For a group of East Vancouver aboriginal youth, the birth of a native canoe is more than just a construction project. It is a cultural awakening.
Saturday's launch at Burrard Inlet is a sacred ceremony marking the craft's transition from simply being a hallowed out cedar trunk to a sturdy ocean-going vessel.
The canoe is called "the perfect storm" because it was once a fallen tree toppled during the 2006 Stanley Park windstorms. The trees were donated to the Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre where they've become the centerpiece of a program aimed at giving young people a hands-on education in themselves.
"A lot of them are aboriginal but they don't know much about their own culture so a lot of it, they felt a kinship with the carver, with all the teachings that were going on," says Const. Rick Lavallee.
(This was a community project, organized by Christine Germano of the Constant Arts Society, an aboriginal arts organization. The canoe was carved by Mervyn Child of the north Vancouver Island-based Kwakwaka'wakw Nation).
Lavallee says this not only taught the kids about aboriginal traditions, but gave them a sense of ownership and pride that many had never felt.
"Youth that sometimes maybe show up for school late or maybe do not show up at all, six in the morning they were there helping tend the fire to do the steaming of this canoe."
And as the perfect storm took its first voyage into the waters of Burrard Inlet, that pride was more than apparent on the faces who had built her with their own hands.
"It was pretty sweet," says carver Amanda Leo. "Good experience just knowing something that I helped build and being like this seeing it from a log into a canoe was pretty sweet."
Perhaps even more encouraging is that these young people have not only learned something about themselves and their culture, but each and every one of them says they want to know more.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Stephen Smart
