We’re a couple of local photographers, and for the past year we’ve been shooting Vancouverites for So It Is: Vancouver, a coffee table book that shows why we’re proud to call this place home. The book profiles a bunch of people who live here today, and through them we tell the story of the city we live in today. If you think this book should exist, we need your help to make it happen.
Khelsilem
Khelsilem is a Skwxwú7mesh-Kwakwaka’wakw man born and raised in his Skwo-mesh homelands on the North Shore of Vancouver. He is one of the founders of a revitalization project to save his people’s language from extinction.
As of right now, there are just seven fluent speakers of the Skwxwú7mesh language.
In November of 2014 Khelsilem, Jaymyn La Valle, and Joshua Watts founded The Language House, a quadraplex in North Vancouver. The idea is simple - bring together people who are interested in becoming speakers of the Skwxwú7mesh language and offer an immersive environment where everyone aims to speak only Skwxwú7mesh in the house. They also invite fluent elders, and other language learners to join them for social gatherings to speak Skwxwú7mesh sníchim.
The housemates split the rent and raised funds for educational equipment by selling Skwxwú7mesh language t-shirts though a crowd funding campaign, proving that they could set up a language program without government funding.
Khelsilem is also the founder of Kwi Awt Stelmexw, a registered not-for-profit that runs heritage, language, culture, and art programs, including the Skwomesh Language Academy. The academy is currently working towards offering a full-time language immersion program in 2015 that give living allowances to participants to do full-time language acquisition and learning from September to March.
Khelsilem is his ancestral name, one that was passed down to him. Though not one of the more difficult ancestral names for non-Skwxwú7mesh speakers to pronounce, he is patient in the face of my repeatedly woeful attempts. For Khelsilem, it is both his name and a vehicle for inviting conversation, "and so now there’s a relationship where I get to practice a life of patience with these visitors and guest that are in my territory, and to take the time to teach them how to pronounce these sounds."
[If you’re wondering why Khelsilem is wet in the shot – we soaked him and all of our other subjects before the shoot. It’s a nod to our rainforest city, and it means that no-one has to worry about how their hair looks. We do have a water offset plan given the current conditions - check out our Facebook page for more info.]
