This week was a bit of a change of pace as because of job action, UBC TC’s were no longer in the schools which allowed us more flexibility to integrate ourselves into the community here. After hiking the Metlakatla Trail on Monday, Jessica and I managed to keep ourselves quite busy this past week. On Tuesday we ventured out to the North Pacific Cannery Museum to look into developing some resources for them. Everyone at NPC was incredibly welcoming and we were able to tour the facilities and learn more about the culture of a cannery in the early 20th century. This weekend was their 125 birthday celebrations so Jess and I created some children’s activities for the celebration happening on site on Sunday. While there may not have been a flood of children visiting the cannery yesterday, the UBC TC’s sure enjoyed playing in our photo booth and creating salmon puppets.

The rest of the week, when not spending time prepping for the cannery celebrations, Jess, Carman and I were fortunate to work with Sue, the district occupational therapist at the pool. Here, we worked with an 8 year old with mobility challenges. He absolutely loves being in the water and is such a joy to work with as he is so outgoing and adventurous.

To round out the week, Aboriginal Day was Saturday, June 21st and we attended celebrations here at the Civic Centre in Prince Rupert. It was a day of dancing, feasting, singing and storytelling. One of my favourite parts of National Aboriginal Day was meeting a woman, Symbia Barnaby, who had started an organization to help parents of children with exceptionalities. In April, there was a tragic event in Prince Rupert in which a mother took her life and her autistic son’s life as she was not receiving the support she needed to care for her son. Therefore, Symbia, who has a child with autism, decided to take action and created a support group for parents of children with exceptionalities for the Prince Rupert area called Parents for Positive Change. She is helping guide parents to resources, empowering them to advocate for their children and is looking into providing respite care for parents. She was an incredibly inspiring individual to talk to and it shows that out of tragedy can come amazing positive changes for a community.

I enjoyed integrating myself further into the community here in Prince Rupert this past week, I can’t believe that we only have a few days left here!

Welcome to the North Pacific Cannery established 1889 and the oldest intact salmon cannery on North America’s West coast.

Some examples of salmon puppets made by the children at the cannery celebrations.

Piles of pilings – the cannery can look eery on a dreary day.

Skeena River and Cannery buildings.