Welcome to Cottonwood Community Gardens.
Ha7lh skwáyel i7xw ta new-yap
T’uy’t’tanat kwi n-Kwshamín
Cease kwi n-sna
Kultsia en elhtech
Senaqwila lha en men
Iy kamaya lha en ímats
Lily lha en stáyalh
tína chen tl’a sla7hn uximixw
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh chen, iymen, tina tl’a Sto:lo, Hawaiian , iy swiss.
An wanawxs en skwalwen
An ha7lh en skwalwen ti sti7s
Translation
Good day everyone
T’uy’tanat is my ancestral name
Cease is my name
Kultsia Barb is my parent
My daughter is Senaqwila and granddaughter kamaya.
I come from the village Esla7hn, and I am Squamish,
Hu
I am also sto:lo, Hawaiian, and swiss.
I respect who I am
It is a beautiful day today,
I wanna take this moment to welcome everybody to Cottonwood Community Gardens on behalf of myself, T’uy’t’tanat, and my mother, Kultsia and our family, the Nahanee family who have gardened for as long as we understood what that term meant. And our commitment and our family has been to put gardens into the land to help take care of ourselves, but also to share that food with the non-human creatures that are important to our lives. The < >, the butterflies, the < >, the hummingbirds and the other creatures, the bees, the ants, all the bugs, all the beneficial bugs that help us with our work. I’ve watched maybe four generations of eagles that have lived in there over the years I lived in Strathcona. Then I came to find out only more recently that that is the water’s edge of Skwachàys from where Cottonwood Gardens is all the way over to Northeast China Creek.
That whole area was known as Skwachàys. I actually looked it up in our dictionary to see if it was in there, and it was. And the translation that it was a portal, a tunnel of the two-headed sea serpent. That it would travel underneath because it was a marshy land. It could swim under the water there.
And then when they took it away, they took its home away. I remember being a kid and you telling me that the double-headed sea serpent used to come up where Lost Lagoon was.
Our hope is that you all enjoy the garden, the other living creatures that are non-human and take time to love Mother Earth. And as we call her
Audio recording, editing, mixing: Lorna Boschman
Audio Optimizer: John Burton
