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I grew up playing in what we called the Black Forest. There was a fire there almost every summer. Nothing had enough time to fully grow back, so it stayed burnt.
For a long time, I thought the same thing had happened to me.
I grew up surrounded by wildfires, and then came the Lytton Creek Fire, the final one that scarred me. I believed there would be no regrowth after that. Anger, depression, guilt, fear, and grief were all I could feel. Every smile and laugh felt performative. I mistook fog for smoke. When I heard a helicopter in the distance, every thud of the blades painted the flames back from memory.
I turned my grief into a performance - into a hero story, a real phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes dance. I travelled around the world sharing this heroic tale, even though I had barely returned in all those years since the fire. I continued to call Tl’kemstin home, but the home I was imagining grew older with every anniversary of that day.
This summer, I went back to the Black Forest.
The trees are still burnt, but the ground beneath them is covered in greenery and fireweed. It was the most colour and life I had ever seen there, and it had only been on fire the summer before.
For years, I stayed away because I wanted to preserve the good memories. I was afraid that grief - or another fire - would take even more than it already had. But staying away also kept me from creating new memories. It kept me from the joy of learning from my spapazza, my grandpa, and from being beside the river, fishing, one of my favourite things to do.
I was terrified to go home this summer. I was still surrounded by wildfires and smoke. But I went down to our family fishing spot. I helped fix a gill net, smoked and preserved fish, and learned how to use a pressure canner. I played in the creeks, swam in the river... Every day, I drove past the construction sites and empty spaces where parts of my community once stood.
And still, I had one of the most joyful summers I have had since I left.
I had thought returning would replace my good memories with grief. Instead, I learned that new memories do not erase what happened, and grief does not erase the possibility of joy. Like the Black Forest, I had not remained frozen in the fire. Beneath everything that looked burnt, life had been returning quietly.
I only had to come home to see it.
For a long time, I thought the same thing had happened to me.
I grew up surrounded by wildfires, and then came the Lytton Creek Fire, the final one that scarred me. I believed there would be no regrowth after that. Anger, depression, guilt, fear, and grief were all I could feel. Every smile and laugh felt performative. I mistook fog for smoke. When I heard a helicopter in the distance, every thud of the blades painted the flames back from memory.
I turned my grief into a performance - into a hero story, a real phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes dance. I travelled around the world sharing this heroic tale, even though I had barely returned in all those years since the fire. I continued to call Tl’kemstin home, but the home I was imagining grew older with every anniversary of that day.
This summer, I went back to the Black Forest.
The trees are still burnt, but the ground beneath them is covered in greenery and fireweed. It was the most colour and life I had ever seen there, and it had only been on fire the summer before.
For years, I stayed away because I wanted to preserve the good memories. I was afraid that grief - or another fire - would take even more than it already had. But staying away also kept me from creating new memories. It kept me from the joy of learning from my spapazza, my grandpa, and from being beside the river, fishing, one of my favourite things to do.
I was terrified to go home this summer. I was still surrounded by wildfires and smoke. But I went down to our family fishing spot. I helped fix a gill net, smoked and preserved fish, and learned how to use a pressure canner. I played in the creeks, swam in the river... Every day, I drove past the construction sites and empty spaces where parts of my community once stood.
And still, I had one of the most joyful summers I have had since I left.
I had thought returning would replace my good memories with grief. Instead, I learned that new memories do not erase what happened, and grief does not erase the possibility of joy. Like the Black Forest, I had not remained frozen in the fire. Beneath everything that looked burnt, life had been returning quietly.
I only had to come home to see it.
About the sculpture
I found this burnt bark in Ben's wood pile, and it was one of the first things I suspended in the warehouse studio. At the time, I was still trying to re-create some of the designs Amélie Singoye and I had been developing and rendering in virtual 3D space, so it was busy/pieced together with branches hanging above it and a stump below it.
I'm so grateful to my prof, Jesse, for challenging me to see beyond the immediate goal of recreating these sculptures in real life and to follow my intuition. He saw that I was struggling to make these wooden beings fit into a mould, rather than following the forms they evoked. I would say it was a pretty groundbreaking moment for me and a turning point for the exhibition!
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I really enjoyed slowly spinning the bark, and imagined the sound of a story wafting out of it in waves, like a mini doppler effect. I liked to see how little bits of ash would fall off and pile up below, marking a bit of the passage of time spent in suspension/suspended time.
Through my consultations with Kim on how to make the exhibit more accessible to people who are Blind/with low vision, she explained that anything suspended in the air should have a 'cue' on the ground detectable by a cane, so that folks would know to reach out in front of them. While Shelley's story right 'next door' is over a fungal web and that could also be applicable for Sunshine's story, I wanted to capture the colour and light of the regrowth that she was sharing in her story. While the other rugs in this space are mostly earthy/beige, this one is full of the vibrancy of fireweed.
Through my consultations with Kim on how to make the exhibit more accessible to people who are Blind/with low vision, she explained that anything suspended in the air should have a 'cue' on the ground detectable by a cane, so that folks would know to reach out in front of them. While Shelley's story right 'next door' is over a fungal web and that could also be applicable for Sunshine's story, I wanted to capture the colour and light of the regrowth that she was sharing in her story. While the other rugs in this space are mostly earthy/beige, this one is full of the vibrancy of fireweed.
Crafting the notebook zine together post story-recording <3
Skw'akw'as Dunstan-Moore
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Skw'akw'as (Sunshine) Dunstan-Moore (she/her) is Nlaka’pamux, Stl'atl'imx, Yakama from Tl’kemstin (Lytton), British Columbia. Her name, Skw'akw'as, translates to “Sunshine” in nɬeʔkepmxcín, and she proudly embraces both names. Sunshine is an Indigenous climate justice and policy advocate with experience working at the intersection of Indigenous rights, environmental justice, public policy, and international climate governance. Her work centers on advancing rights-based, distinctions-based, and community-led approaches to environmental health, climate action, and governance reform across so-called Canada and within multilateral spaces.
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Special thanks to...
Skw'akw'as, Isabelle