There’s a lull on Saturday morning and Ben Howells finds himself with time to be loquacious.
He’s relaxed after the game of “human Tetris” his crew played to negotiate over 700 festival-goers plus roughly 150 volunteers into Huu-ay-aht’s Pachena Bay Campground was completed early Friday evening.
Moreover, he shared that whales swam into the bay on Thursday afternoon during his own DJ performance, which stirred a feeling of significance.
“If going to the abandoned warehouses in Chicago or the shipyards in New York is synonymous with early rave culture, part of our culture is bringing music out into beautiful places,” said Howells, who co-founded the Pachena Bay Music Festival with his wife Katreena Bennett, mentor Avigdor (Vig) Schulman and Dallas Stevenson.
“I believe that events where groups of people of multiple ages and ideas, and people who are different, come together for a longform gathering, three or four days, that those gatherings are quintessential for the development of the human race over time,” Howells continued.
“Longform gatherings such as these result in certain positive synergies that have helped humanity along, like the sharing of ideas, the sharing of genetics, the sharing of germs…and all those things mixed together make humans stronger,” he said.
Just coming off a successful fourth showing, Pachena Bay Music Festival took over Huu-ay-aht First Nations (HFN) shorefront July 18, 19 and 20. HFN members delivered the welcome speech, which established the overall vibe of the event: safe and happy, flowing with the nation’s sacred principles of respect (ʔiisaak), taking care of (ʔuuʔałuk) and everything is one (hišuk ma c̕awak).
“A lot of people just want the opportunity to do the right thing,” said Howells.
Olivia Peters, who comes from a long line of Huu-ay-aht Tyee Ha’wiih, welcomed guests to her territory after Friday’s opening parade. Peters, whose Indigenous name translates to ‘daughter of the moon’, shared with the crowd that a long, long time ago, Pachena Bay was given to her great grandmother Aggie Peters as a wedding dowry.
“My direct family has been the caretakers of this beach for many generations, and now the responsibility is now passed on to the women in the Peters family, such as myself, a couple of my grandmothers and my auntie,” said Peters.
Qiic Qiica, a cultural interpreter for Kiixin Tours (HFN’s ancient village site) and speaker for the nation, spoke about resilience. He said his ancestors had to “fight and die for the land they live on” and endured tsunamis, famine, colonization and disease.
“Despite being displaced by all the government policies and the churches and their effort to take away our language and culture we are still here,” said Qiic Qiica.
The crowd cheered.
He went on to tell the audience that the music festival is a form of reconciliation and a step in the right direction.
“The great festival organizers went out of their way to make sure that we could be there to do the traditional welcome into our territory,” he said.
Drum in hand, Huu-ay-aht Councillor Edward Johnson sang a canoe song, composed by Qiic Qiica, about working together as one. A big circle was formed and folks danced to the song, doing paddle strokes in unison.
“I’m just impressed with Huu-ay-aht,” said Howells. “I see the vision in terms of economic strategies. A lot of that stuff I really see it and I see the strength. I see the strength growing.”
Howells spent 13 years planting millions of trees in TFL (Tree Farm Licence) 44. He’s seen the TFL transition from Western Forest Products to Tsawak-qin Forestry and managed crews that helped reforest the cutblocks along the Bamfield Main.
“That’s a whole other interview, but for me, as a rule of thumb, I imagine that the land in the hands of people who drink the water and live in the land is naturally going to result in better stewardship,” he said.
When he originally proposed the concept of a music festival at Pachena Bay to former Huu-ay-aht chief councillor Robert Dennis Sr., Howells says his approach came from the perspective of growing up in the small community of Cortes Island.
“People need to be talked to face to face and need to do things at their own pace. That is sort of something that guides me,” said Howells, who married Katreena on Brady’s Beach near Bamfield.
“We were all feeling the love. That’s the strongest seed that truly grew,” he told the Ha-Shilth-Sa.
Howells said another unique “under thread” of the Pachena Bay Music Festival is the absence of garbage bins around the campsite. Festivalgoers need to pack out whatever they pack in.
“It’s one of those things; we get very disconnected with our garbage. I’m not saying you’re bad if you didn’t recycle that thing, whatever it was, that piece of garbage is with you for longer. You just have to hold it for longer,” said Howells.
Black bear concerns
On July 18, the day most of the festival folk arrived, Huu-ay-aht posted a bulletin about an active black bear wandering around the village of Anacla, which neighbours the Pachena Bay Campground, seeking out garbage and unsecured food. At one point during the three-day festival the bear wandered into the campground and was chased up a tree. Authorities scared it off into the forest, but it was seen skirting around the area, munching on dandelions. The nation says it’s hoping to humanely trap it for relocation within its home range.
Howells shared that the reason why a lot of festivals don’t take place in wild and beautiful locations like Pachena Bay is because they are too risky from a business perspective.
“That’s why you see so many concerts at exhibition grounds and boring locations,” he said. “I deal with the innocent ignorance, the lack of knowledge, with communication kindly communicated. But of course, if that ignorance persists, it’s no longer ignorance anymore, it’s now just being a (big) asshole and it’s time to go,” said Howells.
“We don’t want to eff this up. As soon as you step foot down here, it becomes apparent to people,” he said.
Huu-ay-aht receives more revenue during the festival than if their campground was fully booked and the town of Bamfield gets a boost too, but Howells respectively acknowledges that if, at any given time, Huu-ay-aht’s chief, council and the residents of upper and lower Anacla want the festival to go, it could just be done.
