Took a small ship cruise in Gwaii Haanas, the Canadian National Park Reserve (co-managed by the Haida Nation) that takes up the southern third of Haida Gwaii, the archipelago off the north coast of British Columbia.  We moored one night in Crescent Inlet.  The next overcast and sometimes rainy morning, the water was like glass as we pulled anchor and headed to our next destination. I wasn't the only passenger soon mesmerized by the ship's wake, its undulating swells creating marvelous patterns on the still surface and fancifully altering reflections of sky, trees and mountains.  One observant passenger noted the resemblance of the swell pattern to the ovoid at the foundation of indigenous Northwest Coast art, especially that of the Haida.  A coincidence? Or had millennia of watching such wakes fanning out from the rear of canoes engrained the shape in the cultural subconscious of these original people?  

                                            © 2019 by Christopher Bomba

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