A Whale in the Door

I was recently travelling through the interior of British Columbia with two of my grown children.  I like to read local authors when I travel so I visited a few bookstores.  In Grizzly Book and Serendipity Shop in Revelstoke, my kids helped me search the shelves and one of them found Pauline Le Bel’s A Whale in the Door: A Community Unites to Protect BC’s Howe Sound.

Howe Sound is the body of water that connects Vancouver and communities all the way to Squamish and back again to Gibsons, to the Pacific Ocean.  Le Bel relates the history of mining, forestry, pulp and paper mills and how Howe Sound became “dead” due to pollution.  Her lovely book describes the countless community groups and First Nations who have worked together to bring life back to this amazing ecosystem.  She also describes how the recovery is still fragile and is now being threatened by a Liquid Natural Gas plant.

Her narrative at times includes the voice of Howe Sound or as it is known in the Squamish language Atl’Kitsem.  She weaves the history of colonialism and the impact it has had on the Indigenous people who have lived there for thousands of years as well as on the land and the sea.  She interviews scientists, Indigenous elders, social activists, citizen scientists and industrialists, weaving the voices of the people that are part of the community that is on the traditional territory of the Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish).

Le Bel has some interesting things to say about story, about narrative that shed light on this new story of ours.  “The way you name something, a person, a tree or a mountain, is how you start to tell a story about it, a story that has a deep connection to that place or person.  The name becomes a container for the stories, the things that happened.” (p 18) 

Dealing with another kind of narrative, Le Bel relates the idea of the hero’s journey in which “the hero/heroine is given a challenge, leaves on a quest, learns from mentors, vanquishes the monsters/bad guys, and returns to the community as a saviour.” (p 127)  This is the plot behind most popular movies and stories.

Le Bel quotes mythologist Joseph Campbell who  believed that the hero’s journey “served as a useful story to empower adolescents and to inspire them to take on their role in the community.  Le Bel suggests that “it’s time to move on, to grow up, to leave the hero myth behind as a quaint and perhaps useful artifact of the past. The tasks that are facing us now demand grown-up narratives – narratives that empower communities of people to come together and transform their world.  Communities are not out there to slay dragons; they’re there to build something new.  Together.  No single person can imagine what this will look like, but a community of dedicated people can dream together and design a desirable future.” (p 127)

Le Bel quotes “Margaret Wheatley, who has written many books on community and leadership, [and] believes the world doesn’t change one person at a time, in spite of the ads and slogans.  The world changes ‘as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.  ‘Rather than worry about critical mass, she says, our work is to foster critical connections.’”

‘Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitments that lead to broad-based change.’  She believes ‘determination, energy and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something.  We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.’” (p 153)

Howe Sound  photo: Stoic Meditation Vancouver Observer

A Whale in the Door tells the story of these relationships, the practices that are coming out of them and the passion of so many people who understand that humans are a part of the environment, not masters of it.  This story is as ancient as the land and has only been forgotten for four hundred years by the colonizers.  But it is emerging once again and those who never forgot are joining with the descendants of those who forgot who are now remembering.  They are nurturing critical connections.  This book is hopeful, thoughtful and balances our capacity for destruction with our capacity for healing.  

         

Pauline Le Bel (2017) Whale in the Door: A Community Unites to Protect BC’s Howe Sound. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press