Caught on camera: Whales appear during Indigenous ceremony for 215 children
The video showing Cory drumming beside the ocean is the last thing he’d imagine he’d be doing, if you’d asked him a few years ago.
“Previous to 2014, I wasn’t exactly the model citizen,” Cory says.
He was struggling with addiction and disconnected from his community.
“To be honest, I had no business being around my people,” he says.
But then one day he found himself at a canoe festival, and Cory happened to have a conversation with a stranger who challenged the way he was living his life.
“After that, things changed and I wanted to learn about where we come from,” Cory says. “And learn our true responsibility as First Nations people.”
He was inspired to become a steward for the environment. He started learning about the cultural significance of things, like why the number four is sacred (“That’s always representing north, east, south and west”), and the cultural role that other animals play, like the orca:
“When somebody passes away, the past chiefs of their family will come in the form of the killer whale,” Cory says. “And they will come to carry them off to the spirit world.”
Cory also learned about the power of ceremony (like the one caught on video in Campbell River) to honour the 215 children found at the Kamloops Residential School.
“Everybody had pretty heavy hearts,” Cory says, describing the start of the ceremony. “We were still really feeling it.”
Words were shared and prayers were offered before Cory and other members of his community performed a paddle song. Then, he noticed that the people watching them were pulling out their cameras and pointing out to the ocean.
“Oh my gosh,” a woman off camera gasps. “Awesome!”
Of all the animals that could have appeared at that exact moment, it was not one whale, but four. “When that sacred number appeared, wow!”
Cory says it intensified the group’s playing.
“It was heavy.”
And the man who had once been so disengaged from his culture, couldn’t have felt more connected to it.
“Honestly, (it was) one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen and had the privilege to be part of,” Cory says.
The video shows the whales swimming close behind the performers. Cory says he was witnessing his ancestors and seeing one of their legends come to life.
“I believe they came to deliver our messages to the children,” Cory says, fighting back tears. “They’re giving the kids their final journey that should have taken place a long time ago.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
MPP Sarah Jama asked to leave Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment which has been banned at Queen’s Park.
Mountain guide dies after falling into a crevasse in Banff National Park
A man who fell into a crevasse while leading a backcountry ski group deep in the Canadian Rockies has died.
2 teens charged in Halifax homicide: police
Two teenagers have been charged with second-degree murder in connection to an alleged homicide near the Halifax Shopping Centre earlier this week.
'Deep ignorance': Calls for Manitoba trustee to resign sparked after comments about Indigenous people and reconciliation
A rural Manitoba school trustee is facing calls to resign over comments he made about Indigenous people and residential schools earlier this week.
ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in U.S. if legal options fail, Reuters sources say
TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.
12-year-old hippo in Japan raised as a male discovered to be a female
When Gen-chan arrived at a zoo in Japan in 2017, no one questioned whether the then-five-year-old hippopotamus was a boy. Seven years later, zoo staff made a surprising discovery: Gen-chan, now 12, was female.
Here's why Harvey Weinstein's New York rape conviction was tossed and what happens next
Here's what you need to know about why movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was thrown out and what happens next.
Improve balance and build core strength with this exercise
When it comes to cardiovascular fitness, you may tend to focus on activities that move you forward, such as walking, running and cycling.
Legendary hockey broadcaster Bob Cole dies at 90: CBC
Bob Cole, a welcome voice for Canadian hockey fans for a half-century, has died at the age of 90. Cole died Wednesday night in St. John's, N.L., surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, told the CBC.