The Arbutus Room & Bar

From early Spring to ĆENQÁLES, the full heat of summer, there were many berries to pick, including Salmon berries, strawberries and salal.  There was also an abundance of shellfish to harvest and many types of seaweed.  This is also a time the Saanich Inlet would host female whales which arrived to calf, turning Brentwood Bay into a kind of nursery.  Often whales would stay for a few weeks because of the abundance of food, and calm waters which acted like a shelter.  With the season change, ĆENIȾEȽOṈSET, the earth’s cooling, came major and smaller runs of spring, coho and chum salmon.  Harvests and catches were processed and stored for the winter, preserving done primarily drying and smoking techniques.  This is also when W̱SÁNEĆ people returned from traditional fishing sites to where ever their winter homes stood in their homeland.

PEKELÁNEW̱ is the month when the leaves turn colour. Hunting, shell fish harvesting and limited fishing would continue late into the fall season.  W̱ESELÁNEW̱, shaker of the leaves, begins ĆENȾOȽEṈ, when the earth becomes cold and families were well settled into their lives at home. This is a time for winter ceremonies, storytelling and work on baskets, mats, canoes and tools. At this time of year, WSANEC people saw less of their relatives, the tribes who lived both south and west of them. So, at the end of the busy seasons, Goodbyes were said to their family and friends with a deeper seriousness.