July 16, 2001

The other day we had a young family of deer – a doe and two little fawns -  mucking about on the septic field, eating clover and oceanspray and some of the tender new growth on the salal bushes.  They were there for about four hours.   This is exactly the kind of browse that these little deer like to eat in the summer. 

The kind of deer we have on Bowen are mule deer, and more specifically, Columbian deer also known as Coast deer or Columbian black tailed deer.  They are a subspecies of the mule deer which ranges all over western Canada.  Here on Bowen, like most of the Gulf Islands, the deer are somewhat smaller than they are else where, owing to the limited nourishment.  They are great swimmers, and find themselves thriving on islands they can reach where most of their predators cannot.  Except of course the predators that travel by BC Ferries.  At any rate, the deer here on Bowen didn’t have to swim here.

That probably seems like a strange thing to say, but anyone familiar with the Squamish history of Howe Sound will know that the deer where created here.  Squamish history, like most Coast Salish history hinges tremendously on the activities of transformer figures, beings who traveled throughout the territory fixing things, giving them some for of permanence.  The Sto:lo transformers figures  (Xá:ls)were sent into the world in a time of mass confusion when animals and people could change their form at will.  The transformers traveled through the territory giving everything a permanent form,  Those that refused to cooperate were turned into rocks and other significant markers on the physical landscape, in part to remind others that messing around with the transformers is not such a good idea.

The Squamish likewise have a transformer figure called Xhais, who traveled throughout the land making sure that no animal had too much power over other animals.  Xhais often broke himself up into four brothers or three brothers and a sealskin canoe or a four legged creature like a bear. 

Robert Bringhurst, who is a man I much admire, wrote a wonderful essay about Xhais and the names of Howe Sound in a book called Howe Sounds: Fact fiction and fantasy from the writers of Bowen Island.  In there he re-tells a story about Xhais and his doings around these parts:

When the brothers first came to the country, things were too homogenous.  Perhaps, in fact, things were rather like they are now.  The animals were indistinguishable one from another, like shrink-wrapped meat, or the contents of tins.  But they weren’t dismembered and packaged.  They simply looked like humans do when they’re skinned.  They looked like humans.  The brothers themselves disguised themselves as three brothers and a sealskin canoe.  When the came ashore on Xwlil’xhwm, they met a man who was sharpening a bone.

“What are you up to?” they asked.

“Making arrow points,” said the man.  “I’ve heard that someone is coming to change us.  When he arrives I intend to kill him.”

“It’s true,” said the brothers seizing the man.  “Someone is coming.”

They pulled at his ears, his arms, his neck, his jowls and stretched and squeezed his fingers and toes.  They twisted his hips up and his shoulders down.  Then they planted two pieces of driftwood on his head and clapped their hands to chase him off.  He became the deer but he ran so fast the brothers feared he could never be caught.  They chased him and knocked his hoofs together to slow him down.  And they thrust the bone he had been working on into his foot, where it remains, the deer’s astralagus bone, which looks like a half-worked spear point.  Then they chased him away again. 

“That will do,” they said.  “He is slow enough now, but not too slow.”  Then they went on.

On they went around Howe Sound doing similar things to create the herons on Gambier Island, and snare the sun on Anvil Island, further up the Sound.

Those names, though.  Xwlil'xhwm: “Fast Drumming Ground.”  The name Bowen Island had been exclusively called by for probably 9860 of the past 10,000 years.  As Bringhurst says it is a name that is “a stony protuberance of meaning cloaked in a forest of evergreen consonants.”  It is a name that was replaced by Captain Richards in 1859, consistent with Captain George Vancouver’s naming the Sound for Admiral Richard Howe, the English hero of the Glorious First of June, the naval battle in the English Channel on June 1, 1794 when the French fleet was defeated.  And seen in the light of the ancient history of this area, the new names wear on the land like a bad coat of paint, reflecting the names of men who never saw this part of the world. Admiral Richard Howe who led the English fleet that day.  The officers Gambier, Bowyer and Keats who also fought in that battle with Rear-Admiral James Bowen.

The Squamish names, cloaked in that evergreen forest are much more interesting and revealing of the history of this territory.  Hood Point, at the northern end of Xwlil’xhwm is called Kwum’shnam (Thumping Feet).  Passage Island, just out my window to the south is Smetlmetllel’ch.  Anvil Island is Tlaxwm and a village on Gambier is known as St’ap’as.  In summer time Mount Garibaldi is called Ta Nch’qai’ (The Grimy One).  Horseshoe Bay is known as Ch’axhai’.  Port Mellon, behind us on the west side of the sound is known as Q’iq’lxhn. 

I’ve begun to inscribe these names on my chart of Howe Sound, and learning to pronounce them is a tongue twisting task that brings to life the land and stories that surround me, and explain why there are so many deer here.

The origin of the English names of Howe Sound

Here are a few of the place names in Howe Sound that were named for men and ships involved in the Glorious First of June.  A more detailed description of these names can be found here

[ Back to the Journal table of contents ]