Sculpture from YVR

There was a really cool display in the Vancouver Airport filled with First Nations artwork. This wooden sculpture is meant to depict a killer whale. I love all the faces of humans and other animals through out the sculpture.

I think it's very interesting to see artwork from people originally native to any area that you travel. It is usually quite beautiful and often has the ability to tell a story.

Today this piece reminded me of a little story from my life. When I was younger my family would drive out to Vancouver Island to visit family and vacation. At the time my Great Uncle had a boat in Sooke and would take us fishing. I get horribly sea sick but I still loved going fishing so I would go anyways. On the particular day I'm remembering, the water was incredibly foggy and I was incredibly sea sick. I spent most of the morning puking over the side of the boat before curling up in the little cubby hole below deck normally meant for storage.

I was sleeping away my sea sickness when I was woken up by a commotion on the boat. I quickly ran up and looked out into the fog. The fog was dense and vision was limited to about 20 feet behind the boat. At first I didn't see anything and then I finally picked out a few black blobs in the fog. Soon those black blobs became visible behind the boat, a full pod of killer whales swimming right behind the boat.

It was an incredible sight and one of the most surreal moments of my life. In our tiny window of visibility in the whole ocean that pod of whales swam right through it. An amazing experience even with my never ending seasickness.