GRANDMA BETTY HENDERSON NEE HUNT

This beautiful woman is my grandmother, Betty Henderson (neé Hunt) wearing her signature blue and posing for me in her comfy reading chair in Nanaimo just above the harbour. I think of her there, knitting, reading to me and telling stories of the world and our heritage growing up.

I have been feeling a deep pang for my grandmother, Betty. Seeing her surrounded by family. Exuding quiet pride. Such a powerhouse. Something about Autumn feels like I should be off to visit her. She is much missed. 

My memories from here are from my childhood. I lived about half a mile from here on the old Hudson’s Bay site. 

My father Gordon Fredrick Henderson met my Norwegian mother, Diana (Dee) Eikanger in Vancouver. He moved her up the coast. Way up. Then when my sister Sonja was born promised to move her closer to town. 

His vision of closer and her vision of closer were not an exact match. They travelled down the coast to Port Hardy on the north end of Vancouver Island. Outside of Port Hardy is Fort Rupert, Tsaxis (back when Betty’s Store was the only store) outside of that is the beach community at Stories Beach with ten houses, past my godfather Hereditary Chief Peter Knox’s house & the other Kwakwaka'wakw houses... up the hill to our new house with neighbours that included a resident eagle & a small graveyard of ancestors. Yes, closer to town. 

Love that man. 

When we lived there, the original Hudson's Bay Company Fort was rubble. It was built back in 1849 to be a centre for the fur trade and to protect a nearby coalfield. It was the centre of a battle in 1865 when the charming folk from the British Royal Navy bombed the beach and village. Houses were rebuilt & history moved on. 

When Franz Boas arrived in Tsaxis in 1886 on a collecting expedition for the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin, he made Xwamdasbe' his first destination. Boas illustrated four of the named houses in the village in his first major scholarly book, published in 1895, "Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians." Franz was a bit of a marketing showboat. 

Kwakwaka'wakw masks collected at Xwamdasbe' for the Ethnology Museum in Berlin by J. Adrian Jacobsen were illustrated by Boas. Two masks of note — Raven & Sea Monster for the Hamatsa Dance — are amongst the oldest & finest of this form in any collection worldwide. Hopefully, the masks, coppers & lost Chilkat Naaxein blankets will eventually find their way home.

On a family note, when my sister and I were a bit older there were many trips back & forth to Salhus, Knarvik & Eikanger Hordaland, Norway so it did even out in the end. A̱'ex'idalamase'x̱us 'nalax̱