Skip to main content
Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa’xaid
Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa’xaid

Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa’xaid

ISBN: 9781771602952
Cecil Paul

Briony Penn

$30.00
  • Hardback Paper over boards

A remarkable and profound collection of reflections by one of North America’s most important Indigenous leaders.

My name is Wa’xaid, given to me by my people. ‘Wa’ is ‘the river’, ‘Xaid’ is ‘good’ – good river. Sometimes the river is not good. I am a Xenaksiala, I am from the Killer Whale Clan. I would like to walk with you in Xenaksiala lands. Where I will take you is the place of my birth. They call it the Kitlope. It is called Xesdu’wäxw (Huschduwaschdu) for ‘blue, milky, glacial water’. Our destination is what I would like to talk about, and a boat – I call it my magic canoe. It is a magical canoe because there is room for everyone who wants to come into it to paddle together. The currents against it are very strong but I believe we can reach that destination and this is the reason for our survival. —Cecil Paul

Who better to tell the narrative of our times about the restoration of land and culture than Wa’xaid (the good river), or Cecil Paul, a Xenaksiala elder who pursued both in his ancestral home, the Kitlope — now the largest protected unlogged temperate rainforest left on the planet. Paul’s cultural teachings are more relevant today than ever in the face of environmental threats, climate change and social unrest, while his personal stories of loss from residential schools, industrialization and theft of cultural property (the world-renowned Gps’golox pole) put a human face to the survivors of this particular brand of genocide.

Told in Cecil Paul’s singular, vernacular voice, Stories from the Magic Canoe spans a lifetime of experience, suffering and survival. This beautifully produced volume is in Cecil’s own words, as told to Briony Penn and other friends, and has been meticulously transcribed. Along with Penn’s forthcoming biography of Cecil Paul, Following the Good River (Fall 2019), Stories from the Magic Canoe provides a valuable documented history of a generation that continues to deal with the impacts of brutal colonization and environmental change at the hands of politicians, industrialists and those who willingly ignore the power of ancestral lands and traditional knowledge.

Book Details

224

April 6, 2019

Width: 5.00 in
Height: 7.00 in

“Required reading for all British Columbians. This powerfully told biography brings to life the teachings of Xenaksiala Elder Cecil Paul. In it, he tells the story of how he brought not only his community, but allies from all over the world together to save the Kitlope, the place of his birth and the largest contiguous old growth temperate rainforest on Earth. This book [Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa’xaid] offers a glimpse of what reconciliation could look like from an Indigenous perspective.” "[Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa'xaid] is a valuable contribution to Indigenous history, in the vein of books like Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue’s Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive(2019) and Johnny Neyelle’s The Man Who Lived with a Giant (2019)." "The Magic Canoe is a story of resilience and resistance, as it details the struggles Paul has faced, struggles that are put in the larger history and context of settler colonialism."