Carving: Salmon & Bear
Artist: Nakkita Trimble
Location:
An artists’ role is to record what is happening around us. This record communicates to others the importance of what is being shared.
This six-foot cedar was carved to tell a story to highlight the effects of climate change and the importance for us to recognise our role in what action can be taken.
I wanted to tell the story of what my husband and I witnessed in 2018 on the Skeena River. We were walking along the river in the early evening at Braun’s Island. We noticed a lot of pools of water filled with thousands of salmon fry approximately 50 feet from the Skeena River. That year this region had a level 4 drought and the river had dropped 6 percent overnight. Six percent overnight resulted in thousands of salmon fry left stranded. The pools of water were warm. We turned the hood of one of our windbreakers inside out and began collecting salmon fry with our palms and placing them into the hood of the windbreaker. We carried them 50 feet to the river and slowly released them into the shallows of the river so as not to shock them with the temperature change. We did this over, and over again until it was too dark to see. We made a plan to get buckets and small nets and come back first light. When we arrived in the morning the pools of warm water had dried to mud and thousands of salmon fry had died.
This was devastating. It was the same year that people were finding pools of large amounts of salmon dried up from the levels of water dropping too quickly overnight and trapping the salmon in pools. We let DFO know what was happening and wanted to take this opportunity to continue to tell this story as it is an important one.
The spawning salmon is the centre of the story being shared. Our people know the importance of the salmon for our survival and the survival of our culture, our art, and our collective future. The salmon is connected to everything – it is a keystone species… Meaning that if the salmon were to not be included in the food chain, that we would all be impacted by this – The ravens, eagles, bears, wolves, and all our aquatic relatives. The bear holding this salmon speaks to the land animals that rely on this resource. When the bear pulls the salmon into the forest, the salmon fertilizes the soil: the berries, medicines, and trees.
The bear cub between the mother’s legs represents the future and reminds us that we are responsible to look after the salmon, the river, and all the things connected to this for our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and our collective future.