I recently revisited this photo, taken by Johnny Jones. I’d spent two days reading the Information note from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, about the updated potential for a big rockfall from Mt Currie.

Johnny posted, “For 11 Thousand + years the Lil’wat Nation lived here in the Lil’wat7ul Valley and named the Ts’zil Mountain , #56 , which means “Slides on the Mountain”. On the western ridge the Transformers transformed 2 hunters up there that can be seen today, and on the western side of Ts’zil is were John sky spirit is said to be at.”

It reminded me that this place is so much more immense than me and my small fears of dust and change, its history is deeper, and brave resilient people have endured and flourished here in the shadow of this sliding, rumbling, beautiful, fractured, heartbreakingly striking mountain for thousands of years longer, through more rockfall and floods and tragedies and traumas, than is part of my reckoning.

And I am so grateful that Johnny is willing to share this image, and caption, and his knowledge of the territory, for a glimpse of that steadfastness.

Ts’zil. Photo courtesy Johnny Jones