Our Elders recall
that their time in Húy̓at as youth was a time when work and play flowed into each other. They remember how hard their parents and grandparents worked to catch and process hundreds and hundreds of salmon as well as harvest other foods and material. They also recall how much fun it was for them to catch salmon from the river, to pick berries, and to listen to stories. In retrospect, our Elders understand that embedded in this mix of work and play was the learning of how to behave properly as a Heiltsuk community member.
"... I was only about 4 or 5. What else do you do at 4 or 5 but play then, we just do odd jobs like working on wood and learning how to tend fires."
- Edward Martin
"We were always kept busy doing something from when we got up in the morning till we went to bed. There's always something to do... When our grandmother and great-grandmother and auntie were busy with fish and it was our slow time we'd all be picking. We had some fun. There were swings. A swing on the trees that the boys used and they dropped into the river. So it was not all work. We had teeter-totters there."
- Emma Reid
"We loved wading and laying in the shallow river bed where the salmon would swim around us. It was one of my favourite pastimes."
- Joan Hall
