Lawrence is revered as a great leader to this day. In 1995 he helped lead a reoccupation of Ista, a Nuxalk borough and sacred place on King Island where the first woman is said to have descended to this world. The protesters built a traditional smokehouse in the middle of a logging road to prevent clear-cutting on the island. Some were jailed for up to 28 days for their actions. The reoccupation became international news.

Lawrence also worked to repatriate Nuxalk artifacts from museum collections around the world. He built alliances with Nuxalk neighbors like the Kwakwak’wakw and Heiltsuk through a series of peacemaking potlatches. And in 2011, at the last of these celebrations, he passed his title to Noel. The following year, at the age of 79, he died.

Noel suffers from nerve damage. The weight of his body—and perhaps his past—makes his knees quiver. In his cluttered rez home, he moves gingerly up and down the stairs from living room couch to basement studio. Debilitating pain almost prevented him from dancing at the potlatch.

But tonight, Noel is feeling it. Grooving in his chief’s regalia to his chief’s song, he moves with the pride of his history. When the song finishes—a long one at seven minutes—he cheekily yells: “One more!” to uproarious laughter.

When he is done, the floor is blessed and the Moody family can share their own box of treasures—the songs and dances they hold rights to. They bring out the raven, who hops, pecks and bobs about the floor, looking for trouble; the haughty eagle who struts to the centre of the hall, tossing his head left and right like he owns the place; the wolf—a new tradition from afar—who has copper eyes and a blue snout. He howls as he saunters by. There’s the hummingbird, with a round blue face and grey outstretched wings; the grizzly bear, who lumbers with surprising grace across the floor, shoulders swaying, before dancing up onto her hind legs; the copycats, who weave in and out in ridiculous outfits, making a ruckus and reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously. Tallio narrates the story of every treasure as the masked dancers move out onto the floor.

Finally, at the end of the night, we all join in a Friendship Dance, a tradition from the neighboring Haisla. The boy-band-esque words to the song, according to Tallio’s translation, are: “If you leave me, I’m going to go out of my mind.” As the dance ends, all in attendance raise their hands aloft in a customary sign of respect and thanks.

When the floor is cleared of beaming Nuxalk, the Moody family piles gifts into a large mound at the center of the hall. All leave with full bellies and baskets of goods. By accepting the Moody family’s offerings, we, the attendees, show that we accept the transfer of the Nusmata name from senior to junior.

“It’s finally finished,” Larry Sr. tells me, seated in his honored chair at the head of the hall. “But I will stay with [Larry Jr.]—teach him the ropes, how to hold your head up.”

For tonight, at least, the work of carrying forward Nuxalk rights and traditions is done.

***

The next day, the whole valley has a potlatch hangover. At the Nuxalk band office I meet Wally Webber, Chief Councillor of the Nuxalk, whose grey shoulder-length hair and plain black-rimmed spectacles make him look like an aging hipster. Webber heads the Nuxalk elected government responsible for policy and welfare on the reserve. He also holds the hereditary title Snxiluulhla, a name that hails from “Sunny Village,” the land the band office stands on today.

We are joined by Ernie Tallio, the stout and soft-spoken manager of the Guardian Watchmen, a Nuxalk environmental stewardship program. We pile into his white GMC pickup and ride down to the wharf. At the docks, Blair Hans, 21 and Keith Windsor, 37, dressed in khaki Watchmen uniforms, are preparing their vessel, a brand-spanking-new boat custom-built in Oregon last year. Clyde Tallio, worn out from last night’s duties, is there too.

Hans is in his first season as a Watchman and has been on the receiving end of his fair share of pranks. One of his first days on the job, the Watchmen told Hans to “calibrate” the boat’s radar by sprinting back and forth on the dock, holding an antenna above his head. “Faster! Faster! It’s not working, faster!” they yelled, until they couldn’t control their laughter and Hans was sweaty and red with embarrassment.

Windsor has made his living out on the water since he was a young teen helping to run his grandfather’s gillnetter. For the greater part of two decades, he operated a pusher boat called the Vanishing Breed, fishing up and down the Pacific coast from Vancouver to Ketchikan, Alaska. But the industry has slowed in recent years. Fishermen have to travel further and further out to sea to net their catch—spending more time away from home while eking out a living on thin margins. Windsor stopped working in the commercial fishery five years ago to spend more time with his family. Two years ago, Ernie Tallio hired him as a Watchman. He recently completed training at Vancouver Island University and is now one of six employees in the program. From April to October, Ernie Tallio, Hans, Windsor and the Watchmen patrol the labyrinth of inlets, islands and fjords that comprise the Nuxalk homeland.

The program provides secure jobs to Indigenous people in a region with few, but it offers more than just employment. As eyes and ears watching over water and land, the Watchmen are enacting a simple but potentially revolutionary principle: the return of territories and resources to Indigenous protection.

The Nuxalk program, established in 2010, was inspired by the pathbreaking Haida Watchmen initiative formalized in 1981. Today, Guardian programs draw on the Haida model, the Indigenous Rangers program piloted in Australia in 2007, and a growing network of similar initiatives across Canada. The Indigenous Guardians Toolkit, developed by Nature United in conjunction with Indigenous partners, counts more than 45 communities conducting Guardian activities across Canada. The 2017 federal budget includes $25 million over five years to fund more pilots.

Under the wispy morning fog, the Guardian Watchmen, Wally Webber, Clyde Tallio and I set out onto the choppy waters of North Bentinck Arm. As we travel, Clyde Tallio narrates the Nuxalk history and place names of his territory. Below us, on the seafloor of the ocean-flooded valley of North Bentinck, lies the house of the chief of the undersea world, Q’umakwa, whose name we do not say out on the water.

While Clyde tracks our patrol through linguistic history, Ernie uses an app on his standard issue Guardian Watchmen tablet to collect data. Last year, the Nuxalk Guardian Watchmen traversed 14,723 kilometres of territory on 139 patrols. They are well on their way to exceeding that number this year. The data they collect is uploaded to the cloud where First Nations policy-makers combine it with science, analytics and traditional Indigenous governance systems.  Indigenous governance and environmental science often advance in tandem. The Nuxalk Guardian Watchmen recently wrapped up a bear study that helped advance knowledge about bear behaviors and populations in their territory.

The Watchmen are often the only authorities out on the land. They rarely encounter BC Parks or Fisheries and Oceans Canada rangers because those understaffed agencies can’t afford regular patrols. As a more constant and reliable presence, the Watchmen are increasingly called upon to uphold not just Indigenous and environmental laws, but also public safety. Just three days earlier, the Nuxalk Watchmen rescued three teens who capsized their kayaks near the mouth of the Bella Coola River.

Later in the season, the Watchmen encounter sport fishers, wildlife viewers, commercial trawlers and professional prawners. They give the visitors they meet a friendly reminder that this is Nuxalk territory and ask that all respect the Nuxalk way.

Through their actions, the Guardian Watchmen are steadily building a case for Indigenous governance of this coast. And among the public, the Guardian Watchmen are gaining favour with fishermen, tourists and locals they encounter on patrol every day.

As we near the end of Ats’aaxlh, or South Bentinck Arm, where the Taleomy and Noeick rivers converge into the inlet at Taleomy Narrows, we approach the ancient village of Talyu, the home of Clyde and Ernie’s Tallio ancestors, the Talyuumc “Descendants of the Queen of the Undersea,” as well as the Hans and Snow lineages. An Indian agent evicted the last of the Snow family, who maintain the hereditary title of Snuxyaltwa, “The Light of the Universe,” in the 1930s. He threatened to take the children and prosecute the parents if the family did not relocate to Bella Coola. Loggers burned what remained of the village not long after. Interfor, a logging corporation, clear-cut this part of South Bentinck Arm in the 2000s.

We board a dinghy to make the final jaunt to shore. In a clearing at the edge of the forest, a massive totem pole rises amid the trees. As the Nuxalk reassert rights to their homelands, they have erected poles like this one — traditionally used as grave and boundary markers — throughout their territory. In 2009, the Snow family hosted a potlatch to raise this pole, carved by Harry Schooner and his assistants, to reassert rights to this place. The pole tells the Snuxyaltwa Smayusta, or origin story, depicting the loon, the whale, the grizzly, the thunderbird, the sun and the angel Yulm, the eldest of the four mythic Nuxalk carpenters who helped Creator make the world.

We gather around the pole, peering up at its intricate carved and painted black, blue and red designs. Windsor runs his hand over a fresh gash on Yulm’s belly where a grizzly has marked its own claims, reminding us that this is also bear country. We linger awhile. Clyde takes a seat at the base of the Snuxyaltwa pole and lights a cigarette. He bows his head, looking down between his feet at the muddy turf of his ancestors’ home and exhales.