The Stein Valley

I spent last week in the beautiful and sacred Stein Valley. It was an outdoor ed gig with St. George's school from Vancouver and it was definitely the best week of outdoor ed I've ever done. Great kids, great weather, great guides.

This is the ferry that took us across the mighty Fraser River. Our school bus just fit on there.

Looking down the valley from a top the "Devil' s Staircase"

This is Coyote in a patch of stinging nettles we harvested and ate for dinner. He's from the Nlaka'pamux Nation and the Stein Valley is his backyard. He came along as a guide on this journey and taught us about the plants, animals and spirits in the valley.

The Stein was and still is used for vision quests by First Nations people. Traditionally young warriors went into the valley for four days and fasted until a vision came to them. Pictographs, believed to have been painted during vision quests, are scattered throughout the Stein. They've been dated at 7000 to 8000 years old.

A lizard.

A Guardian spirit with a deer and a goat under its wings

The cedar grove - one of my favourite spots in the Stein

Fairyslipper orchid

Larkspur

At the end of our hike we went to Fred's home and were invited to participate in a sweat lodge ceremony. Always a powerful experience.

After our sweat we headed to Lytton and found ourselves at a meeting for residential school survivors. We heard people speak about being beaten publicly, sexual abuse, not getting enough food and being separated from family. One woman's sister had been murdered and her body chopped into small pieces, while her mother had been killed in a fire. At one point all residential school survivors in the room stood up. I couldn't believe how many people in that room had spent their childhoods in these horrible conditions. I still don't understand how people heal from this.

The following day Coyote took us to the site of the residential school he attended as a child (the school itself burnt down, much to the delight of locals). Coyote shared some of his stories of abuse and healing and then shared a pipe ceremony with all of us. We smoked a mixture of kinnickinick, tobacco and some other local plants.