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People of the Trail
The Japanese have a name for those whose spirits cannot be contained by the merely possible - kichigai. Crazy soul. The native whale hunters of Vancouver Island's ragged west coast were quintessential kichigai. Armed with tales, tools and talismans these warriors sailed out the whaling grounds of the Pacific in dugout cedar canoes and battled the 20-meter gray. This fugue was sustained for thousands of years.
Then the White God showed up with his white sugar and white lies. The tales were forgotten, the tools ended up in museums, and the whales themselves became a catchword for preservation. But Joe and Elizabeth are about to change all that.
Elizabeth loves whales. She is an authority on whaling shrines. She is presently recreating a whaling shrine in the Provincial Museum in Victoria. The chance discovery of a set of precious harpoon tips leads to an assignment: she must journey into the green forest heart of Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and Ayhuaht territory - a wild coastal region now famous as the West Coast Trail - and return the harpoon tips to their rightful owner, the hereditary Chief of the Ayhuaht, Joe.
Joe loves whales even more than Elizabeth. Especially their rich, oily taste. As hereditary chief he should be holding the harpoon. Instead he's been left holding the bag. Poverty, disenfranchisement, and a gang of unruly young braves. Worse, the Federal Government has corralled him into its cultural program. Presently he's shepherding a group of international travel writers down the West Coast Trail.
The Feds want him to show the world what a great job they're doing stewarding his ancestral lands. And the Trail is spectacular - vast beaches that seem to sing beneath your feet, living cathedrals of cedar and fir, rapids, waterfalls, spider-web gondolas that cross thundering cataracts, and wooden ladders that wind up towering green cliffs. But Joe has a hidden agenda: jump start his culture by reclaiming its forbidden lynchpin . Resurrect the ancient hunt whale with the world's writers at witnesses. Bring back all the old traditions: vision quests, campfire tales, celibacy...
Which is going to be a bitch. Because halfway down the Trail, Joe and Elizabeth start falling in love.
Andrew Struthers quit the anthropology department at the University of Victoria to homestead and work as a commercial fisherman on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He wrote 2 books about the experience - one set on land and one set on water.