KILLER WHALES OF THE PACIFIC: KEET MAX'INUX

One of the iconic animals of the Pacific Northwest are Orca or Killer Whales — Keet in Lingit. Keet-Shaa-gooon' — our ancestors. These playful giants hunt and play in our local waters and all the oceans of the world.

This past week, there has been a pod hunting and playing in the waters near where I am visiting on Vancouver Island. It is wonderful and a wee bit unusual to see them so long in the same hunting grounds. This partially due to their normal hunting behaviour but definitely impacted by the relentless roar of the motors of whale-watching boats.

I do like folk taking an interest in our wildlife. We are more likely to work to protect them if we get to know them. But hunting down a decent meal, courting a mate and rearing your young are challenging with all that racket going on. Imagine trying to cook dinner, play catch with your kid or make love to your partner with half a dozen looky-loos on a hovercraft watching your every move. A bit of attention is flattering but at some point that becomes creepy. 

And yes, whale watchers are meant to keep a healthy distance but that was certainly not the case with the crowd of boats this week. 

Not surprising then that the whales try to dodge the relentless spectators — expending energy on avoiding us instead of on the business of being whales... hunting, eating, rearing, mating. Sometimes we forget ourselves and enjoy wildlife to our own amusement not realizing the impact we have.

Orca are toothed whales who hunt our waters for fish, squid, birds and aquatic mammals. They are the largest member of the Dolphin family who hunt and live amongst their family groups or pods. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, orca are known as max̱'inux̱. I do not know the word for orca in the language of the Quw'utsun Cowichan First Nation whose shores they are swimming near this week. 

These large marine mammals are easily distinguished by their black-and-white colouration, large dorsal fin and a sleek, streamlined body. You can often get a peek at their top fin and just enough of their distinctive white eye patch to identify them from a distance.

Up close, their colouring is equally lovely. When I was little, a few resident orcas would come up to our float house and rub up against the side to give themselves a good scritch. We used to offer to help them with this by lowering a deck broom and rubbing it along them. They would roll around playfully and seemed to enjoy it much the same way dogs and cats appreciate a good scratch. 

They show curiosity and intelligence when they look at you and understand that your intention was to help not hurt when the broom was offered. One of them did give the broom a gentle nibble and carried it off a ways but very politely returned it a few minutes later. 

Across their back and along their pectoral flippers is a nice glossy black, The exception is their saddle, a wee patch of greyish white just behind their dorsal fin.  

Whales breathe through their nostril or blowhole that sits in the centre of their forehead. The blow of mist you see in the photo above is this fellow breathing and pushing air out through his blowhole and some seawater along with it. 

Killer whales have a white patch under their heads (lower jaw), under each fluke and a patch along their rear edge as you move towards the tail. While these patches of white make them easier for us to see and identify them, they act as camouflage to those they are hunting in the water.

Their large bodies are streamlined (hydrodynamic), like a submarine, for moving through the water. Whales have flukes or a tail used for swimming. The flukes are moved in an up-and-down motion to accelerate. The dorsal fin acts like the keel of a boat; it keeps the whale from rolling side to side while swimming. They have pectoral flippers just behind the head. These pectoral flippers are used for steering, turning, and stopping.

Live in coastal and offshore waters; resident pods may frequent localized waterways (bays, sounds, etc.) whereas transient pods tend to cover more extensive, varied areas.

An extended clan of orcas, known as the Southern Resident Orca community, socialize and forage in the inland waters of Washington State and British Columbia. The population grows and lessens in relation to the overall Chinook salmon abundance. It may have been this pod that were playing off our shores this week. They are certainly in the neighborhood on and off.

Females (cows) reach reproductive maturity quite late in life at around 14 to 15 years. They give birth every three to ten years, following a 17-month pregnancy. In our local waters, these young join the pod and stay together their whole lives.

At birth, the 2.6 m long calves arrive able to swim and dive and grow quickly feasting on their mothers' milk for the first year of their lives. 

The newborns stay close to mamma, feeding and learning from her and from the close-knit members of the pod. Over the course of their lives, these newborns will grow from 120 to 160 kg up to 3,600 to 7,250 kg.

Like all dolphins, orcas use sophisticated biological sonar, called echolocation. Echolocation enables them to locate and discriminate objects underwater. The vocalizations within whale communities vary and each are different from those in other communities. The calls also bring the pods together over large areas of water when it is not possible for the whales to see each other.

When all goes well, orcas live to be a ripe old age. Some males have been known to live into their 40s and perhaps up to 60+ years old. Females have been known to live up to 90+ years old.

KILLER WHALES OF THE PACIFIC: KEET MAX'INUX

One of the iconic animals of the Pacific Northwest are Orca or Killer Whales — Keet in Lingit. Keet-Shaa-gooon' — our ancestors. These playful giants hunt and play in our local waters and all the oceans of the world.

This past week, there has been a pod hunting and playing in the waters near Maple Bay on Vancouver Island. It is wonderful and a wee bit unusual to see them so long in the same hunting grounds. This partially due to their normal hunting behaviour but definitely impacted by the relentless roar of the motors of whale-watching boats.

I do like folk taking an interest in our wildlife. We are more likely to work to protect them if we get to know them. But hunting down a decent meal, courting a mate and rearing your young are challenging with all that racket going on. Imagine trying to cook dinner, play catch with your kid or make love to your partner with half a dozen looky-loos on a hovercraft watching your every move. A bit of attention is flattering but at some point that becomes creepy. 

And yes, whale watchers are meant to keep a healthy distance but that was certainly not the case with the crowd of boats this week. 

Not surprising then that the whales try to dodge the relentless spectators — expending energy on avoiding us instead of on the business of being whales... hunting, eating, rearing, mating. I share this so we do not forget ourselves and enjoy wildlife to our own amusement not realizing the impact we have.

Orca are toothed whales who hunt our waters for fish, squid, birds and aquatic mammals. They are the largest member of the Dolphin family who hunt and live amongst their family groups or pods. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, orca are known as max̱'inux̱. I do not know the word for orca in the language of the Quw'utsun Cowichan First Nation whose shores they are swimming near this week. 

These large marine mammals are easily distinguished by their black-and-white colouration, large dorsal fin and a sleek, streamlined body. You can often get a peek at their top fin and just enough of their distinctive white eye patch to identify them from a distance.

Up close, their colouring is equally lovely. When I was little, a few resident orcas would come up to our float house and rub up against the side to give themselves a good scritch. We used to offer to help them with this by lowering a deck broom and rubbing it along them. They would roll around playfully and seemed to enjoy it much the same way dogs and cats appreciate a good scratch. 

They show curiosity and intelligence when they look at you and understand that your intention was to help not hurt when the broom was offered. One of them did give the broom a gentle nibble and carried it off a ways but very politely returned it a few minutes later. 

Across their back and along their pectoral flippers is a nice glossy black, The exception is their saddle, a wee patch of greyish white just behind their dorsal fin.  

Whales breathe through their nostril or blowhole that sits in the centre of their forehead. The blow of mist you see in the photo above is this fellow breathing and pushing air out through his blowhole and some seawater along with it. 

Killer whales have a white patch under their heads (lower jaw), under each fluke and a patch along their rear edge as you move towards the tail. While these patches of white make them easier for us to see and identify them, they act as camouflage to those they are hunting in the water.

Their large bodies are streamlined (hydrodynamic), like a submarine, for moving through the water. Whales have flukes or a tail used for swimming. The flukes are moved in an up-and-down motion to accelerate. The dorsal fin acts like the keel of a boat; it keeps the whale from rolling side to side while swimming. They have pectoral flippers just behind the head. These pectoral flippers are used for steering, turning, and stopping.

Live in coastal and offshore waters; resident pods may frequent localized waterways (bays, sounds, etc.) whereas transient pods tend to cover more extensive, varied areas.

An extended clan of orcas, known as the Southern Resident Orca community, socialize and forage in the inland waters of Washington State and British Columbia. The population grows and lessens in relation to the overall Chinook salmon abundance. It may have been this pod that were playing off our shores this week. They are certainly in the neighborhood on and off.

Females (cows) reach reproductive maturity quite late in life at around 14 to 15 years. They give birth every three to ten years, following a 17-month pregnancy. In our local waters, these young join the pod and stay together their whole lives.

At birth, the 2.6 m long calves arrive able to swim and dive and grow quickly feasting on their mothers' milk for the first year of their lives. 

The newborns stay close to mamma, feeding and learning from her and from the close-knit members of the pod. Over the course of their lives, these newborns will grow from 120 to 160 kg up to 3,600 to 7,250 kg.

Like all dolphins, orcas use sophisticated biological sonar, called echolocation. Echolocation enables them to locate and discriminate objects underwater. The vocalizations within whale communities vary and each are different from those in other communities. The calls also bring the pods together over large areas of water when it is not possible for the whales to see each other.

When all goes well, orcas live to be a ripe old age. Some males have been known to live into their 40s and perhaps up to 60+ years old. Females have been known to live up to 90+ years old.

STRENGTH AND BEAUTY: ORCA MAX'INUX

One of the iconic animals of the Pacific Northwest are Orca or Killer Whales. These playful giants hunt and play in our local waters and all the oceans of the world.

This past week, there has been a pod hunting and playing in the waters near Maple Bay on Vancouver Island. It is wonderful and a wee bit unusual to see them so long in the same hunting grounds. This partially due to their normal hunting behaviour but definitely impacted by the relentless roar of the motors of whale watching boats.

I do like folk taking an interest in our wildlife. We are more likely to work to protect them if we get to know them. But hunting down a decent meal, courting a mate and rearing your young are challenging with all that racket going on. Imagine trying to cook dinner, play catch with your kid or make love to your partner with half a dozen looky-loos on a hovercraft watching your every move. A bit of attention is flattering but at some point that becomes creepy. 

And yes, whale watchers are meant to keep a healthy distance but that was certainly not the case with the crowd of boats this week. 

Not surprising then that the whales try to dodge the relentless spectators — expending energy on avoiding us instead of on the business of being whales... hunting, eating, rearing, mating. I share this so we do not forget ourselves and enjoy wildlife to our own amusement not realizing the impact we have.

Orca are toothed whales who hunt our waters for fish, squid, birds and aquatic mammals. They are the largest member of the Dolphin family who hunt and live amongst their family groups or pods. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, orca are known as max̱'inux̱. I do not know the word for orca in the language of the Quw'utsun Cowichan First Nation whose shores they are swimming near this week. 

These large marine mammals are easily distinguished by their black-and-white colouration, large dorsal fin and a sleek, streamlined body. You can often get a peek at their top fin and just enough of their distinctive white eye patch to identify them from a distance.

Up close, their colouring is equally lovely. When I was little, a few resident orcas would come up to our float house and rub up against the side to give themselves a good scritch. We used to offer to help them with this by lowering a deck broom and rubbing it along them. They would roll around playfully and seemed to enjoy it much the same way dogs and cats appreciate a good scratch. 

They show curiosity and intelligence when they look at you and understand that your intention was to help not hurt when the broom was offered. One of them did give the broom a gentle nibble and carried it off a ways but very politely returned it a few minutes later. 

Across their back and along their pectoral flippers is a nice glossy black, The exception is their saddle, a wee patch of greyish white just behind their dorsal fin.  

Whales breathe through their nostril or blowhole that sits in the centre of their forehead. The blow of mist you see in the photo above is this fellow breathing and pushing air out through his blowhole and some seawater along with it. 

Killer whales have a white patch under their heads (lower jaw), under each fluke and a patch along their rear edge as you move towards the tail. While these patches of white make them easier for us to see and identify them, they act as camouflage to those they are hunting in the water.

Their large bodies are streamlined (hydrodynamic), like a submarine, for moving through the water. Whales have flukes or a tail used for swimming. The flukes are moved in an up-and-down motion to accelerate. The dorsal fin acts like the keel of a boat; it keeps the whale from rolling side to side while swimming. They have pectoral flippers just behind the head. These pectoral flippers are used for steering, turning, and stopping.

Live in coastal and offshore waters; resident pods may frequent localized waterways (bays, sounds, etc.) whereas transient pods tend to cover more extensive, varied areas.

An extended clan of orcas, known as the Southern Resident Orca community, socialize and forage in the inland waters of Washington State and British Columbia. The population grows and lessens in relation to the overall Chinook salmon abundance. It may have been this pod that were playing off our shores this week. They are certainly in the neighborhood on and off.

Females (cows) reach reproductive maturity quite late in life at around 14 to 15 years. They give birth every three to ten years, following a 17-month pregnancy. In our local waters, these young join the pod and stay together their whole lives.

At birth, the 2.6 m long calves arrive able to swim and dive and grow quickly feasting on their mothers' milk for the first year of their lives. 

The newborns stay close to mamma, feeding and learning from her and from the close-knit members of the pod. Over the course of their lives, these newborns will grow from 120 to 160 kg up to 3,600 to 7,250 kg.

Like all dolphins, orcas use sophisticated biological sonar, called echolocation. Echolocation enables them to locate and discriminate objects underwater. The vocalizations within whale communities vary and each are different from those in other communities. The calls also bring the pods together over large areas of water when it is not possible for the whales to see each other.

When all goes well, orcas live to be a ripe old age. Some males have been known to live into their 40s and perhaps up to 60+ years old. Females have been known to live up to 90+ years old.

FIRST NATION POLES IN STANLEY PARK

Totem, Welcome & Mortuary Poles at Stanley Park

If you visit Brockton Point in Stanley Park, there are many carved red cedar First Nation poles for you to admire.  

What you are viewing are replicas of First Nation welcome and totem poles that once stood in the park but have been returned to their homes within the province's diverse First Nation communities — or held within museum collections. 

Some of the original totems came from Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, near the Port McNeill on the north coast of Vancouver Island. Others came from communities in Haida Gwaii — and still more from the Wuikinuxv First Nations at Rivers Inlet on British Columbia's central west coast — home of the Great Bear Rainforest with her Spirit Bears.

The exception is the most recent addition carved by Robert Yelton in 2009. Robert is a First Nation carver from the Squamish Nation and his original welcome pole graces Brockton Point, the original settlement site of a group of Squamish-Portuguese settlers.  

If you look at the photo above, the lovely chocolate, red and turquoise pole on the right is a replica of the mortuary pole raised to honour the Raven Chief of Skedans or Gida'nsta, the Haida phrase for from his daughter, the title of respect used when addressing a person of high rank. Early fur traders often took the name of the local Chief and used it synonymously as the place names for the sites they visited — hence Skedans from Gida'nsta.

Chief Skedans Mortuary Pole

Chief Skedans, or Qa'gials qe'gawa-i, to his children, lived in Ḵ’uuna Llnagaay, or village at the edge, in Xaayda Kil — a village on the exposed coast of Louise Island — now a Haida Heritage Site.  

There are some paintings you may have seen by Emily Carr of her visits to the site in 1912, She used the phonetic Q'una from Q:o'na to describe both the place name and title of her work. 

Carr's paintings of the totems have always looked to me to be a mash-up — imagine if painter Tamara de Lempicka and photographer Edward Curtis had a baby — not pretty, but interesting.

Some called this area, Huadju-lanas or Xu'adji la'nas, which means Grizzly-Bear-Town, in reference to resident grizzly bear population and their adornment of many totems and artwork by the local artists.

Upon Chief Skedan's death, the mortuary pole was carved both to honour him and provide his final resting place. Dates are a bit fuzzy, but local accounts have this as sometime between 1870-1878 — and at a cost of 290 blankets or roughly $600 in today's currency. 

The great artistry of the pole was much admired by those in the community and those organizing the celebrations for the 1936 Vancouver Golden Jubilee — witnessed by  350,000 newly arrived residents.

Negotiations were pursued and the pole made its way down from Haida Gwaii to Stanley Park in time for the celebrations. The original totem graced Stanley Park for a little over twenty years before eventually making its way back to Haida Gwaii. It was returned to the community with bits of plaster and shoddy paint marring the original. These bits were scraped off and the pole welcomed back with due ceremony. 

In 1964, respected and renowned Northwest Coast master carver, Bill Reid, from the Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay, Raven/Wolf Clan of T'anuu, Haida Gwaii and Scottish-German descent, was asked to carve this colourful replica. 

Mountain Goat Detail, Skedans Mortuary Pole

Reid carved the totem onsite in Stanley Park with the help of German carver Werner True. Interestingly, though I looked at length for information on Werner True, all I can find is that he aided Bill Reid on the carving for a payment of $1000.

Don Yeomans, Haida master carver, meticulously recarved the moon crest in 1998. If you have admired the totem pole in the Vancouver Airport, you will have seen some of Yeoman's incredible work. 

The crest is Moon with the face, wings, legs and claws of a mighty and proud Thunderbird with a fairly smallish hooked beak in a split design. We have Moon to thank for the tides and illuminating our darkest nights. As a crest, Moon is associated with transformation and acting as both guardian and protector.

The original pole had a mortuary box that held the Chief's remains. The crest sits atop a very charming mountain goat. I have included a nice close-up here of the replica for you to enjoy. 

Mountain Goats live in the high peaks of British Columbia and being so close to the sky, they have the supernatural ability to cross over to the sky world. They are also credited as being spirit guardians and guides to First Nation shamans.

I love his horns and tucked in cloven hooves. There is another pole being carved on Vancouver Island that I hope to see during its creation that also depicts a Mountain Goat. With permission and in time, I hope to share some of those photos with you. 

Mountain Goat is sitting atop Grizzly Bear or Huaji or Xhuwaji’ with little human figures placed in his ears to represent the Chief's daughter and son-in-law, who raised the pole and held a potlatch in his honour. 

Beneath the great bear is Seal or Killer Whale in his grasp. The inscription in the park says it is a Killer Whale but I am not sure about that interpretation — both the look and lore make Seal more likely. Perhaps if Killer Whale were within Thunderbird's grasp — maybe. 

Though it is always a pleasure to see Killer Whale carved in red cedar, as the first whales came into being when they were carved in wood by a human — or by Raven — then magically infused with the gift of life.

Siwash Rock on the northern end of Third Beach, Stanley Park

The ground these totems sit upon is composed of plutonic, volcanic and sedimentary layers of rock and exhibits the profound influences of glaciation and glacial retreat from the last ice age. 

Glacial deposits sit atop as a mix of clay, sand, cobbles and larger boulders of glacial till. 

There are a few areas of exposed volcanics within the park that speak to the scraping of the glaciers as they retreated about 12,500 years ago. 

The iconic moss and lichen coated Siwash Rock on the northern end of Third Beach is one of the more picturesque of these. It is a basaltic and andesitic volcanic rock — a blend of black phenocrysts of augite cemented together with plagioclase, hornblende and volcanic glass.

Images not shown: 

Do check out the work of Emily Carr and her paintings of Q:o'na from the 1940s. I'll share a link here but do not have permission to post her works. http://www.emilycarr.org/totems/exhibit/haida/ssintro.htm