Unreserved50:12Sacred Seven: The bear and its lessons on courage
Marven Robinson’s first encounter with a spiritual bear was a spiritual moment. “It was almost as if my life blinked in front of me,” he said.
On the instruction of his hereditary boss and his grandfather of Gitga’at, Chief Johnny Clifton, Robinson was showing a team around his homeland on the coast of BC to help them find and film the rare white bear.
“Suddenly … A big white bear came out and crossed the stream and went and caught a fish in front of us. I was only 19 years old and basically hooked me and I have been doing it since then.”
Bears are spiritually significant in many indigenous cultures. The bear represents courage in the seven sacred laws, also known as the seven Grandfather’s teachings, which are shared by several communities. Unreserved is exploring each of the seven teachings of this series, Sacred seven.
Robinson, also known as the “Spirit Bear Whisperer”, has been a bear guide for more than 25 years. It presents visitors and photographers to spiritual bears and coastal wolves through their company Gitga’at Spirit Tours based in Hartley Bay, BC
These rare black bears variants, also known as Kermode Bears, are revered by many first nations. Different legends explain the color of bears. “One of the legends that dates back to the glacial age is that the creator left one in 10 white black bears, just to remind us of the clean and pristine moments in which this land was covered with glaciers,” Robinson said.
The story reminds Robinson for his responsibility to take care of the lands in which he lives and in which he works. “We have been fortunate to share our territory with this bear. And I think it has taught us that we only share it. We are not owners of the area, the bears, the wild life that they live there. We feel that we are taking care of and try to maintain the area in the same way that it was when we find it.”
Conservation led by bear
Before his death, Chief Johnny Clifton gave Robinson the responsibility of caring for the spirit bear.
Robinson says that his work as a guide has helped him fulfill this responsibility, through public awareness and tourism.
Until the decade of 2010, the Gitga’at people maintained their local spirit with a secret, for fear of trophy hunt, he says. But finally, photographing the bear became a key piece of protecting them, and the territory of Gitga’at.
Robinson remembers when the EnBridge Northern’s gateway pipe project extended through the Hartley Bay area.
“[Photographer] Paul Nicklin was going to film some things for the cover of National Geographic, and had taken him to one of my special places. I called him a nursery for spiritual bears … And he was sitting with him when he could photograph one of the bears by a waterfall.
“‘Marvin’, he said, ‘If you want to save the territory of Gitga’at, you have to start taking people here, so they have to do what we are seeing today’. And once National Geographic had the bear on the cover, the cat was out of the bag and people began to come.
Robinson says that the movement prevented irreparable environmental damage to its homeland, thanks in part to the spirit bear.
LESSONS FROM A SKIN OF BEAR
On the opposite coast, a polar bear skin is helping Vanessa flowers to preserve their Inuit culture.
When a hunter from his community in Hopepedale, Nunatsiavut, a young polar bear reaped, Flowers approached him to see if she and her brother Nicholas could observe him while cleaning his skin.
“He said: ‘Actually, I’m trying to sell it as it is. Do you want to buy it?’ And we think: ‘You know, this is the perfect opportunity to learn.’ “
Flores brothers are cultural teachers. Together with other young people, they created the Inotsiavik center, an organization that connects Inuit in Nunatsiavut with their language and culture. Last year they He won $ 1 million Establish the center through the Arctic Inspiration Award.
The brothers are well practiced in cleaning seal skins, but the cleaning of a polar bear was a new and much greater challenge.
“Between my brother and I, we started at one in the afternoon and we finished cleaning it at seven, I think it was six or seven hours cleaning it directly with some breaks in the middle … it seemed that it had never finished.”
When the march got hard, Flowers says he was inspired by his late grandmother, whom he had seen cleaning polar bears when he was a child.
“When he grew so much, I told the hunters: ‘If you are going to kill the bear, you must learn to clean it yourself because I am becoming old.’ … and now they clean it themselves because they learned from it.
Now that the skin is cleaned, it has to dry for several weeks in a frame. Once this process is carried out, Flowers wants the skin to be used to program in your community, as a place to sit in a tent or an Iglú. If she and her brother clean a future bear skin, it will be used as sewing material for the participants of her program.
She wants to recreate the warm and curative atmosphere that her grandmother, known by some as Aunt Joy, always did for others in the community. “Someone said he feels like Aunt Joy’s, and I thought, that’s why we are doing what we are doing, to give people a feeling of homely sensation where they can come and be themselves and live well … and sew and chat and laugh.”
Everything adds to a goal for flowers: to help Inuit to connect to their identities and with each other.
“You should know where you come from to know where you are going. I have always said that it is as if I are not learning something new. What is already inside is awake.”
This story is part of a series of without reservations called Sacred Seven. The series explores the seven sacred teachings and presents the indigenous elders, knowledge guardians and community members who are putting those teachings into action.
