Making a name for himself as a TV journalist and interviewer as well as a host and producer of the long running Our Native Land podcasts, Tchadas Leo has now branched off into the publishing and storytelling field.
The Ladysmith resident, from the Xwémalhkwu (Homalco) people whose traditional territory is in and around Bute Inlet, has always had an interest in his community’s origins and culture. The Homalco are a member of the Coast Salish peoples who occupied the coast of B.C. and east coast of Vancouver Island from parts of Washington state up almost the northern tip of the Island.
This past November Leo, along with elders and members of the Homalco nation celebrated the launch of a new chapter in their culture and history: a graphic novel called Xwémalhkwu - Hero Stories which is three cultural stories as told by community knowledge keepers and elders and illustrated by Indigenous graphic artists Alina Pete, Valen Onstine and Gord Hill. Leo was the managing editor author of the project.
"There was recordings that were made by elders back in the late '90s and early 2000s. There was some grant funding that my mother actually applied for. My mother worked for the nation back in the day. I was a young lad, had no idea about the importance of the work she was doing while I was, you know, 12 or nine,” Leo said. “The recordings were from the memories of the elders, so basically anything to do with before contact, after contact, during contact … all this type of memories.
"The various recordings the nation has are either food related, hunting related, becoming a man, becoming a woman, climbing, you know, oysters, hunting goats up in the mountain, names of geographical locations and which family they belonged to and why and then also talking about trading with the Chilcotin, which are the people on the other side of the mountains," Leo said. “So all of these were recorded, and then they kind of sat for a while.”
It took about three years to get the project to the point of launching the book.
At the start of the project they got grant funding through Education Without Borders to produce some podcasts related to the nation's recordings. Leo and an assistant spent hours combing through the material for special moments that would impact a listener.
The Homalco have their own radio station, 100.7FM the Raven in Campbell River, and 12 episodes were produced through the Raven radio.
“The various recordings were categorized. We have three elders and we’re going to listen to five different recordings and then we talk about each," Leo said. "So I'd have myself, Homalco Chief Darren Blaney and one or two members of the community, either a youth or an elder or a knowledge keeper. We would just talk about it in a modern context, but also, you know, Darren understands the language pretty well. So if the recording is a little shady because it wasn't the best recording equipment back in the day, he could kind of clarify what that elder was saying in our language, which is called ʔayʔaǰuθəm."
At that point in time Leo said he figured that was it and the project was finished.
“The folks from Education Without Borders came back. They were very pleased and wished to move further on the idea of promoting our communities history…that is when they asked me if I’d like to turn the project into a graphic novel,” Leo said.
“And from there, I said, I'm willing to do it if I have the right support and expertise. I'm not a graphic artist. I might be a storyteller, but I'm not a graphic artist and I've never put a novel together. The project really needed knowledgeable talent on the graphic end, so we got in touch with the University of B.C. Their Pop Culture Cluster program was where we found Elizabeth Nigam and she had expertise in comic books and she teaches that at UBC.”
Material was separated into three stories.
"Val Onstine took up canoe and clamming, Alina Pete took up river bathing and Gord Hill took up hunting and food preservation," said Leo. "So those are all solidly based off the recordings, the podcast, and then transferred onto the novel pages. So all three of the of the stories and they're not really stories, they're part of the culture, aren't they? Yeah, they're accurate depictions of what used to happen. They're all from the Homalco First Nation. There are other First Nation communities that have similar culture and stories but the Heroes novel is from the Homalco nation."
Leo said there may be more to come.
"The chief when we presented this to the nation, he said, this is just the beginning because there's so many more recordings. There's hours and hours and hours of recordings. We took three categories but there's lots more. There's more tragic ones about residential school. There's more happy ones about traveling over the Rocky Mountains, more interesting ones when people used to go into town with a bit of a more modern approach, or when power first came to the town and uh into, you know, the area. There's a lot of potential. So, yeah, there is a chance that, you know, the nation may approach me again sometime in 2025 to start this process again.”
For individuals who wish to get a copy of Xwémalhkwu - Hero Stories there is a link on the Homalco website, www.homalco.com where people can email in if they want to get on a wait list. There will also be book signings, with Leo and others in attendance in Campbell River, Nanaimo and Victoria and Leo said as soon as a location is found there will be some on the mainland.
