar roses and cedar rope and what you do when you first make something, a traditional item, you have to give your first one away.”
Once the team finished the canoe in September 2019, they wanted to take it out on a journey from YVR to the Musqueam Cultural Centre.
However, Point said with the Fraser River being too choppy, the pandemic in 2020 and the airport’s CEO Tamara Vrooman catching COVID-19 last summer, the canoe remained in storage at YVR.
But in August this year, YVR unveiled the canoe along with the Gathering Place, a new space in domestic arrivals for housing the canoe and where passengers can learn about Musqueam history from a timeline featured on the wall.
The Gathering Place was created after Craig Richmond, YVR’s former CEO, left the airport.
While it is tradition for the airport authority to dedicate a space for a CEO once they leave, Point said Richmond wanted to give it to Musqueam, because the YVR friendship agreement with the First Nation was the highlight of his career.
Point added there will be a canoe-naming ceremony later this fall, likely in October.
“When we pulled the bark off the canoe, there was an image of a grizzly bear swimming in the water, and the carvers Lyle and (Johnny Louis) said, ‘The canoe is trying to name itself,” she said.
“And I was like, ‘I already put out a let’s-name-that-canoe contest,’ and (they said), ‘Well, the canoe is telling you it’s got a name already.’”
Point said the canoe is YVR’s “first usable piece of art,” and she hopes to see it out on the water more often than in the Gathering Place.
“The canoe will not always be there when you come, because we’re encouraging our staff now that we’re sort of on the other side of the pandemic … to learn and to start their own canoe club here,” she said. “Our staff needs to get with (Louis) and his canoe club and take it out on the water.”
