Elder Xwu’p’a’lich Barbara Higgins welcomes canoeists at a traditional blessing ceremony in Porpoise Bay Provincial Park Saturday, April 22.
The visiting canoes landed at the campground and were greeted by songs and drumming, then took part in a symbolic cleansing ritual with cedar boughs. The canoes were also brushed with cedar, in what Xwu’p’a’lich said the ancestors called “medicine work.”
Following the ceremonies, all feasted together as family.
