“Come into this canoe to explore a supreme, unknown journey that we are going to take together…”
—Wa’Xaid, Cecil Paul
At times of great crisis it is stories that help us prevail. Stories of hope, stories of connection, stories about what works. It is stories that can transform how we see the world and how we act in it.
Stories are an essential part of building a new future in the face of the climate crisis.
Magic Canoe is a nonprofit collaborative that works to build a bioregional movement across Salmon Nation through storytelling. We are determined to do everything we can to improve social, financial and natural well-being here at home.
We work on a wide range of initiatives, collaborating with communities and individuals across the bioregion. Fluid, ambitious and creative, our work has one primary purpose: to accelerate the success of communities living well with their ecosystems and with each other. Magic Canoe supports edge communities in sharing ideas of importance to them, and by providing resources to discover stories for and by neighbors connected through purpose and place.
Celebrating Wa’Xaid’s Legacy
We honour and carry forward the vision of Wa’xaid
Wa’Xaid, Cecil Paul, was a Haisla and Xenaksiala elder who—against enormous odds—forever protected his home from industrial logging. The Kitlope, almost a million acres of intact coastal temperate rainforest, is home to trees more than 800 years old and abundant with wild salmon.
Cecil said: “In our language we call it Huchsduwachsdu Nuyem Jees. That means the land of milky blue waters and the sacred stories contained in this place. You think (the forest’s protection) is a victory because we saved the land. But what we really saved is our heritage, our stories, which are embedded in this place and which couldn’t survive without it, and which contain all our wisdom for living.”
During this quest, Wa’xaid imagined a Magic Canoe—a metaphysical vessel with room for everyone who wanted to join the journey. Thus he began a powerful movement of people from all over the world to help save his homelands and to help his people heal.
Wa’Xaid asked the founders of Magic Canoe to keep this idea alive, even after he left on another great journey after his time on Earth.
All the wisdom for living is right here, in Salmon Nation.
Salmon Nation is a bioregion that extends from the North Slope of Alaska to the shores of Northern California and everywhere in between: diverse ecosystems, each connected by the gift of wild salmon, places where human and natural economies are wholly interdependent. We think of it as a nature state.
Wild Pacific salmon are our best biological indicator of natural, social and financial health. The rivers of Salmon Nation are where wild salmon have historically spawned, and to which they seek to return.
Salmon Nation’s estuaries, coastal plains, rugged mountains, forests, farm lands and grasslands are also home to vibrant cities. These lands and waters have been stewarded by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial, and host a hotbed of creativity that adds up to a $1.5+ trillion bioregional economy.
Magic Canoe works in collaboration with Salmon Nation Trust: a Public Benefit LLC focused on whole system design and instigation of creative initiatives and companies that improve the health of our bioregion.
Read more in the Salmon Nation thesis.
Initiatives
Magic Canoe works with leaders and communities to amplify stories that have the power to support tangible, at-scale change in our bioregion. Our initiatives are interwoven, responsive and evolving.
Some of our current projects include:
- An Edge Storytelling Network, surfacing ideas and successes from different regions through a diverse range of authentic media created by people who live there.
- Salmon Stories, an initiative that uncorks a strong, steady stream of stories about the importance of salmon as told through personal narratives shared with Storytelling Fellows in edge communities. Find our stories.
- The Festival of What Works, in which current and emerging leaders from communities across Salmon Nation share replicable solutions, and center community wisdom. festivalofwhat.works
- What Works Stories of people and initiatives that accelerate the success of their community in local, ecologically-sound and innovative ways.
- Magic Canoe Press, which publishes books by community thought leaders, individuals who have unique and underheard perspectives on systems change.
- An Edge Prize, building a network and offering cash prizes and mentorships to regenerative projects from rural, Indigenous, and historically marginalized communities across the bioregion. edgeprize.org
Amalaxa Louisa Smith
Elder
Cheryl Chen
Board of Directors — Treasurer/Secretary
Ian Gill
Board of Directors — Founder / Chair
Lauren Kickham
Board of Directors
Teresa Windsor
Board of Directors
Linda Behnken
Board of Directors
Ryan Sheehy
Board of Directors