Back in the year 2000, I picked up a hitchhiker named Mimi on my way up the Slocan Valley, doing research for The Geography of Memory. Mimi told me I just had to contact Charlie Maxfield, to see his collection of stone tools. The story about how Charlie shaped my research is in the book. This post is about what just happened, this afternoon. It’s about doing the right thing.
Over his many years of collecting Sinixt tools, Charlie developed a reverence for the landscape once inhabited by the Sinixt. He wandered the shores of the drained reservoir for hours, keeping an eye out for the tip of a rock that was not just rock, but a big pounder, like those in this photograph. He sought out mystery. And he found it.
It was an easy next step for Charlie to visit the new Sinixt office in Nelson not long after it opened in 2022. He wanted to give his collection to the right people, he said. To bring it home.
He passed away before he could deliver it himself. Today, I got a call confirming that his wife had 20 boxes of that cultural memory for the First People of the Upper Columbia River. Charlie’s priceless collection. Returned to the people who belong to the tools, as much as the tools belong to them. No matter what the B.C. government says about the Sinixt being “American” Indians who are not a priority, Charlie’s collection is a reminder that politics seldom gets the truth right.
All afternoon, the hair has been standing up on my arms. This is a big day. Another reminder that the land never lies. It gives forth its memories, and eventually, they find their way to the right people. Thank you, Charlie Maxfield, for your sensitive soul, your questing nature, and your decision to do the right thing. You will always have a place in my heart.
This is Charlie in 2012, when we took a ramble in his tin boat along the shores of the Arrow Lake Reservoir during draw-down. A beautiful paddle maul literally fell out of the bank into his hand. The Sinixt once used these paddles to process black tree lichen, an important winter food.
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