1. The Huu-ay-aht story of the great earthquake of 1700
Steven Earle, Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC

2. Huu-ay-aht territory

3. Huu-ay-aht oral traditions
mythical stories of many kinds (including stories of animals with human characteristics and stories of magical passages into other places)
stories of great exploits and wars
stories of common events such as finding food, potlatches and rights of passage
a story about an earthquake and a tsunami

4. Chief Louis Nookmiis (1880-1964)
“This is the most important story the Huu-ay-aht people have”

6. West Coast Trail

7. Nookmiis
Anacla-aq-sop

8. Thomas de Suria, 1791

9. Nookmiis
Anacla-aq-sop

11. TOPATI boulder lifting contest climbing up a slippery pole
guessing game with a feather
long-jump across a ravine

12. In the jumping competition the youngest brother of Nookmiis succeeded in jumping across the ravine, but in doing so he smashed his head against a rock and died.
Nookmiis and Analca-aq-sop were married, and she went to live with him in Kiixin

13. kixiin

16. Kiixin
Air photo

20. Air photo
Anacla
Pachena
Bay

21. “I think it was at night time that the land shook…”
“They simply had no time to get hold of canoes, no time to get awake. They sank all at once, were all drowned; not one survived…”

22. “I think it was a big wave smashed into the beach
“I think it was a big wave smashed into the beach. The Pachena Bay people were lost…”

23. Approximate area of rupture zone
Pachena Bay

25. Other evidence of a great earthquake
port alberni

27. A tsunami wave hit several locations in western Japan on January 27th There is no record of a corresponding earthquake occurring near to Japan, or anywhere else around the Pacific Ocean
Based on the time for the wave to cross the ocean it is estimated that the quake struck at around 9 PM local time on January 26th, 1700.

28. According to Chief Louis, everyone living at Pachena Bay was killed in the tsunami. Anacla aq sop, who was living in Kiixin with Nookmiis, was the only surviving member of her people.
The current chief of the Huu ay aht, Spencer Peters, is a direct descendant of Chief Louis and of Nookmiis and Anacla aq sop.

29. Application of the Pachena Bay story to teaching:
learn about why earthquakes happen
learn about why they happen here
learn about the impacts
tsunami waves
shaking and destruction
learn about First Nations culture and history