Legends of Vancouver · Chapter
Deer Lake explained
This chapter recounts the story of the first Chief Capilano and his pursuit of a giant seal using a treasured elk-bone spear passed down through generations.
What happens
This chapter recounts the story of the first Chief Capilano and his pursuit of a giant seal using a treasured elk-bone spear passed down through generations. After losing the spear and rope when the seal escapes into False Creek, Capilano searches for them in vain. A year later, drawn by a forest fire's red glow, he discovers the seal's carcass at Deer Lake with the spear and rope still embedded, restoring his spiritual power. The chapter also describes a massive migration of beavers fleeing the fire, and concludes with Capilano's lifelong search for the hidden river connecting Deer Lake to the sea.
Themes in this chapter
Nature and Landscape as Sacred
The chapter portrays the natural world—rivers, lakes, forests, and wildlife—as imbued with spiritual significance and mystery, particularly through the hidden river and the omen of the forest fire.
Cultural Preservation and Oral Tradition
The story of Capilano's elk-bone spear and the lost river is preserved through Squamish oral tradition, emphasizing the transmission of ancestral knowledge and beliefs.
Characters to notice
- Chief Capilano
The first Chief Capilano, a master spearman and hunter, who loses his elk-bone spear to a giant seal and later recovers it at Deer Lake.
Key passages
“Few white men ventured inland, a century ago, in the days of the first Chief Capilano, when the spoils of the mighty Fraser River poured into copper-coloured hands, but did not find their way to the remotest corners of the earth, as in our times, when the gold from its sources, the salmon from its mouth, the timber from its shores are world-known riches.”
A century ago, before European settlement, the first Chief Capilano lived in a time when the Fraser River's resources were used locally by Indigenous people, unlike today when its gold, salmon, and timber are globally traded.
Sets the historical context of the chapter, contrasting pre-colonial resource use with modern global commerce.
“Once only did his cunning fail him, once only did Nature baffle him with her mysterious fabric of waterways and land-lures. It was when he was led to the mouth of the unknown river, which has evaded discovery through all the centuries, but which—so say the Indians—still sings on its way through some buried channel that leads from the lake to the sea.”
The only time Capilano's skill failed him was when he was drawn to the mouth of a hidden river that, according to Indigenous legend, still flows through an underground passage from Deer Lake to the ocean.
Introduces the central mystery of the chapter: the lost river connecting Deer Lake to the sea.