Here’s what they had to say about Larry:

Progressive individuals like Larry Jorgenson recognize that people and place are intimately linked. For over thirty-three years, Larry’s focus has been the integration of economic, environmental and social development in Bella Bella. Founder and Executive Director of Qqs Project Society, Larry has spearheaded dozens of collaborative partnerships that promote the stewardship of the Heiltsuk traditional territories and empower youth to reconnect with their cultural identity. The Heiltsuk Cabins Project, the Koeye River Valley youth camps and field science internships, the first all-ages community library, the Koeye Café, are examples of Larry’s tremendous legacy. Everyday, Larry brings strength to the Heiltsuk community through his vision and ideas.

We wanted to share some photos with all of you who were rooting for him from afar! So here they are, and you can see more here. Please feel free to comment with messages for Larry, or send him an email today. He’s too humble to sing his own praises but we’ll do it for him today!

Small Change Fund supports grassroots community projects in Canada by connecting them to a community of individual donors whose support has a high impact at the local level.

In 2010, our SEAS (Supporting Emerging Aboriginal Stewards) Youth Science Internship program was one of the Seven Small Wonders of Canada. With help from Small Change, we were able to meet our goal of raising $5,000 to support the internship program.

We’re excited and grateful to be working with Small Change once again – this time to raise support for our Koeye River Youth Camp program! SCF is profiling our proposed Sacred Waters Week, a theme camp concerned with stewardship of our traditional waters.

You can learn all about the Sacred Waters Week vision by viewing the project here. I know you’ll be as excited as I am, and I’m sure you’ll be looking for ways to show your support!

Here are some ideas:

1. Make a donation! At the grassroots level, every dollar has a high impact. By supporting this project and the other great projects featured by Small Change Fund, you’re helping to create real change at the local level across Canada!

2. Facebook it! You can share the link with all your friends, “like” Small Change Fund to get updates, and check out the Qqs Projects page for more information about what we’re doing!

3. Tweet it up! You can follow Small Change Fund for up-to-the-minute updates, retweet their links to your followers, and check out our Communications Director‘s Twitter account for more info on what we’re doing!

4. Tell a friend. Whether you start an email chain, hire a skywriter or train a pigeon to carry the message, starting a conversation about this project and about Small Change Fund can be the start of something amazing!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch today!

Thank you to the team at Small Change Fund for supporting grassroots work in Canadian communities!

Larry was nominated for a 2012 BC Community Achievement Award for the incredible leadership he’s shown over the course of his lifetime.

He was nominated by Eduardo Sousa, Senior Forests Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. With support from Joann Green and Ross Wilson, Larry’s nomination was successful.

Larry founded Qqs in 1999 “to support Heiltsuk youth, culture and environment”. In the decade and more since the organization’s inception, his visionary work has touched the lives of many young people and community members who enrich our programs with their support and participation.

He will receive his award in a ceremony at Government House in Victoria next week.

Look out for updates on all of our projects and upcoming events! We’ll have lots of information to share with you, and we can’t wait to spend another season doing what we love in the most beautiful place in the world.

For every salmonberry blossom in Bella Bella, I think we can put a smile on the face of an elder, a young leader, a community supporter or an ally who stands shoulder to shoulder with Team Qqs during our busy season. What do you think?

As most of you are now aware, we lost our facilities in Koeye (the Koeye River Lodge) to an arson-related fire earlier in the week. No one was hurt in the blaze, and I can now confidently confirm that our pups – Bear, Jukla and Kusa – are just fine too.

All that remains of the Lodge is an ashen depression in the earth. (We hope a field of fireweed springs up in the wake of the fire.) Fortunately, the caretaker’s cabin, generator and bighouse were not affected by the fire.

Over the holidays, our team will pull together to begin taking stock of what we’ve lost. By the New Year, we hope to have a strategy for how we’ll pull ourselves through the coming season. It’s of critical importance to us that we continue our normal programming and maintain our commitment to the vision and values our initiatives in Koeye represent. In spite of this enormous setback, we will strive to uplift our youth by continuing the Koeye Camp program, and to support our Nation by carrying out our research and monitoring program from our base in Koeye.

We have deep gratitude for the hope and resilience of our young people, who are already leading discussions on how to move forward. Koeye has been a place of growth and healing for our youth, families, community and friends for many years. When the Lodge first came under our care many years ago, it was a scarred plot of land that we loved until it bloomed again. Through that process of reviving and strengthening a place deeply special to us – we found revival and new strength in ourselves. We are confident that in the wake of this loss, we will find beauty, healing and hope.

To those of you who have expressed your desire to pitch in: thank you. We’ll keep in touch and when we know what kind of support we need, we’re grateful for the knowledge that we can reach out to you.

With love, respect and gratitude,
Jess (on behalf of Team Qqs)

We’ve watched dozens of people come into the Cafe, the cold wind gusting them through the door. And we’ve watched them leave with smiles on their faces, warm coats folded under their arms and cups of coffee in their hands!

Today, it’s not about who is more or less fortunate. It’s about taking care of one another. Thank you to our whole community for making today an inspiration!

If you’re in Bella Bella, stop by today before 5 PM. The coffee is on us!

“EVERY TANKER THAT TRANSITS COASTAL WATERS REPRESENTS THE POSSIBILITY OF A SPILL.” Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett

Last week, I visited classes at the Bella Bella Community School to talk to students about tankers and pipelines. I walked into those classes with nothing prepared. I didn’t give speeches or presentations. Frankly, I didn’t know what to say. Every class visit started with the same two questions: “How many of you have heard about the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project?” and “Can you tell me something you know?”

In the younger classes, I didn’t quite know how to broach the subject without overwhelming a gaggle of hopeful Kindergarten kids. I asked them to name their favourite animals in the ocean, to tell me some traditional foods we harvest from the sea. In the first primary class I visited, I asked the kids why they thought it was important to protect animals in the ocean. A five year old girl raised her hand and said clearly and boldly, “We need to protect them because an oil spill might happen and then we’ll lose all the animals.”

“WHAT IF THIS DISASTER HAPPENS? WHAT WILL WE SING AND DANCE ABOUT? WHAT CREST WILL WE WEAR ON OUR BACKS? WHAT WILL WE TEACH OUR CHILDREN?” Cerelina Humchitt, Heiltsuk mother

In Bella Bella, there’s no age sector in the community that isn’t aware of this issue. What I did when I visited the students was simple: I asked questions, and I invited them to tell their stories. They shared their fears. They expressed their disbelief that a project like this is even being considered. They shared their anger that our voices as First Nations with unceded lands are being ignored. They talked about what they’re prepared to do. Most importantly, they supported one another with both passion and compassion, hope and anger, fear, and faith that we’ll prevail.

Last Friday, those conversations culminated in an incredible show of community strength and support when we hosted our Community Voices Rally. All those kids who shared their passion with me carried it with them, en masse, into our community hall. Led by our Heiltsuk singers, 200 kids from Kindergarten through graduating class marched together through the streets of Bella Bella holding signs, banners and flags, their faces lit up in spite of the sharp wind and the daunting challenges ahead. When I stood outside watching them march against the cold, some of them arm in arm, many of them singing and all of them with pride on their faces – I cried.

“WHEN WE GET TOGETHER, WE’RE A STRONG FORCE.” Hemas Gilbert Jackson

As the kids marched into the hall, they were greeted by 300 community members who rose to watch them. They circled the floor before they took their seats, still holding their signs above their heads. Sitting in silent rows, these young sentinels made one thing very clear: they are not just the future leaders of our Nation. They are leading it already. And they know their own power.

“THIS IS THE WAY WE DO THINGS. TOGETHER. WE STAND TOGETHER. WE FIGHT TOGETHER.” Hemas Gary Housty

Our chiefs stood up, one by one, and addressed our community and our youth. Our hereditary chiefs have always been the compass that guides our people, and their message on this issue has been unwavering: we will not risk 10,000 years of history for a drop of oil. We will not abandon our unbroken chain of traditional stewardship. They called to our fishermen, our clammers, our hunters, our Coastal Guardian Watchmen to recognize that they are the ones who know the coast, the waters, the weather and the risks. They called to our parents and grandparents to keep the promise our people have always made to our future generations. They called to our children and uplifted them for the leadership role they’re undertaking. The call to action from our hereditary chiefs has not fallen on deaf ears. One by one, with wisdom and strength, they empowered everyone in our community to stand up for our way of life along with our brothers and sisters from other Nations on the coast and along the proposed pipeline.

“IT’S BEEN 400 YEARS SINCE CONTACT. WE HAVE BEEN HERE 10,000 YEARS. THIS IS AN ACT OF TRESPASS.” Carrie Humchitt, in-house legal counsel for HTC and HIRMD

Representatives from Heiltsuk Tribal Council, Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department and the community’s interagency committee on the Enbridge project spoke to the community about the work being done at the political level. Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett read out the words of the Coastal First Nations Declaration signed in March 2010 – the youth and community applauded those strong words. Carrie Humchitt, in-house legal counsel for HTC and HIRMD, read out the words of the Heiltsuk declaration signed this August. The responding shouts and applause were deafening.

Two huge maps of Heiltsuk territory were printed with the text of the Heiltsuk declaration written across the top. One by one, filing out of the hall at the end of the rally, people signed their names on the declarations – many of them signing on the lands and waterways where their families come from.

These are the people whose names and lineage are tied to the very places that are threatened by environmental disasters like oil spills. The people who can trace old traplines, family camps, hunting grounds, clam gardens, and berry orchards back to every little beach and river and meadow in our territory. These are the people who can take you out to the place where their great grandmother was born, between the fallen beams of an old bighouse that are now covered in moss on the forest floor.

This is a history that lives in our people, and the names marked on each mountain and inlet on our declaration are strong testimony.

“I SAW THE PRIDE ON YOUR FACES WHEN YOU CAME IN. WE’LL FIGHT TO MAKE SURE IT’S ALWAYS THERE.” Hemas Gary Housty

As the rally drew to a conclusion, one side of our community hall was packed with youth of all ages. Across from them, our community members looked on. Facing one another, witnessing all the strong words that were shared, everyone in the hall understood a promise. In unison, the community members shouted, “THIS IS FOR YOU, CHILDREN.” In unison, the children shouted in response, “THANK YOU. WE ARE LISTENING.”

500 people bore witness to that promise. Today I share it with you, because it gives me more hope than I’ve ever felt before. Even with the potential for disaster and devastation looming before us, even with our way of life and our very identity as First Nations people at stake, there is hope. As long as one generation can look on another and promise to fight, there is hope. You carry that promise now as well, and I thank you for bearing witness to it by reading the story I’ve shared with you.

In solidarity,
Jess (on behalf of the Community Voices Rally organizers)

Over our generations, many threats have risen up against us. We have overcome them all. We are still here. We still feast on salmon, weave with cedar bark, mend ourselves with alder and devil’s club when we’re ill. We still drink from the same streams, bathe in the same cold creeks. We still pull our traditional canoes through the same waterways, potlatch in the same spirit as our ancestors. And the traditional space in which we do so – the territory of our Heiltsuk Nation – is still a wild and beautiful place. Up and down the coast, our brothers and sisters of other Nations are still finding ways to exist in harmony with their traditional landscapes.

Our older generations hold in living memory threats that started at contact: assimilation, loss of cultural identity, attempted genocide. Over the years we’ve been threatened by industry: logging companies and fish farms have knocked at our doors with thin promises of jobs and money. In the face of challenges like work shortages, the collapse of traditional industries like fishing, crises of housing and education, we have remained strong and stood up as a community. We have taken care of ourselves, one another and our homeland in our own way. In the Heiltsuk way.

Many of you are aware of the threat facing the coast in the form of oil exported from the Tar Sands in Alberta intended for shipment overseas – shipment via supertankers that will ply our coastal waters that we, through an intimate connection to place, know to be volatile and unpredictable. We know better than anyone else the rich history and the incredible biodiversity of the coast’s lands and waters. And we know better than anyone else what’s on the line if we allow this development to go forward. Our homeland. Our identity as a people. Our way of life. Our connection to our ancestors. The future we’ve promised our coming generations.

This is why we stood up alongside other Nations on the North and Central Coast (whose territories are impacted by the proposed tanker route) to sign a declaration opposing the development of this project: the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project. Nations along the proposed pipeline have signed a similar declaration across Alberta and British Columbia. And across the province, the country, the continent and the globe, people are standing in solidarity – standing in opposition to this menace. In spite of this, we are still threatened with the possibility that this project will be approved by the Joint Review Panel who is assessing the pipeline over the coming months.

In the face of something this big and this threatening to every facet of our lives on the coast, it’s easy to feel small and helpless. There are lots of things you can do to keep the opposition and the momentum strong. Many of you came out to our Gathering Coastal Voices Festival in May 2011 to learn more about the issues. Many of you have traveled to Kitimat, Prince Rupert and Hartley Bay to stand with our friends and family and fellow Nations in solidarity against this pipeline. Many of you are keeping the conversation going, educating yourselves. Some of you even registered to intervene.

I want to tell you about a really important deadline that’s coming up, and one that I think you need to know about. Right now, the Enbridge pipeline is being reviewed by the National Energy Board and a Joint Review Panel that’s assessing whether this project should go forward. The Joint Review Panel (JRP) is obligated to open up a space for YOU to comment and give feedback on the project. If you want to know about this in greater depth than I’m providing here, let me know and I can answer your questions or point you to some good resources. What you need to know is that IN THE JRP, YOU HAVE A VOICE. And your voice, if you use it, could help to slow down this process and prevent the Enbridge project from being approved.

There are a few levels of involvement. Some big organizations are intervening in the JRP as expert witnesses. They’re standing up as strong advocates who are investing a lot of resources in understanding the politics and responding on a level that’s way up high and backed up by huge expertise, and lots of legal support. That’s really important. Some of us are also registered as individual/small group interveners. What you might like to know is that we at Qqs are registered in this category; we did this so we’d have our finger on the pulse of what’s going on. For those of you want want a lot of depth, we receive hard copies of the documents that are filed in relation to the JRP, and we’re happy to share those with you.

What I really want to tell you about are two levels of involvement that matter to YOU. And before I bring them up, I want to say something really clearly. This is a big issue. It makes a lot of us (me included) feel really disempowered. But YOU have an incredible voice, and an incredible choice. You may not think you have the courage, the knowledge or the support to stand up in the ways I want to tell you about. But I want you to know that you do. And not only that, but I pledge personally to support you in any way I can, and Qqs will be there (along with lots of allies and advocates from outside our community) to help you find your voice.

The first thing you can do is to SUBMIT A LETTER OF COMMENT. This means you provide a written letter (in your own words) voicing your opposition (along with your reasons for opposing the project). This letter gets sent to the Joint Review Panel, and they’ll review it before they make their decision. This is an important step and if you’re uncomfortable with my next suggestion, I encourage you to write a letter. If you need help finding a computer, printing it off, or mailing it in, let us know.

What I really want to see you do is this: REGISTER TO GIVE AN ORAL STATEMENT! As First Nations people, we come from an oral culture. It is our custom and our right to speak rather than articulate ourselves in writing if that is what we choose. During the community hearings, which will happen in 2012, the Joint Review Panel will open a space for public comment on the Enbridge project. Those hearings won’t happen until the new year, but if you want to speak up, YOU HAVE ONLY UNTIL OCTOBER 6, 2011 TO REGISTER.

We want to see people register to give an oral statement for two reasons: first, because your passion is going to come through in your voice, even if you don’t think you’re a strong public speaker. Finding the courage to stand up and speak is a statement in itself! Second, because IF WE HAVE LOTS OF FOLKS ON THE COAST WHO REGISTER TO SPEAK AT THE HEARINGS, THERE’S A STRONGER CHANCE THE HEARINGS WILL HAPPEN RIGHT ON THE COAST. If the hearings are on the coast, then the whole community can stand together in solidarity – and I can’t stress how important this is.

If you register to speak, it’s just 10 minutes or less. You can change your mind later even if you register now, but IF YOU MISS THE DEADLINE, THERE’S NO SECOND CHANCE. OCTOBER 6 IS COMING UP FAST. We need to meet a minimum number of people who have registered to give oral statements if we want to bring the hearings to the coast. For that reason, and also so I can help to support you, I have another request: if you decide to register, please let me know (if you’re comfortable). I’m not going to do anything with that information except count the numbers, and those numbers will help coastal community organizers to track our progress.

Registration is really easy (thanks to our friends at Dogwood Initiative). You can register online, and it only takes a minute. If you need help with the registration, pop by our office and we can help you out. If you’d rather have a hard copy of the form to fill out by hand, we can hook you up. If you have ANY questions or need ANY support, we’re here.

Follow this link to register online!

Be a voice for our territory; it can’t speak for itself. Be a voice for our ancestors; they can speak through you if you feel like this is intimidating. Be a voice for our children; they see what we show them and hear what we tell them. Tell the story of why our coast matters more than money. More than oil. More than Enbridge.

Please consider registering today to provide an oral statement, and please help us to keep up the momentum. We have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Please follow this link to read the article!