Lessons learned can become gifts offered

Opportunities occasionally come along where lessons learned can become gifts offered.  Making salves and felted heart pins at the Noone’s Creek Hatchery in Port Moody was such an opportunity.

Deacon, the Reverend Anne Anchor of St. John the Apostle, Port Moody introduced me to Tasha Faye Evans and the project In the Presence of Ancestors, creating and installing five Salish House Posts along Port Moody’s Shoreline Trail.

A ceremony to prepare the posts was scheduled for June 21, Indigenous People’s Day.

At the conclusion of the event gifts are distributed. This gift giving was one of the reasons historically given for implementing the Potlatch Ban from 1884 – 1951.

Making felted hearts and Poplar based salves provided some of the gifts for the event. Salve making was a skill learned through Métis herbalist and educator Lori Snyder. The buds were gathered at different places in the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people after consultation with a Squamish Elder.  

Gathering the materials for the salves connected us with the Earth, learning to make the salves and felted hearts provided engagement with others, and gifting them enabled us to participate in a small way in the work of Reconciliation.

Photos: Anne Anchor