Ali Howard and her team are remarkable people with a very important message. Ali swam the entire length of the Skeena River up here in Northern BC. That’s 610 km (380 miles) and she did it in 28 days. The Skeena is the longest undammed river in the world! It starts out quite small and ankle deep but after many tributaries flowing into it (including the river my property is on) it becomes a very large river. I was able to come back from my property in time to catch her last leg, ending at the North Pacific Cannery.
The point of the swim was to raise awareness for this pristine area and help protect this watershed, which is still a mostly intact ecosystem. There’s still an opportunity to protect these sacred waters! Skeena Swim website.
The turnout was overwhelming!
There were Tsimshan Dancers to help welcome. Here’s a close up of the button blankets they were wearing.
Coming in (from the Skeena Swim website):
It was an emotional moment! The canoe in the video is Roy Henry Vickers’.
Being escorted in. I wish you could hear the thumping of the oars on the wood, the drums and the hooting and hollering! Ali’s welcome was overwhelming!
Later in the evening we went to the celebratory concert in downtown Prince Rupert. We were so lucky to meet Taimarie from Small Wonders. Her son Ari and Lily danced SO hard! We all had such a great time and the music was unreal. Rachelle van Zanten put on an amazing show. Taimarie and family ended up staying with us. Click to see a few more photos of our visit. There was definitely more visiting done than picture taking.
It must have been a very cool event, Annie. I know what you mean about photos not conveying sounds, but I guess that video clip you embedded gave us a hint. It would be so awesome if British Columbia’s natural ecosystems that still are intact could be preserved.
I got goosebumps watching the video… what an amazing thing she has done!
Annie, what lovely pictures you took, and I hadn’t seen that clip- I got teary again watching it. Here’s to many more visits in the future.
A swimmer out to save the river. That’s how I want to combine my interests in my next life! I’m so glad you were able to be a part of it and think that’s awesome that you met up with Taimarie and her family too. We had a similar sort of meet up on the weekend but I need to make the time to write about it!