Hello, my name's Darren Good, my traditional name is Sum Salay Staa. I'm from Nanaimo, born and raised in Nanaimo here. I'm a member of the Snuneymuxw band, connection to the band is through my mother. My father's from the Sinshian Tribe north. I have three children, two boys and a girl.

Interviewer: We have learned that you're in the midst of learning the Hul'qumi'num language, how did you come to be interested in studying this?

Good: I was exposed to the language in grade eight through Mrs. White. Auntie Toots as I always call her. Through native studies class, which was offered in John Barsby [Nanaimo Community School] and there, the basics. After leaving school to go to work to support a family at a young age I never got back into the language until I entered the longhouse. I was initiated into the Kleet Bay Longhouse in 1991. I was in there at least 10 years before I started the language. The first ten years was understanding protocol and teachings that are in and around the longhouse. Then, that's when I started the language. It took that long just to learn what it was to be a dancer, the different respects and all that.

Willy Seymour was a big influence on me for my language. I was in the North Shore Longhouse and there was a previous speaker ... I went there two weekends in a row, the first weekend, one of our older speakers from the North Shore didn't know how to speak Hul'qumi'num so he spoke English. And I thought it was really weird. It just seemed like it wasn't a longhouse without our language. Anyways I stayed at the longhouse. Willy Seymour was there the next weekend and I was there as well at North Van and the Hul'qumi'num came out and it was just overwhelming to hear the different atmosphere of the longhouse. Everyone acted different and it didn't seem like a party at all, it was just natural. So, I walked up to him and I told him how I felt about it and how it moved me. He looked at me and said you may be the next speaker. I kinda chuckled at him, me knowing maybe just 14 or so different Hul'qumi'num words and numbers. He said "you can do anything you put your mind to". You always hear that over and over – then he said "it's in you, it's a spirit that has to be awakened, you gotta just do it. Learn ten Indian names and once you learn those ten and you memorize them." He says, "it's the highest form of respect to know somebody's Indian name, their traditional name because sometimes that name's 500 years old or even 800 years old, passed down from different types of histories intertwined with these names. If you mention someone's Indian name or traditional name, it's a high form of respect so learn that first."

So, I learned ten and then started working with one of the speakers at the longhouse, Harvey Seymour. He saw my interest in it and started helping me out with different names. I work with him on a tug so we go back and forth all day just saying these Indian names and who they are and where they are from and who they are connected to. I went on to 20 names and I really started to strike an interest in my co-worker Harvey Seymour. He says, "you really want to try some of our language and do a little work in the longhouse?" I said "sure, I'll take it on, I'll try it." He gave me a little phrase, it was to do with a family that wanted to stand up publicly and announce publicly that they are standing here and they want to help out this other family who is carrying on the function, another way to phrase it is they are doing work. So, I learned these basics and I stood up and my voice just traveled and I think what caught a lot of people's attention was my voice could travel and there was a lot of small things that ...I call them my Uncle Willy quotes. He said that when you walk in a big house first of all you gotta thank the longhouse because when you build a longhouse you gotta – my stories really going to run – it should be all cedar sisters – stand-up cedar. Old people had talked to the trees first and told them they were going to ask and they were going to take on a second life now. Actually live longer in another sense I guess and do a different type of work. Or take on another life; cut down a tree, talk to them, thank them, cut them down and drag them to where they want to build their big house. So, when you walk into the longhouse now, you gotta still have that respect for them because they have taken on this second life to be the foundation of a roof. To hold a gathering place. So, he said the first thing you gotta thank is the host. The fires so powerful sometimes when it crackles, it mesmerizes so you have to plead with the fire to let your voice be stronger and take care, don't let the fire soak up the voice that you want out to the people.

The second is your walls. You want them to reflect your voice back and forth within the home. His words were "I want you to speak with authority and you want the little spiders up in the corner to scurry back up into the corner off their web" That's where my loudness, where my voice can carry came from. So, there's quite a bit of teachers along the way.

My other one is traditional medicine, I have a neighbour, can't remember her Indian name but Margaret James, Max Settler, her son's name. I told this elder, she's 95, now that I am interested in the language and I wanted to learn how to speak so she told her son, Max bring him up to the bush and help him out with the medicine. So, I went up to the bush with Max and we picked four different types of plants and barks and we made this medicine and my voice just ... whooooo ... it really worked and that's when I really started to open my eyes and said, holy smokes, this medicine is for real. That's when it started to kick in and I done some more studying on my own and another speaker that helps me out is Wayne Charlie, he really helps me out step by step and breaks down the language for me and really looks after me. His older brother Arvard Charlie also sits at the back when I am asked at a function to speak for another family. Arvard will be sitting in the back writing down on little cards constructive criticism which I take with a ... it makes me proud that somebody's out there watching my every step and making sure that I do it right. I go sit with him after for an hour or so and he'll tell me "oh, you gotta do it this way or gotta do it that way."

Interviewer: So, after the names of the people in your community, what was the next most important way of speaking or set of words that you learned?

Good: I guess it didn't go that far, after I started learning about the names, I had my own my own naming and reclaiming of our mask, a mask my forefathers carried. The farthest name back that we go, his name was Mamamataos and this man danced the mask as a male saw bill. An elder from the community here, Bill Seward Senior, when he's a little boy, he remembers sitting around and learning how to mask dance from his grandfather and his uncles and his dad and they talked about all the people that used to dance down here and compete a mask dance with other regalia on. And the tide was out and the sand was white here, they used to compete to see who was the toughest, they would keep dancing and dancing and if you started to get tired or whatever, an elder mask dance would come and give you a little tap on the shoulder and say sit down.

This is all happening at the same time that I am learning my language and I told them I wanted to do some naming. And he says you belong to the mask. Go to your older people now and find out where you really come from. Study your family tree and when I done that I learned all our Indian names on the family tree and straight up the line and history with why we got my mother's side received the last name of Good. It's all documented in Catholic books and the Catholic writings.

After I learned my own family trees and my own Indian names, that was what you have to learn now if you are speaking for someone, you have to know who they are and where they come from. So that's the next thing, respect of other people's family and where they come from and where they're connected to.

Interviewer: How do you feel about people calling you Darren Good, would you rather they used different names for different parts of your life – or would you prefer people called you by your Hul'qumi'num name?

Good: It depends I guess because we live in a world ... I'm not biased, I know that ... to me we live in two different worlds so I'm happy that our ancestors recognize I carry this name Sum Saw Laay Sta and I'm really proud to see it grow, so when you say Darren Good that reflects on my mother's side. I took my mother's last name not my fathers. That's a little personal stuff. Both names ... I think it is who you are and what you make of yourself, you know whichever name you carry is going to be it ...

Interviewer: Now that you have children, how are you helping them understand their heritage and approach their own learning of the language and the culture?

Good: I don't want to force it on my kids, even with the sports, we're not forcing any of the sports onto our kids because I know that if you force something onto someone, it does the opposite. So that's our ... my philosophy, when they're ready, they're ready. I will use the language around the house, not all the time but small things like ????, shut the door. Or ????? come here. They are learning the Hul'qumi'num in the schools here and they come home and ask what does this mean. It's exciting to see them wanting to know and learn more but we're not pushing it on our children. I think that when it's time, it's time. When they want it, it's easier, when you don't want something, there always seems to be friction.

Interviewer: Sports are important to this community and canoe paddling in particular is something that people have become well known for. You're involved in this sport, can you tell us a little about what you do and how that works?

Good: I was 15. Down in Chemanius Bay is where I first had an interest in paddling and there was a canoe club called the Rainbow Canoe Club and Peter Seymour Senior was a captain of the crew and I was a little scrawny guy, a really light fellow and I was hanging around the canoe shed watching them every once in a while and they said "Hey, you look like a good bailer" because I was so light. He said if you ever want to try canoe paddling ... As soon as I hopped on that canoe, I knew that it was my calling. Right there and then, the first time I hopped on an 11-man canoe it was just something that said this is what you are going to do as long as you can paddle. So, I paddled with the Rainbow Canoe Club for at least 15 years with them, learning a lot about canoe paddling. There are different types of respects on the water too and how you respect the cedar, you talk to the canoe, you talk to you paddle, pleading with the water, there is a lot of really meticulous ... there is a lot of detail if you want to get better in different sports, especially on the water, because the water's alive. Humans are 98% water, I think that's what we are – probably close. Gotta respect the water. Water can take your life right now. Water can feed you forever, water can make you travel, the echo of your voice can make your stronger. So, I learned all that with Peter Seymour and his club and at the time with my father-in-law Harvey Seymour. I got to paddle in Hawaii. He brought us all to Hawaii and paddled in that six hour race from Molokai to Waikiki. So, we got to go paddle over there as a crew with different nations all paddling there. It was really interesting.

I currently paddle in Nanaimo with Mike Wise. I bugged him and bugged him to come paddle in Rainbow and he come down there to paddle with me and that's where Mike Wise first started our team. We just slowly branched off and came back home. I told Peter that we would come back home and paddle for Nanaimo. It's been working out really good. We got a lot of younger paddlers that want to paddle and are really serious and want to train hard. It's overwhelming to see the young crowd take on paddling as strong as they are because when we were 12 and 13 and 14, we were doing other things. Other than sports, we were getting into trouble and to me, I think they are really lucky to have this and they are really serious in their training. I think it's keeping them away from a lot of trouble, plus they are getting to see other nations as we compete on the water – there's always the saying that what happens on the water, stays on the water and that's what our young people are learning. Mike and I's vision is to paddle with our younger paddlers that we bring up, at least paddle a few years with these younger fellows. I'm currently helping out the club by skipping the women's 11 highland braves ladies and they have been doing really good for a brand new crew. We've won a few races, we've come second in a few races and we're middle of the pack in a few races. We tipped a few races and we were last in a few races. So, we're experiencing all what other canoe clubs go through. There's other canoe clubs in Nanaimo that have been around for years and years and it's good to see all of our Snuneymuxw nation doing a traditional sports.

Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit about the canoes themselves?

Good: There are two types of canoes now, the traditional canoe is from a red cedar canoe, could be from a white pine, could be from a ... a red cedar canoe is from a red cedar tree. A mature one. I have heard of white pine trees being turned into canoes. The other type is strip canoes. Where they are running out of cedar trees to cut down close to home and of course, the logging industry takes all the prime red cedar so a lot of our canoe builders had to readjust. The newer ones coming up are learning how to do strip canoes and don't even know how to build a traditional dugout. We only have a few canoe builders left that do the traditional canoes. We don't have enough logs to teach the younger generation what it is to build a traditional canoe. An 11-man would be a 50-foot canoe from 48 to 50 feet. Sits 11 people. You can get a smaller canoe called a six-man or a six-woman which would be like 38-40 feet. Then you have your four-man canoes with four people in them, either four men or four women. They're about 29 feet to 30 feet. Then you have your doubles, a man and a woman or two men, two women, they're like 24 to 27 feet. Then you have your single canoes, that varies from 19 to 22 feet. Single man, single woman, adult.

Interviewer: In the interest of speed, are some teams turning to fiberglass? Or does everyone use a cedar-based canoe?

Good: It varies and it depends on the feelings of whoever is hosting the race. Cultus and Seabird, those two races are traditional-only canoes. You can use a laminated paddle. There's a race in Cowichan, a marathon race ... I think it's the Marty Joe Memorial, that's a traditional dugout single man or single woman with a traditional paddle, non-laminated. That's usually a longer race. It varies on whoever is hosting the race.

Interviewer: You mentioned there are respects that you pay when you're on the water, how have you combined your interest in canoe racing with your interest in learning the language?

Good: First of all if I know someone's traditional name, I will always say hi to them when we're at different canoe gatherings. I guess that's how I would imply the respect, if I remember their traditional name, I'll address them by that. I'll ask them how they're doing, small talk in Hul'qumi'num. It just means lots to a person carrying a traditional name to be addressed by that, especially when you're at a canoe race or a longhouse.

Interviewer: What about between boats, for example, there are many words in common along the coast, so do people who perhaps speak a slightly different dialect, do you try to share your language with each other or do you stick to other Hul'qumi'num speakers? For instance, we learned from some of the elders that words from North Island ... North Island words have entered the dialect here, so people who grew up speaking Hul'qumi'num can quite easily converse from other nations further north on the Island so do you find that you find that it is a way that language can get used and passed on in a more contemporary way?

Good: My wife Jackie Good comes from Nuchanulth and she teachers our kids not a lot of words, but she teaches our children her language and her mother and her father do as well. So the language from up there, a lot of our people will use it. Chu is like hello or goodbye, it is used quite regularly amongst the Hul'qumi'num people and I guess it's a form of respect too that even though it is a different language, we'll still respect it and utilize it. I guess that's how the language is being intertwined with the Hul'qumi'num. There's no wars or nothing like that, that's all good.

Interviewer: One thing that I asked Geraldine is if people outside the Snuneymuxw community could learn one thing about you and your people, what would you like that to be?

Good: It's a tough one. We're all the same, we're all human beings. Everybody has their own different cultures and I guess someone that is not scared to learn another's culture – that's just how I look at life. I'm not scared to learn another language. So many things in life, just don't have enough time in a day. I don't know how to answer that, maybe that's the answer ... .