"It's my turn, it's my time – it's my calling. I'm up to bat now to pass on what my Elders taught me."
Also known by the name Rocky LaRock, E’yies’lek of the Sts’ailes First Nation has been a Coast Salish contemporary artist carving cedar using chainsaws and torches, as well as traditional hand methods for 40+ years. Just before COVID struck, E’yies’lek was approached by the University of the Fraser Valley to help give new purpose to several cedar trees on campus that had to be cut down due to rotting and disease.
Cedar is an important resource both spiritually and culturally to the local Coast Salish peoples, and like most aspects of their culture they have a creation story that explains its origin:
“Once there lived a good man who always gave away his belongings and food to help others. The Creator recognized the man’s kindness, and declared that once the good man dies, a red cedar tree will grow where he is buried, and the tree will continue to help the people.”
True to the legacy of the good man, almost every part of a cedar tree can be and is used, including the roots, the bark, the wood, and the branches. In light of this tradition, UFV knew that the logs taken from the cedar trees needed to be properly respected, and called upon Rocky to honour them.
Just as Rocky was beginning work on campus, the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and he was unable to travel from his vulnerable and at-risk community to the campus to carry out work on the carvings. This was no concern for Rocky, as he has a long history of blending traditional and unconventional methods within his work. To him the restrictions imposed by the pandemic provided another opportunity to exercise his creative style to complete the project in a way unique to him yet representative of his rich Stó:lō culture.
Rather than carve the poles on campus, risking exposure for his home community by way of his commuting, Rocky had the trunks of cedar dropped off at his studio so he could work from home like so many others had begun to do during the peak of the pandemic. Over the first year he produced the main carvings for the installation, and as restrictions began to ease and risk was reduced, he ventured back to campus to install the carvings on the ready and waiting cedars.
"Rocky and I talked a lot about what happens to students when they come to the university," said Shirley Hardman, UFV's Senior Advisor of Indigenous Affairs, "They transform their lives, they change who they are, where they're going, and what they're going to do. And so, that's a part of what Rocky wanted to capture in the carvings. He wanted to watch over the students, but also to demonstrate how beautiful transformation can be."
To carve the cedar tree and draw out the ancestors within it, is to honour a long tradition in Coast Salish culture. Full of mischief and always curious, the raven symbolizes creation, transformation, knowledge, and prestige as well as the complexity of nature and the subtlety of truth. The eagle as a whole signifies focus, strength, peace, leadership, and ultimate prestige.
"What better place to have eagles and ravens, than where young people come to learn and grow," says Rocky. The transformation of these cedar trees into educational and cultural learning opportunities is symbolic of the process that goes on within the hearts of students at UFV.
"Having these as prominent features of our campus, reminds all of us that we are in S'olh Temexw and that it has a long history: at least 13,000 years and we will be here for a long time to come," says Shirley.