Legends of Vancouver quotes

You can see them as you look towards the north and the west, where the dream-hills swim into the sky amid their ever-drifting clouds of pearl and grey. They catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold the last colour of sunset.

Twin mountains they are, lifting their twin peaks above the fairest city in all Canada, and known throughout the British Empire as “The Lions of Vancouver.”

Sometimes the smoke of forest fires blurs them until they gleam like opals in a purple atmosphere, too beautiful for words to paint.

Sometimes the smoke of forest fires blurs them until they gleam like opals in a purple atmosphere, too beautiful for words to paint.

Sometimes the slanting rains festoon scarfs of mist about their crests, and the peaks fade into shadowy outlines, melting, melting, forever melting into the distances.

But for most days in the year the sun circles the twin glories with a sweep of gold. The moon washes them with a torrent of silver. Oftentimes, when the city is shrouded in rain, the sun yellows their snows to a deep orange;

You shall never die, but you shall stand through all the thousands of years to come, where all eyes can see you.

You shall live, live, live as an indestructible monument to Clean Fatherhood.

”

… the living rock that was there before their hulls were shaped, that will be there when their very names are forgotten, when their crews and their captains have taken their long last voyage, when their merchandise has rotted, and their owners are known no more.

But the tall, grey column of stone will still be there⁠—a monument to one man’s fidelity to a generation yet unborn⁠—and will endure from everlasting to everlasting.

But I learned this legend from one whose voice was as dulcet as the swirling rapids; but, unlike them, that voice is hushed today, while the river, the river still sings on—sings on.

It was singing in very melodious tones through the long August afternoon two summers ago, while we, the chief, his happy-hearted wife, and bright young daughter, all lounged amongst the boulders and watched the lazy clouds drift from peak to peak far above us.

It was one of his inspired days; legends crowded to his lips as a whistle teases the mouth of a happy boy;

For if he had refused to do so his belief was that, although the threatened disaster would be spared him, the evil would fall upon his tribe.

Thus was one more added to the long list of self-forgetting souls whose creed has been, ‘It is fitting that one should suffer for the people.’

It was the world-old heroism of vicarious sacrifice.

“But the great medicine-man said, ‘

The heart of a child has invisible eyes; perhaps the child-eyes see him. The heart of a child has invisible ears; perhaps the child-ears hear him call.

Let them go.’ So the little children went forth into the forest; their young feet flew as though shod with wings, their young hearts pointed to the north as does the white man’s compass.

“Before you born, or I, or”—pointing across the park to the distant city of Vancouver that breathed its wealth and beauty across the September afternoon—“before that place born, before white man came here—oh! long before.”

Dear old klootchman! I knew by the dusk in her eyes that she was back in her Land of Legends, and that soon I would be the richer in my hoard of Indian lore.

She sat, still leaning on her paddle; her eyes, half-closed, rested on the distant outline of the blurred heights across the Inlet.

“So,” she added, “you see now, maybe, why I am glad my grandchild is girl; it means big salmon-run next year.”

“It is a beautiful story, klootchman,” I said, “and I feel a cruel delight that your men of magic punished the people for their ill choice.”

“That because you girl-child yourself,” she laughed.

“And still the sea crept up, and up, and up. At the crest of the bluffs about Lake Beautiful the doomed tribes crowded. Not a single person attempted to enter the canoe. There was no wailing, no crying out for safety.

‘Let the little children, the young mother, and the bravest and best of our young men live,’

was all the farewell those in the canoe heard as the waters reached the summit, and—the canoe floated. Last of all to be seen was the top of the tallest tree, then—all was a world of water.

… encountered but one single case of a “stingy Indian,” and this man was so marked amongst his fellows that at mention of his name his tribespeople jeered and would remark contemptuously that he was like a white man—hated to share his money and his possessions.

All red races are born Socialists, and most tribes carry out their communistic ideas to the letter.

Amongst the Iroquois it is considered disgraceful to have food if your neighbour has none. To be a creditable member of the nation you must divide your possessions with your less fortunate fellows.

“You always understand,” he said after a pause.

“It’s my heart that understands,” I remarked quietly.

He glanced up quickly, and with one of his all too few radiant smiles, he laughed.

“

The Tenas Tyee then stripped himself, and, with no clothing save a buckskin belt into which he thrust his hunting-knife, he flung his lithe young body into the sea.

But at the end of four days he did not return. Sometimes his people could see him swimming far out in mid-channel, endeavouring to find the exact centre of the serpent, where lay its evil, selfish heart;

I thought of all the splendid courage I knew him to possess, so made answer: “But you say that the shadow of this island has fallen upon you; is it not so, tillicum?”

“Yes,” he said half mournfully. “But only the shadow.”

But the canoe containing the Four Men rode upright through all the heights and hollows of the seething ocean.

No curling crest or sullen depth could wreck that magic craft, for the hearts it bore were filled with kindness for the human race, and kindness cannot die.

“It was all rock and dense forest, and unpeopled; only wild animals and seabirds sought the shelter it provided from the terrors of the West Wind;

… sing their way through the canyons with a music so dulcet, so insistent, that for many moons the echo of it lingers in your listening ears, and you will, through all the years to come, hear the voices of those mountain-rivers calling you to return.

But the most haunting of all the melodies is the warbling laughter of the Tulameen; its delicate note is far more powerful, more far-reaching than the throaty thunders of Niagara.

That is why the Indians of the Nicola country still cling to their old-time story that the Tulameen carries the spirit of a young girl enmeshed in the wonders of its winding course;

It was many a moon before his avenging hand succeeded in slaying the old chief and those two hated sons of his. But when this was finally done the handsome young Tulameen left his people, his tribe, his country, and went into the far north.

“For,” he said, as he sang his farewell war-song, “my heart lies dead in the Tulameen River.”

But the spirit of his girl-wife still sings through the canyon, its song blending with the music of that sweetest-voiced river in all the great valleys of the Dry Belt.

The steamer, like a huge shuttle, wove in and out among the countless small islands; its long trailing scarf of grey smoke hung heavily along the uncertain shores, casting a shadow over the pearly waters of the Pacific, which swung lazily from rock to rock in indescribable beauty.

After dinner I wandered astern with the traveller’s ever-present hope of seeing the beauties of a typical Northern sunset, and by some happy chance I placed my deck-stool near an old tillicum, who was leaning on the rail, his pipe between his thin, curved lips, …

“And,” he proceeded, “this Grey Archway is a story of mothers, of magic, of witchcraft, of warriors, of—love.”

An Indian rarely uses the word “love,” and when he does it expresses every quality, every attribute, every intensity, emotion, and passion embraced in those four little letters.

Surely this was an exceptional story I was to hear.

“It is a beautiful colour—the fire-flower,” I said.

“It should be fine colour, for it was born and grew from the hearts of fine tribespeople⁠—very fine people,” he emphasized.

We crossed to the eastern rail of the bridge, and stood watching the deep shadows that gathered slowly and silently about the island; I have seldom looked upon anything more peaceful.

Into their canoes they crowded the two hundred captives. Once more their women sobbed, their old men muttered, their children wailed, but those young copper-coloured gods never flinched, never faltered. Their weak and their feeble were saved.

What mattered to them such a little thing as death?

“The released captives were quickly surrounded by their own people, but the flower of their splendid nation was in the hands of their enemies, those valorous young men who thought so little of life that they willingly, gladly laid it down to serve and to …

The clustering pines and the outlines of the island’s margin were now dusky and indistinct.

Peace, peace lay over the waters, and the purple of the summer twilight had turned to grey, but I knew that in the depths of the undergrowth on Deadman’s Island there blossomed a flower of flaming beauty; its colours were veiled in the coming nightfall, but somewhere down in the sanctuary of its petals pulsed the heart’s blood of many and valiant men.

The chief’s voice again lowered to a whisper—his face was almost rigid with intentness as he replied:

“He lost the Squamish charm⁠—lost it just before one great fight with the English people.”

I looked at him curiously; he had been telling me the oddest mixture of history and superstition, of intelligence and ignorance, the most whimsically absurd, yet impressive, tale I ever heard from Indian lips.

There is no fresco that can rival the delicacy of lacework they have festooned between you and the far skies.

No tiles, no mosaic or inlaid marbles, are as fascinating as the bare, russet, fragrant floor outspreading about their feet.

They are the acme of Nature’s architecture, and in building them she has outrivalled all her erstwhile conceptions. She will never originate a more faultless design, never erect a more perfect edifice.

There is no fresco that can rival the delicacy of lacework they have festooned between you and the far skies. No tiles, no mosaic or inlaid marbles, are as fascinating as the bare, russet, fragrant floor outspreading about their feet.

They are the acme of Nature’s architecture, and in building them she has outrivalled all her erstwhile conceptions.

She will never originate a more faultless design, never erect a more perfect edifice. But the divinely moulded trees and the man-made cathedral have one exquisite characteristic in common. It is the atmosphere of holiness.

If you talk with any of them, and they mention some man they particularly like or admire, their first qualification of him is: “He’s a kind man.”

They never say he is brave, or rich, or successful, or even strong, that characteristic so loved by the red man.

To these coast tribes if a man is “kind” he is everything. And almost without exception their legends deal with rewards for tenderness and self-abnegation, and personal and mental cleanliness.

“He’s a kind man.” They never say he is brave, or rich, or successful, or even strong, that characteristic so loved by the red man.

To these coast tribes if a man is “kind” he is everything.

And almost without exception their legends deal with rewards for tenderness and self-abnegation, and personal and mental cleanliness.

Far into the night dashes of flaming scarlet pulsed far beyond the head of False Creek.

The colour rose and fell like a beckoning hand, and, Indian-like, he immediately attached some portentous meaning to the unusual sight.

That it was some omen he never doubted, so he paddled inland, beached his canoe, and took the trail towards the little group of lakes that crowd themselves into the area that lies between the present cities of Vancouver and New Westminster.

the roads were dry and dusty, and, after a mile or so, the boy-prince brought from beneath the carriage seat a basket of grapes. With his handkerchief he flicked the dust from them, handed a bunch to the chief, and took one himself.

An odd spectacle to be traversing a country road: an English prince and an Indian chief, riding amicably side by side, enjoying a banquet of grapes like two schoolboys.

On reaching the church, Arthur leapt lightly to the greensward. For a moment he stood, rigid, gazing before him at his future brother-chiefs.