Group keeps tabs on hummingbirds
A rufous hummingbird is swaddled in a protective blanket while data is collected for a monitoring study.
Heather Reid
They rise before dawn and gather traps, scales and calipers.
For about 12 weeks each spring, a crew of volunteers takes part in citizen science by gathering data and adding it to a North American network of information. They are hummingbird banders and they have just finished their fifth season monitoring two sites near Port Alberni.
At the last session of the year on Wednesday, licenced bird bander Stan Acton shared his impressions.
With less than an hour to go, he said that the numbers were just shy of the year before. In 2007, 374 birds were captured, measured and marked. This year 367 have been counted.
To catch the feisty flying jewels, the team sets up traps made of a fine mesh over a feeder. When a rufous -- the only species monitored in this region -- comes for a drink, the net-minder lets go of a fishing line that holds the net above the feeder and the bird is caught.
Next a volunteer, like Jackie Tivey, gently removes the tiny flier and delivers it to the bander.
Bird banders receive extensive training, and in Acton's case that came from Vancouver Island master bander Cam Finlay. Once the bird is in hand, it's wrapped in a soft cloth designed to protect it while a tiny aluminum cuff is secured to its lower leg.
The band is about the came size as the letter C in Canada on a penny.
A unique identifying number is etched into the band so that if the hummingbird is captured again -- say in Alaska or Mexico -- information about its life history is provided. These projects tell ornithologists about the bird's age, travels, reproductive history and more.
Acton will also measure the bird's culmen (beak), wing length and take its weight. He will determine the sex and check the reproductive state if it's a female.
The rufous hummingbird, Selasphorus rufus, makes the longest migration of any bird when body size is taken into account. They winter in Mexico and summer as far north as Alaska. That's over 6,000 km for a bird with an average wingspan of 11 cm and body weight of about 3.5 g.
After five years, Acton can describe some patterns. Sightings of the birds start in late March and by the first of April the banding team is heading out four mornings per month. That continues until around Canada Day.
The migrators trickle in until mid-April, when the number of birds peaks. Then they move from the coast to points north and east. In May and June the numbers taper off.
Acton says that normally, juvenile birds start appearing in early June and the males disappear.
"They've already started to head south," he says.
But one thing Acton's learned is that there is no normal. The experience actually produces more questions than answers. Why would the males leave so early, Acton wonders, as there's still plenty to feed on in August and September?
Most migrating birds come to the northern hemisphere to feast on the temporary abundance of plants, insects and other animals, and don't head south until summer changes to fall. These are a few of the questions researchers hope to answer.
The numbers provided by the Port Alberni crew contribute to a data set that started in 2002 as a pilot study in Arizona and California.
Today volunteers work 60 sites from the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona to the Interior of British Columbia.
The Hummingbird Monitoring Network joins scientists, citizens, land managers and property owners together to learn more about the birds and with that information conserve populations. All the monitoring sites can be seen on the network website at www.HumMonNet.org.
The scientists involved say they are just now getting enough information to start assessing trends.
Acton says there has been a decrease in numbers across all of the monitoring sites since 2005 and the Audobon Watchlist states the rufous is declining in most of its range.
The first year, 2004 was the biggest, Acton said, but it's hard to compare subsequent results because there was only one site and the crew collected data at a different time of day.
Published in the Alberni Valley Times
July 3, 2008
They rise before dawn and gather traps, scales and calipers.
For about 12 weeks each spring, a crew of volunteers takes part in citizen science by gathering data and adding it to a North American network of information. They are hummingbird banders and they have just finished their fifth season monitoring two sites near Port Alberni.
At the last session of the year on Wednesday, licenced bird bander Stan Acton shared his impressions.
With less than an hour to go, he said that the numbers were just shy of the year before. In 2007, 374 birds were captured, measured and marked. This year 367 have been counted.
To catch the feisty flying jewels, the team sets up traps made of a fine mesh over a feeder. When a rufous -- the only species monitored in this region -- comes for a drink, the net-minder lets go of a fishing line that holds the net above the feeder and the bird is caught.
Next a volunteer, like Jackie Tivey, gently removes the tiny flier and delivers it to the bander.
Bird banders receive extensive training, and in Acton's case that came from Vancouver Island master bander Cam Finlay. Once the bird is in hand, it's wrapped in a soft cloth designed to protect it while a tiny aluminum cuff is secured to its lower leg.
The band is about the came size as the letter C in Canada on a penny.
A unique identifying number is etched into the band so that if the hummingbird is captured again -- say in Alaska or Mexico -- information about its life history is provided. These projects tell ornithologists about the bird's age, travels, reproductive history and more.
Acton will also measure the bird's culmen (beak), wing length and take its weight. He will determine the sex and check the reproductive state if it's a female.
The rufous hummingbird, Selasphorus rufus, makes the longest migration of any bird when body size is taken into account. They winter in Mexico and summer as far north as Alaska. That's over 6,000 km for a bird with an average wingspan of 11 cm and body weight of about 3.5 g.
After five years, Acton can describe some patterns. Sightings of the birds start in late March and by the first of April the banding team is heading out four mornings per month. That continues until around Canada Day.
The migrators trickle in until mid-April, when the number of birds peaks. Then they move from the coast to points north and east. In May and June the numbers taper off.
Acton says that normally, juvenile birds start appearing in early June and the males disappear.
"They've already started to head south," he says.
But one thing Acton's learned is that there is no normal. The experience actually produces more questions than answers. Why would the males leave so early, Acton wonders, as there's still plenty to feed on in August and September?
Most migrating birds come to the northern hemisphere to feast on the temporary abundance of plants, insects and other animals, and don't head south until summer changes to fall. These are a few of the questions researchers hope to answer.
The numbers provided by the Port Alberni crew contribute to a data set that started in 2002 as a pilot study in Arizona and California.
Today volunteers work 60 sites from the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona to the Interior of British Columbia.
The Hummingbird Monitoring Network joins scientists, citizens, land managers and property owners together to learn more about the birds and with that information conserve populations. All the monitoring sites can be seen on the network website at www.HumMonNet.org.
The scientists involved say they are just now getting enough information to start assessing trends.
Acton says there has been a decrease in numbers across all of the monitoring sites since 2005 and the Audobon Watchlist states the rufous is declining in most of its range.
The first year, 2004 was the biggest, Acton said, but it's hard to compare subsequent results because there was only one site and the crew collected data at a different time of day.
Published in the Alberni Valley Times
July 3, 2008
Bamfield marks 100 years of lifesaving
Full weekend of events celebrates history of CCG Station Bamfield
Heather Reid
Many of the men who go out to sea in the worst weather to rescue people don't talk much about what they do, but the weekend of celebrations to mark 100 years of lifesaving at the Bamfield lifeboat station was a time for sharing stories.
"Nobody knows where we go except the survivors," Clifford Charles, former officer in charge of Canadian Coast Guard Station Bamfield, told the assembled crowd at the Bamfield Lifeboat Centenary dinner.
There were many tales of danger and heroism told over the three days of events, but the story of the Bruce I was almost unbelievable, and resulted in the four members of the Bamfield crew who answered the call receiving medals for bravery from both Canada and U.S. (see sidebar). One of the survivors from that night, February 29, 1976, travelled back to Bamfield this weekend to thank his rescuers in person.
But it was the sinking of the Valencia near Bamfield in 1906 that was the original push for dedicated lifeboats being stationed in the village at the outer edge of Barkley Sound.
On a January day the steamship floundered just off the coast of Vancouver Island after missing the turn into the Juan de Fuca Strait. Although the ship was practically on the shore, rescuers could not reach the passengers either by sea or by land.
Silva Johansson of Parks Canada says that 133 of 171 passengers died as the vessel sat hung up on the rocky shore for several days. The incident lead to inquiries in Canada and the U.S. that resulted in the creation of lifeboat stations, more aids to navigation in the Pacific Northwest and a trail on land to both access vessels in trouble and allow passengers to escape.
Last year that trail -- now well-known as the West Coast Trail -- marked its 100th birthday. This year Pachena Lighthouse passes the century mark and so does Coast Guard Station Bamfield.
In 1908 the new Bamfield Station, known as Banfield Creek at the time, received a 36-foot, self-bailing and self-righting motor lifeboat --the first purpose-built motorized lifeboat in the world. The Electric Launch Company built the boats in Bayonne, New Jersey based on a United States Life-saving Service design.
"It was a very rugged boat," said Timothy Dring, a former Navy reservist who's become an expert in coast guard history. A large part of that history includes a co-operative relationship between the Canadian and U.S. services. A number of United States Coast Guard (USCG) representatives made the trek to Bamfield to mark the 100th anniversary.
Tom McAdams, who's a legendary figure in the U.S. Coast Guard, stole the show at the historic symposium with his on-the-job tales. McAdams served for 27 years in the Pacific Northwest based out of USCG Station Yaquina Bay in Newport, Oregon. After retirement he joined the Newport Fire Department and gave that organization 30 years of service. McAdams talked about dealing with cold, death, and how fine the line could be between being dubbed a hero or a coward. "I've been rolled over in a 40-footer eight or nine times," he told a group of seasoned coasties causing even their jaws to drop.
McAdams sailed from Oregon in his wooden boat, the Pokealong, to attend the events and spend some quality time in Bamfield. Other vessels that came and were on display at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre dock were the HMCS Oriole, the Dixie IV and the Messenger III. The HMCS Oriole is the oldest commissioned ship in the Canadian Navy and continues to work on training programs and community relations out of its home port CFB Esquimalt. The Dixie IV was the Tofino lifeboat from 1950 to 1970. It's been restored by Brian and Kathleen Congdon who run eco-tours as Subtidal Adventures out of Ucluelet.
The Messenger III served as a missionary boat on the West Coast of the Island from 1946 to 1968. Today Bill Noon, CCG member, and Megan Scott run the Messenger.
On Saturday afternoon CCG Bamfield fleet, and the visiting ships did a sail past ringing around the buoy tender CCG Provo Willis which was anchored at the mouth of Bamfield Inlet.
The idea for a weekend-long celebration of the station's history came after the community hosted a multi-day event to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Valencia in 2006. Bamfield resident Steve Clarke and a core group of volunteers decided to do the same when the lifeboat reached the hundred-year mark. From Friday evening to Sunday afternoon more than 160 people took in displays and talks on the 100 years of lifeboats and crews who have worked in the area.
Several historic B.C. boats made the trip and welcomed the public on-board for tours. Valdy entertained after the Saturday night dinner and on Sunday the community and guests gathered at the Coast Guard base for a picnic lunch.
The very first lifeboat in Bamfield, the Assistance, arrived in 1908 and served for only a year when it broke free of its moorings then drifted across Trevor Channel where it ran up on the rocks and was damaged beyond repair. A replacement was soon sent and the same style of lifeboat continued, with some alterations to hull construction, to serve until 1969 when the first boats with space for survivors arrived in the form of a 44-foot craft.
Today CCG Bamfield has the Cape McKay, a 47-foot lifeboat capable of doing 25 knots an hour and one of the most popular rescue craft, the rigid hull inflatable, permanently stationed at the base. Bamfield became home to the Canadian Coast Guard Rigid Hull Inflatable Operations Training, or RHIOT school, in the 1980s and has trained operators from all arms of emergency services across the country and internationally.
Over the weekend two significant announcements were made. On Friday Johansson read a letter from Nanaimo-Alberni MP James Lunney formally recognizing the sinking of the Valencia as a National Historic Event which "lead to significant changes in Canada," like lifeboat stations. Bamfield has been working for years to have the incident recognized as an important part of Canada's heritage.
On Sunday at the community luncheon hosted by the Canadian Coast Guard as a thank you to Bamfield for the centenary celebration, Vija Poruks, assistant commissioner for CCG Pacific Region, confirmed that the proposed upgrades to CCG Station Bamfield will begin as soon as the government contract is awarded. The plans have been approved for the estimated $6 million project that will give the RHIOT school a new home. "After 23 years operating in a house, they are finally getting a proper facility," Poruks said. "It'll be time for another celebration."
Heather Reid
Many of the men who go out to sea in the worst weather to rescue people don't talk much about what they do, but the weekend of celebrations to mark 100 years of lifesaving at the Bamfield lifeboat station was a time for sharing stories.
"Nobody knows where we go except the survivors," Clifford Charles, former officer in charge of Canadian Coast Guard Station Bamfield, told the assembled crowd at the Bamfield Lifeboat Centenary dinner.
There were many tales of danger and heroism told over the three days of events, but the story of the Bruce I was almost unbelievable, and resulted in the four members of the Bamfield crew who answered the call receiving medals for bravery from both Canada and U.S. (see sidebar). One of the survivors from that night, February 29, 1976, travelled back to Bamfield this weekend to thank his rescuers in person.
But it was the sinking of the Valencia near Bamfield in 1906 that was the original push for dedicated lifeboats being stationed in the village at the outer edge of Barkley Sound.
On a January day the steamship floundered just off the coast of Vancouver Island after missing the turn into the Juan de Fuca Strait. Although the ship was practically on the shore, rescuers could not reach the passengers either by sea or by land.
Silva Johansson of Parks Canada says that 133 of 171 passengers died as the vessel sat hung up on the rocky shore for several days. The incident lead to inquiries in Canada and the U.S. that resulted in the creation of lifeboat stations, more aids to navigation in the Pacific Northwest and a trail on land to both access vessels in trouble and allow passengers to escape.
Last year that trail -- now well-known as the West Coast Trail -- marked its 100th birthday. This year Pachena Lighthouse passes the century mark and so does Coast Guard Station Bamfield.
In 1908 the new Bamfield Station, known as Banfield Creek at the time, received a 36-foot, self-bailing and self-righting motor lifeboat --the first purpose-built motorized lifeboat in the world. The Electric Launch Company built the boats in Bayonne, New Jersey based on a United States Life-saving Service design.
"It was a very rugged boat," said Timothy Dring, a former Navy reservist who's become an expert in coast guard history. A large part of that history includes a co-operative relationship between the Canadian and U.S. services. A number of United States Coast Guard (USCG) representatives made the trek to Bamfield to mark the 100th anniversary.
Tom McAdams, who's a legendary figure in the U.S. Coast Guard, stole the show at the historic symposium with his on-the-job tales. McAdams served for 27 years in the Pacific Northwest based out of USCG Station Yaquina Bay in Newport, Oregon. After retirement he joined the Newport Fire Department and gave that organization 30 years of service. McAdams talked about dealing with cold, death, and how fine the line could be between being dubbed a hero or a coward. "I've been rolled over in a 40-footer eight or nine times," he told a group of seasoned coasties causing even their jaws to drop.
McAdams sailed from Oregon in his wooden boat, the Pokealong, to attend the events and spend some quality time in Bamfield. Other vessels that came and were on display at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre dock were the HMCS Oriole, the Dixie IV and the Messenger III. The HMCS Oriole is the oldest commissioned ship in the Canadian Navy and continues to work on training programs and community relations out of its home port CFB Esquimalt. The Dixie IV was the Tofino lifeboat from 1950 to 1970. It's been restored by Brian and Kathleen Congdon who run eco-tours as Subtidal Adventures out of Ucluelet.
The Messenger III served as a missionary boat on the West Coast of the Island from 1946 to 1968. Today Bill Noon, CCG member, and Megan Scott run the Messenger.
On Saturday afternoon CCG Bamfield fleet, and the visiting ships did a sail past ringing around the buoy tender CCG Provo Willis which was anchored at the mouth of Bamfield Inlet.
The idea for a weekend-long celebration of the station's history came after the community hosted a multi-day event to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Valencia in 2006. Bamfield resident Steve Clarke and a core group of volunteers decided to do the same when the lifeboat reached the hundred-year mark. From Friday evening to Sunday afternoon more than 160 people took in displays and talks on the 100 years of lifeboats and crews who have worked in the area.
Several historic B.C. boats made the trip and welcomed the public on-board for tours. Valdy entertained after the Saturday night dinner and on Sunday the community and guests gathered at the Coast Guard base for a picnic lunch.
The very first lifeboat in Bamfield, the Assistance, arrived in 1908 and served for only a year when it broke free of its moorings then drifted across Trevor Channel where it ran up on the rocks and was damaged beyond repair. A replacement was soon sent and the same style of lifeboat continued, with some alterations to hull construction, to serve until 1969 when the first boats with space for survivors arrived in the form of a 44-foot craft.
Today CCG Bamfield has the Cape McKay, a 47-foot lifeboat capable of doing 25 knots an hour and one of the most popular rescue craft, the rigid hull inflatable, permanently stationed at the base. Bamfield became home to the Canadian Coast Guard Rigid Hull Inflatable Operations Training, or RHIOT school, in the 1980s and has trained operators from all arms of emergency services across the country and internationally.
Over the weekend two significant announcements were made. On Friday Johansson read a letter from Nanaimo-Alberni MP James Lunney formally recognizing the sinking of the Valencia as a National Historic Event which "lead to significant changes in Canada," like lifeboat stations. Bamfield has been working for years to have the incident recognized as an important part of Canada's heritage.
On Sunday at the community luncheon hosted by the Canadian Coast Guard as a thank you to Bamfield for the centenary celebration, Vija Poruks, assistant commissioner for CCG Pacific Region, confirmed that the proposed upgrades to CCG Station Bamfield will begin as soon as the government contract is awarded. The plans have been approved for the estimated $6 million project that will give the RHIOT school a new home. "After 23 years operating in a house, they are finally getting a proper facility," Poruks said. "It'll be time for another celebration."
Tales of rescue told at Centenary celebration
Clifford Charles, left to right, Reid Dobell and David Christney.
At the Bamfield Lifeboat Centenary dinner attendees learned a little of what members of the coast guard experience on a regular basis. "I think it's hard for us lay people to know what it's like to go out there in those conditions, " said the evening's emcee, Louis Druehl, Bamfield biologist and author.
Then he turned the mic over to two former coast guard crewmen who rescued a man who made the trip back to the west coast to thank them for saving his life.
It was during herring season 32 years ago. Reid Dobell was onboard a 50-foot seiner that ran into trouble right at the lighthouse at Cape Beale at the head of Barkley Sound.
David Christney, then officer in charge at CCG Station Bamfield, Clifford Charles, Bob Amos and Clifford's father Martin Charles headed out in the lifeboat. Once on scene the crew quickly got two hypothermic victims onboard and started back to the station. The two passengers were so cold they couldn't talk and it took some time before they managed to tell their rescuers that two men were still missing -- Rusty and Dobell.
They headed back towards the Cape to find them. "Cape Beale is the worst place you ever want to go ashore," Clifford Charles said, retelling the story with aplomb. He said it was by some miracle that Dobell was placed up on a 30-foot rock by a wave. That's where they found him using a search-light called the midnight sun.
Meanwhile a USCG helicopter had been tasked out of Port Angeles, Wash. to respond to the call. When the chopper arrived and plucked Dobell off the rocks, he thought he was safe. The Bamfield crew thought so too and once again pointed the bow for home.
"Two hundred feet in the air, the engine quits -- he's back in the ocean," says Charles as he relates the tale, managing to share the terror of the night while raising roars of laughter from his audience at the dinner in the Bamfield Community Hall.
After the helicopter crashed and sank, the story continues with even more unbelievable struggles before Christney and crew get Dobell and the two other survivors to safety.
They got stuck on the wheelhouse of the sinking seiner, almost took a helicopter blade through the lifeboat's window and the younger Charles was nearly washed overboard. They never found the captain, Rusty, and the three they did pluck from the icy water were lucky to make it. "I've never seen anyone like that who survived," Charles says of the advanced stage of hypothermia.
For their efforts the four seamen received recognition from both the Canadian and U.S. governments. Christney was awarded the Silver Star for bravery. Amos, and both Charles men received Bronze Stars. The Canadian Coast Guard gave all four men decorations for bravery.
Dobell has made a tradition of calling CCG Station Bamfield every Feb. 29, the day he was rescued, to thank them for his life. Dobell, Charles and Christney saw each other in person for the fist time since 1976 at the Bamfield LIfeboat Centenary.
Published in the Times Colonist
June 16, 2008
Then he turned the mic over to two former coast guard crewmen who rescued a man who made the trip back to the west coast to thank them for saving his life.
It was during herring season 32 years ago. Reid Dobell was onboard a 50-foot seiner that ran into trouble right at the lighthouse at Cape Beale at the head of Barkley Sound.
David Christney, then officer in charge at CCG Station Bamfield, Clifford Charles, Bob Amos and Clifford's father Martin Charles headed out in the lifeboat. Once on scene the crew quickly got two hypothermic victims onboard and started back to the station. The two passengers were so cold they couldn't talk and it took some time before they managed to tell their rescuers that two men were still missing -- Rusty and Dobell.
They headed back towards the Cape to find them. "Cape Beale is the worst place you ever want to go ashore," Clifford Charles said, retelling the story with aplomb. He said it was by some miracle that Dobell was placed up on a 30-foot rock by a wave. That's where they found him using a search-light called the midnight sun.
Meanwhile a USCG helicopter had been tasked out of Port Angeles, Wash. to respond to the call. When the chopper arrived and plucked Dobell off the rocks, he thought he was safe. The Bamfield crew thought so too and once again pointed the bow for home.
"Two hundred feet in the air, the engine quits -- he's back in the ocean," says Charles as he relates the tale, managing to share the terror of the night while raising roars of laughter from his audience at the dinner in the Bamfield Community Hall.
After the helicopter crashed and sank, the story continues with even more unbelievable struggles before Christney and crew get Dobell and the two other survivors to safety.
They got stuck on the wheelhouse of the sinking seiner, almost took a helicopter blade through the lifeboat's window and the younger Charles was nearly washed overboard. They never found the captain, Rusty, and the three they did pluck from the icy water were lucky to make it. "I've never seen anyone like that who survived," Charles says of the advanced stage of hypothermia.
For their efforts the four seamen received recognition from both the Canadian and U.S. governments. Christney was awarded the Silver Star for bravery. Amos, and both Charles men received Bronze Stars. The Canadian Coast Guard gave all four men decorations for bravery.
Dobell has made a tradition of calling CCG Station Bamfield every Feb. 29, the day he was rescued, to thank them for his life. Dobell, Charles and Christney saw each other in person for the fist time since 1976 at the Bamfield LIfeboat Centenary.
Published in the Times Colonist
June 16, 2008
Victim demands compensation for childhood of terror
Imagine a childhood filled with alcoholics, incest, house fires and hangings. That's what Agnus Jack says the Ministry of Social Services gave her.
Her parents died when she was seven. Her mother first, then two weeks later, her father died. Together they had six kids. "There were some times when we were split up in pairs of two or three," Agnus says.
There were a few times when they were all together, like at her grandmother's which was one of the worst homes in which she lived. "There was about 22 people all together," she says, living in a six-bedroom house that was infested with rats. "There was a lot of dysfunction in that house, a lot of incest.
"I didn't understand how we got moved to my grandmother's house. I didn't even know where we came from, how we got there." She's since been told that they had been abandoned by their foster family in Royston. Left in the house when the woman moved away with her own children. "I don't remember that," Agnus says.
Her grandmother's house was full of drinkers and scary situations. Agnus says her grandmother would know when the social workers were coming and hide the problems, say the kids were unhappy because she was a strict disciplinarian.
She fled her last foster home, 18 and pregnant and headed to Port Alberni where one of her brothers lived. She's been there ever since.
"I didn't want to go to school, because I was embarrassed," she says.
Since then, she has only moved once in the 23 years that she's lived here. A change from the more than 20 times she had to move between ages seven and 18.
Agnus struggled as a parent for the first four years of her daughter's life. She knew she didn't want her child to grow up with the abuse she did, and she didn't want to be an abuser. She met a friend who supported her and gave her advice, a friend who parented her. "When I first met her I was a scared little puppy."
She's had little in the way of counselling to deal with the many traumas she's experienced. Drawing on her inner strength, she broke the cycle of violence and learned to show her kids love, and be a good grandparent. "All I want to do is protect them from what I went through."
Agnus is neat as a pin with shining eyes and an intelligence that comes through in her calm, quiet way of telling a story filled with violence and pain. The story of her childhood.
Agnus went to school through most of her childhood and managed not to attend a residential school as many of her older siblings did. At the moment she doesn't see that as a positive because residential school survivors have had an apology and compensation from the government.
As a ward of the court, whose nightmarish childhood was orchestrated by the Ministry of Child and Family Services, she'd like someone to accept responsibility for what happened to her, her sisters and brothers and other children who have been abused and neglected in foster care.
As recently as last May, Canada's auditor general found that children on native reserves across Canada are eight times more likely to wind up in under-funded, poorly tracked foster care that appears to be failing them. Unlike residential school survivors there are few organizations where people who have experienced abuse in foster care can turn.
Agnus has been to three lawyers, trying to initiate the process of being recognized. "I wish I was in residential school. At least I would be getting dealt with," she says. She thinks it's the province that should be held accountable, but none of the lawyers would take her case.
"It's like being victimized time and time again," Agnus says. "Even if they could just admit it. I'd be happy with it."
Lawyers told her that her only hope is to go after each of the foster parents, 22 in total. She only has good memories from one, Mike and Hilda Hanson in Kyuquot. "She was awesome," Agnus says.
She didn't meet many awesome people growing up. She met a lot of drunk people, violent people. At age 13 she witnessed a man hang himself. She has scars on her body that she has no idea from where they came, what looks like stab wounds on her lower torso that she doesn't remember. She asked for her medical records from the province, but there's no instance where she was treated for the injuries. Whoever harmed her didn't take her to the hospital.
Agnus is a middle-aged woman so it's surprising that many of those homes were on reserves. At the tail end of the residential school system the next stage of government interference in aboriginal communities was to take children away and send them to foster homes away from their families and culture.
But not in Agnus' case. She was sent to mainly aboriginal homes in Kyuquot, Unfortunately, the plague of social problems in the community meant that those homes should not have been approved by anyone as a safe place to send children. "Somebody should be liable for what went on," Agnus says, without vitriol.
In fact she doesn't seem angry at all. More mystified. She's had her struggles with alcohol and made an important friend many years ago at a treatment centre. Her spiritual practice, and that friend, have kept her going and helped her to beat the odds to become a caring mother and grandmother. "I never sought any help," she says.
Agnus is a member of the Mowachat First Nation. She spent her first seven years with her parents on the reserve just outside of Gold River. Those times weren't much better than the foster homes. When her mother died she didn't know what that really meant, but she remembers thinking "at least she won't hurt me any more." At the funeral she stood at the foot of her mother's casket, peeking in. "I had to tippy toe."
She had no idea that an already bad childhood was about to get much worse.
Published in the Alberni Valley Times
February 13, 2009
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