by David Suzuki
The whole family loved the killer whales then on display at the Vancouver Aquarium and returned again and again—six times in all—to gaze at those magnificent animals through windows that gave the public an underwater view from inches away. But our visitors' likes and dislikes were unpredictable. We took the family up Mount Holly-burn just outside the city, and while Irekran and the girls loved tobogganing and playing with snow for the first time, Paiakan sat in the car and smoked cigarettes.
The girls loved the sea and waded straight into it (in March!), but Paiakan and his wife always sat with their backs to it, which puzzled me. Then one day, as we were driving, our car drew alongside a wild river. All five of Paiakan's family flung themselves at the windows, everyone talking at once, pointing out the river's features in a flurry of excitement.
Oe (left) and Tania (right) with Sarika playing dress-up in the shower
We arranged for translators and took the family to visit as many different First Nations as we could. The first place we visited was Tofino, on Vancouver Island, where the Nuu-chah-nulth people were holding a meeting. As we flew across the island in a small seaplane, I pointed out the extent of clear-cutting below to show Paiakan we had our forest battles too. Gradually I realized he and Irekran weren't listening to me but were staring straight ahead, clearly uncomfortable. In the Amazon, it turns out, some pilots fly very close to the forest canopy; if there is a mechanical failure and there are no clearings to set down in, the plane can crash-land on the trees. Paiakan had survived three such crashes. But over Vancouver Island, we were flying very high to avoid the mountains, a couple of them more than seven thousand feet high. When Paiakan and Irekran looked down, they saw a lot of snow and rocks—not a very welcoming surface. After we finally landed, Paiakan announced, “Chiefs don't fly in small planes,” which was baloney, but I wasn't going to argue. We ended up having to take a long bus ride and a ferry trip to return to Vancouver.
In Tofino, Paiakan was feted like a relative by the Nuu-chah-nulth. As he spoke through the translator about the struggle to protect his territories, you could have heard a pin drop. These were far from wealthy people, yet they collected thousands of dollars to help their brother from the Amazon. One old man hunted around in one of his pockets and finally came up with a hundred-dollar bill folded into a small square and obviously carefully saved for a long while. “He really needs it,” was all he said as he threw it into a pot. Canadian First Nations people understood that the Kaiapo were going through what their own people had suffered and felt an instant bond with them.
At our cottage on Quadra Island in the Strait of Georgia, I showed them how we dig clams. Irekran and Paiakan loved looking for clams as a kind of game, but when I broke one open and ate it raw, they were revolted and lost interest in clamming. They wanted to eat only what they were familiar with—chicken, white-fleshed river fish, beans, farinha, rice, and bread, which they loved toasted. When we fed them halibut, they found the taste and texture a satisfactory substitute for freshwater white-fleshed fish.
But when we caught a small halibut on a fishing trip with a group of First Nations leaders, Paiakan was appalled. He'd never seen a flat fish, with both eyes on the top of its head, and found it monstrous—ugly and unappetizing. When I told him that was what he'd been eating, he never touched halibut again. At first, he and his family wouldn't eat salmon, either—too red.
Paiakan often surprised us. On one trip, we were driving up Vancouver Island toward Port Hardy and spotted a huge plume of smoke. As we drew nearer, we could see that an area of forest had been clear-cut and the slash gathered into massive piles and set alight. Paiakan remarked, “Just like Brazil.” Another time, having flown over large areas of clear-cut that were covered in snow and visible as a checkerboard pattern from the plane, he said, “Brazilians destroy the forest because they are poor and uneducated. Why do Canadians?” When he first settled in our house, I drove him through downtown Vancouver, figuring he would be impressed with the cleanliness of the streets, the gleaming buildings, and the stores filled with goods. His response was unexpected: “To think all this comes from the Earth. How long can it go on?”
We took him to Alert Bay, home of the Kwakwaka'wakw people. On the ferry from Port McNeill on Vancouver Island to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, several Kwakwaka'wakw kids kept coming by to look at Paiakan and shyly ask us who he was and where he was from. They could see he was an Indian, but he looked unlike any they knew. The boys were typical modern First Nations kids, dressed in jeans and runners with caps on backwards, and Paiakan imperiously ignored them. It seemed he could see that these youngsters were what the Kaiapo could become, and he did not like it.
When we arrrived at the ferry terminal in Alert Bay, we were met by Kwakwaka'wakw dancers in full regalia and led by our friend Vera Newman. We were feted in the spectacular communal “big house” and were again showered with gifts of money. (When I visit Alert Bay now, more than fifteen years later, people still ask about Paiakan.) We traveled to Haida Gwaii, where Paiakan was taken out on Lootaas, the canoe that was paddled from Vancouver to Haida Gwaii during the battle to save South Moresby. Everywhere we went, Paiakan made an indelible impression with his impassioned and articulate plea for help in protecting his forest home.
About three weeks after the family arrived, Irekran, a very severe-looking, imperious young woman, called our names and motioned us to approach. Paiakan translated: “Our children should be in Aucre studying. It's cold here. I miss my family. You promised to get us an airplane. Where is it?” Tara and I were nonplussed. Airplane? Where had she got that idea? As we racked our brains, we realized that back in Altamira, when we had gathered to discuss what to do about the death threats, one idea put forward was to establish a fund for Paiakan to use whenever he needed a plane to leave the village. Irekran must have interpreted this as a promise to buy a plane. To her, it appeared as if we just plunked down money whenever we wanted anything. A plane must have seemed a reasonable demand.
It so happened that I was scheduled to go to England the following week. There I called Anita Roddick, creator of the Body Shop empire, who had attended the Altamira gathering, met Paiakan, and been impressed by him. I told her about Irekran's demand, explaining that having a plane permanently available at Aucre would allow Paiakan to remain in touch and effective from the safety of the village but would have many other uses. It could be used to survey and police the vast area of Kaiapo territory, and it could transfer sick people and elders when needed. Anita had just had a meeting with her shop franchisees, where she had talked about Paiakan and his struggle, and the delegates had donated money from their own profits. Anita wrote us a check for US$100,000.
Toward the end of the family's stay with us, the ever-supportive gang at the Western Canada Wilderness Committee printed thousands of copies of a paper devoted to Paiakan and the issues in the Amazon. We joined with them and the Environmental Youth Alliance to hold several packed events at high school auditoriums. We all gave rousing speeches, and in the end, Haida leader Guujaaw got up to drum and sing and invited Oe and Tania and Severn and Sarika to accompany him. These wonderful events helped to raise more money for Paiakan's work.
After six weeks of living with us, Paiakan and his family decided it was safe to return home. They had raised thousands of dollars, made contacts with aboriginal “relatives” up and down the west coast of Canada, and would return with the promise of a plane soon to follow.
When we arrived at the airport, it seemed we had lived through a lifetime together, and to my surprise, Irekran began to weep inconsol-ably. In their society, there is a ritual kind of wailing that I had seen when Paiakan was welcomed home and when we witnessed a funeral, but this was different; I felt she really was sorry to leave us. We were soon all reduced to tears.
“Come and visit us,” Paiakan begged, and we decided that would be a wonderful adventure. So we wished them well and promised we would travel down soon.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Tara discovered th
ere was a whole catalog of used planes around the world and determined that a Cessna seemed the best choice. She also found a pilot named Al “Jet” Johnson, who had flown for decades with American Airlines, lived in Vancouver, and was a close friend of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson, who had gone to Altamira.
Tara contacted Al, and he offered to check a used plane we had found in Galveston, Texas. He reported that the Cessna Utility 206 was in good shape. It cost $50,000, which would leave enough to ensure a proper maintenance schedule. He recommended we buy it and have the seats pulled out so that extra gas tanks could be installed, and he would fly it to Brazil for us. Al is a true hero. In full hurricane season, he hopped and skipped across the Caribbean and along the north coast of South America, phoning in his adventures from cheap hotels in Guyana or Suriname. After navigating the plane through Brazilian authorities, he piloted it for Paiakan and the village for several months before finally returning to Canada.
chapter NINE
A STEP BACK IN TIME
TARA AND I DECIDED to go to Aucre the following summer. We believed Paiakan's invitation was sincere, and the children already had a lot of wilderness experience and were keen to go. But I was also worried. After all, Sarika was only seven and Severn was ten—what if something happened to them? We would be so far away from help. I knew Tara was as concerned as I was, but she expressed only excitement and enthusiastically went about arranging the myriad details of the trip. Our Haida friend Miles Richardson decided to join us, along with his girlfriend, Patricia Kelly, from Chilliwack in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver.
After the Altamira protests, the Brazilian government was worried about troublemakers who might make contact with Indians and get them all stirred up. We heard an edict might have been passed requiring anyone wanting to visit an Indian village to first apply for permission. We knew we would never be approved, so we decided to ignore it and go in without official permission. We flew to Redenção, a rough-and-ready frontier town where we had to find the plane we had bought and a pilot to fly it.
The pilot we found flew us across the river and then mysteriously landed the plane on a road, where he got out and walked away. He reappeared with his girlfriend, who made one more person than the aircraft could handle, so one of us had to be let off. Miles gallantly offered to stay behind in Redenção, and although the pilot promised to pick him up the next day, it was a pretty courageous decision. I had flown into Aucre not speaking a word of Portuguese, but at least I had Paiakan as a friend; Miles knew no one and ended up using sign language to the few Indians who were around. He reached the village, found a place to stay, had a meal, and got back out to meet the plane next day.
After we left Miles, we flew over a sea of unbroken green for almost an hour before an opening in the forest canopy appeared, revealing the circle of huts I had visited just under a year before. We were a great curiosity to the Kaiapo, especially our two daughters. Two young boys hauled our bags as we were led to an empty hut and told we could hang our hammocks there. When it became clear that we didn't have a clue how to hang a hammock, the villagers dissolved in laughter. It was the first of many amusements our ignorance provided the community.
Like all the other huts, the one that was to be our home for two weeks was made of mud plastered between vertical sticks and had a thatched roof. The floor was dirt, and soon everything was covered in a layer of red dust. The children, most of them naked except for strings of beads around their necks, wrists, and ankles, crowded around to watch our every move as we unpacked our bags.
Soon we were invited to Paiakan's hut, which was next to ours, and treated to a meal of fish, beans, and rice. Sev and Sarika were happy to be back with their friends Oe and Tania, who took them out to see the river nearby. We learned to spend hours in that pool during the heat of the day and never once even felt a piranha; Paiakan assured us these fish were only a problem if water levels dropped—and they are delicious to boot.
We went to sleep that night refreshed by dips in the river, well fed, and only anxious for Miles to join us, which he did next morning. We had brought mosquito nets to wrap around the hammocks, as well as light sleeping bags for the early morning cold. After a couple of days of struggling with the netting, we gave up, as there weren't a lot of mosquitoes and Paiakan assured us it was the farmers and miners from cities who brought the malaria with them.
Each morning we woke up to find a row of faces staring at us. Children (and sometimes adults) would sit along the walls just watching—I guess we were their equivalent to early morning cartoons. All of our possessions were on the ground or in open bags and we never lost a thing, though we had many coveted items; everyone was delighted when we gave away much of our stuff before we left because it was too heavy for the plane.
We had to gather fresh food every day, a great experience for us because that meant we spent most of our time fishing. The first day, Paiakan took only Miles and me on a fishing expedition in the dugout canoe. But the females in our gang were very unhappy and demanded they be included. From then on, they were, although none of the women from the village accompanied us.
The Kaiapo were amused by my collapsible rod and tiny Seiko reel with four-pound test line, because my fishing gear was too light for the fish I might hook. I figured I'd show them; after all, a good fisherman is supposed to be able to land huge fish by playing them to exhaustion. On our first trip, I assembled the rod, put on a spinner, and cast into the murky water. Blam, ping. A fish hit and snapped the line. The tension was too tight, so I adjusted it, tied on another spinner, and cast—blam, ping: same thing. Hmm. The Kaiapos' eyes were crinkling in amusement, and when I cast for the third time and the same thing happened, the Kaiapo were roaring. Thank goodness they didn't know how to say in English “I told you so.” So much for “civilized” technology, although they themselves did use nylon lines and metal hooks.
When I finally hooked a tucunare, that incredible fighting fish snapped my rod in two! I wasn't going to let it get away and began pulling in the line by hand, when wham, an arrow impaled my catch right behind the gills. I was too busy fighting the fish and hadn't noticed Paiakan as he raised his bow and shot an arrow. As far as I was concerned, I caught the fish . . . well, I hooked it, anyway.
Each time we made a trip, Paiakan took along Caro, a boy of about six. Caro would hand tools to Paiakan, jump out of the canoe to pull it to shore, or follow him into the forest to gather bait. He was obviously being taught in the very best way.
The river, Rio Zinho, was a wonder, narrowing to a swiftly flowing channel, widening out into long, deep pools, or becoming shallow with long riffles, each area containing a different array of fish. One day we paddled down the river to a wide, shallow area with rocks sticking out of the water. Paiakan got out with his bow and very long arrows. He carefully walked from rock to rock, staring into the clear water, and finally shot. The arrow had struck something. It waved about until eventually Paiakan carefully lifted an immense, snakelike fish from the water. It was an electric eel, capable of delivering a hefty electrical wallop that could be fatal to a small child.
Paiakan clubbed it repeatedly, then, making sure it didn't touch him or any of us, laid it in the bottom of the canoe. I don't know how long the dead animal takes to discharge its biobatteries, but it was quite a while before Paiakan touched it. The fish must have been close to six feet in length and four inches in diameter, and when Paiakan cut into it, I saw the flesh was milky white. Apparently it is a highly prized delicacy, but we didn't try any as it was divided among the elders of the village.
Paiakan (right) lifting an electric eel while Mokuka dispatches another one.
That's me on the top left, with Caro.
On one trip upriver, we came to a large, deep pool that must have been a hundred yards long and perhaps ten or more feet deep. We couldn't see the bottom. Paiakan drove the canoe into reeds along the bank and leaped out, accompanied by Caro. After a few minutes of thrashing and splashing,
they emerged with a string of fish, each about six inches long. These, it turned out, would be the bait. They tied sixteen-foot lengths of thick line, with a large hook on one end of each, around pieces of wood that would act as floats. As we pushed off, Paiakan hooked a fish on each line and tossed the floats into the water as we continued upriver.
Hours later, on our way home, we came back through the pool and saw several of the floats buzzing around as if they were motorized. Beautiful catfish were hooked on the lines. And they too were delicious.
One of our longest trips was an all-day venture downriver. We would pull ashore to eat and then drift down. Paiakan had a small motor on his boat but only a tiny can of fuel, and I worried about getting back upriver. At one point, we were caught in a tropical squall, and we pulled in to a bank and huddled together while Paiakan cut down several huge banana-like leaves to hold over our heads as umbrellas until the rain passed.
For dinner, we got a fire going and Paiakan cut up a big tucunare we had caught and put the pieces onto a large leaf. He squeezed a lemon over them, put on some salt, then wrapped the leaf around the fish and tossed it into the fire. Half an hour later, he opened the leaf to reveal a steaming meal that was absolutely delectable. I told Paiakan that where we came from, people would work for years to save enough money to take a trip to spend two weeks doing what he and his people do every day. He seemed amused, if not confused.
On our way back, as I had suspected it might, fuel became a real concern. Here at the equator we were soon enveloped in the black of night with a couple of flashlights whose batteries could go flat at any time. As we putt-putted against the current, those flashlights reflected off eyes in the shallows—crocodiles! Everywhere. Fortunately, this particular species is quite timid with people. Miles has a great dislike of snakes, and we'd heard of the giant anacondas lurking in the rivers. Whenever we had to get out of the canoe in shallow, rocky stretches to push the boat along, I felt bad for Miles, but he never complained.
