On a busy Saturday afternoon in Anacla, Charlie Clappis sits by the entrance to the House of Huu-ay-aht looking up at the massive structure he worked to build a quarter century ago.
“It’s just so grand. So grand,” reflects Clappis, looking at the cedar posts supporting four gargantuan spruce logs that extend across the ceiling of the structure.
Clappis was among a handful of Huu-ay-aht members who were hired as labourers to help in what would become the first longhouse built in the First Nation’s territory in over a century.
“I started in November, and it was windy and rainy,” he recalled, noting that the most challenging task for the crew was figuring out how the spruce logs would be supported.
This led Clappis to wonder how his ancestors handled such dimensions without modern machinery.
“They had two 80-ton cranes to lift these,” he said of the equipment used by Knappett Construction at the site 25 years ago.
“It involved a lot of mathematical theory to put the poles in the right places,” said lead carpenter Herb Nelson in a document from the First Nation. “The top four logs each weigh around 30 tons, so everything has to fit just right to hold the 108 and 118-foot-long spruce logs up there.”
On July 26 the First Nation celebrated 25 years of the House of Huu-ay-aht serving as a central gathering place for the First Nation, an event that filled the big house with song and feasting, with hours of cultural performances by Huu-ay-aht and other Nuu-chah-nulth nations.
When the structure was built it was a transitional time of the First Nation, as what would become the Maa-nulth Final Agreement was developing. Implemented in 2011 for five Nuu-chah-nulth nations, Maa-nulth is among the few modern-day treaties that has been enacted between the governments of British Columbia, Canada and First Nations.
“This building was created at a time when Huu-ay-aht turned a corner,” said Huu-ay-aht Chief Councillor John Jack. “We were in the middle of negotiating a final agreement that would ultimately result is us having self-government and ownership control of a portion of our lands.”
Since then the building has served a variety of purposes, including hosting citizens’ assemblies, meetings with different levels of government, cultural events, as a well as countless ball hockey and basketball games for residents of Anacla and neighbouring Bamfield.
When the House of Huu-ay-aht originally opened in July 2000, the late Tyee ƛiišin, Spencer Peters was quoted in a Ha-Shilth-Sa article to say it was the greatest day of his life.
“He always dreamt of having a place where we can conduct business with the chiefs, elected council and community,” said Robert Dennis Sr., who was Huu-ay-aht’s elected chief when the long house opened.
At the time the First Nation had been without a gathering facility for a few years, after a hall in lower Anacla was torn down.
“We had a small hall down at the lower village that wasn’t suiting our needs,” said Huu-ay-aht elder Jeff Cook. “It was deteriorating so we tore it down. We were without a hall back then.”
The original plan was to construct the long house in lower Anacla, where multiple homes had been built. But some warned of the risk of a Tsunami, recalling an event in early 1700 that devastated a Huu-ay-aht village at Pachena Bay. This led to the higher ground of upper Anacla, making the House of Huu-ay-aht an emergency destination for the village in the event of a tsunami.
Inspiration for the structure’s design came from the remains of the ancient village and fortress of Kiixʔin on the coast of Barkley Sound. Kiixʔin is designated a National Historic Site for demonstrating continuous occupation in the area for almost 3,000 years, according to Parks Canada. The site has been unoccupied since the 1880s, but was once a central settlement for Huu-ay-aht people.
For 39 years Stella Peters led tours to Kiixʔin.
“The village site out there is 5,500 years old,” said Peters, who is now a Huu-ay-aht councillor. “It connects us to our history, our past.”
In front of the House of Huu-ay-aht stands carvings of Ho-mini-ki, the first woman, and Nutchkoa, the first man, copies ofgiant figures that once stood before a long house at Kiixʔin and are now at the lobby of the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria.
With posts and beams still visible, the lead architect for the House of Huu-ay-aht was brought to Kiixʔin to guide the design. As is usually the case with traditional Nuu-chah-nulth villages, posts and beams at Kiixʔin were made from cedar, but a different approach had to be taken for the House of Huu-ay-aht.
“Because of the building codes nowadays we weren’t allowed to use cedar so we used spruce instead,” said Cook, who worked for MacMillan Bloedel when the house was built in 2000.
Measuring over 130 feet long and five feet wide, the spruce roof logs were harvested from the Klanawa watershed through an agreement with the Ditidaht First Nation. They were cut and hauled by MacMillan Bloedel, part of what amounted to half a million dollars worth of donated equipment usage, volunteer time and materials from the forestry company, estimated Cook. Two of MacMillan Bloedel’s logging trucks had extra trailers added to haul the logs, which even so hung 60 feet off the end. What would normally have been a three-hour trip from Klanawa to Anacla ended up taking 16 hours due to the expanse of the load.
But the trucks couldn’t turn into upper Anacla, recalled Cook.
“We couldn’t get around the corner, so we had to unload them there and leave them overnight on the side of the road,” he said of the spruce logs. “We used a big hydraulic grapple on one end, and a caterpillar on the front end with an arch on it. We dragged it all the way from the mainline down below there, packed it up to here.”
At an approximate cost of $2 million, the building’s construction was funded by the First Nation, which used the House of Huu-ay-aht as a mark of self-determination beyond federal government reliance.
“We come from an oppressive culture where everything was done for us. It’s now time to do things for ourselves,” said Robert Dennis Sr. “I had a grandfather who, when he wanted to build a boat, he didn’t ask the government for money to build a boat. He went and cut the trees, cut the timber and built a boat.”
The 25th anniversary celebration also served as an official reopening for the House of Huu-ay-aht, which until recently was closed for six months to allow for kitchen and washroom renovations, a new wooden floor, painting and the installation of a back up generator.
Since the longhouse was completed in 2000, the surrounding neighbourhood in upper Anacla has grown from one house to over 20. Now the First Nation hopes to build a daycare, youth centre and cultural facility next to the big house.
“That’s what we’re negotiating with Canada and B.C. right now,” said Huu-ay-aht Executive Director Karen Haugen. “The design is going to mimic what we see with the House of Huu-ay-aht.”
