The Hour is Blue

Strengthening X̱aad Kíl: Haida Language Immersion with Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard

In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard, a Haida language educator and advocate from G̱aw Tlagée, Massett, Haida Gwaii, and Assistant Professor in the Indigenous Languages Program in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University. Jasḵwaan’s work centres on X̱aad Kíl, the Old Massett or Northern Haida language, and on immersion, pedagogy, translation, transcription and language learning guided by Haida community laws and values.

Jasḵwaan prefers the term language strengthening rather than language revitalization. As she explains, Haida languages have always been living. Her work is concerned not simply with preserving a language, but with learning it, speaking it, teaching it and strengthening the relationships between language, community, land and ways of knowing.

Recorded live at the CiTR studio on September 30, Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, our conversation moves through X̱aad Kíl itself: its sounds and structures, the challenges of learning an ancestral language as a second language, translation, immersion, and the knowledge and relationships carried through language.

CiTR 101.9 FM / The Blue Hour

Recorded live on September 30, 2026 - Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Listen: CiTR | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

The Blue Hour, hosted by Farha Guerrero, airs live every Tuesday at 2 p.m. PT on CiTR 101.9 FM at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Transcript

Transcript lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the substance and natural rhythm of the conversation.

Farha: Good morning. Welcome to The Blue Hour. I am Farha Guerrero. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that The Blue Hour is broadcast from the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.

Here on the UBC campus also stands the beautiful Reconciliation Pole, carved by 7idansuu James Hart, Haida hereditary chief, and it feels especially fitting to mention today because today is September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Language is part of what we honour today. Indigenous languages are being spoken, taught, recorded, translated, and carried forward, and that brings us to today's conversation.

I usually come into the studio here at CiTR with lots of pages of notes and preparation, but today I'm going to do something a little different. I've come here to learn, really as a student, and I'm going to ask if Jasḵwaan will guide us through her language and the work that she is doing.

Jasḵwaan, thank you so much for joining me.

Jasḵwaan: I really wanted to acknowledge that I too am a guest on this territory, and I'm grateful to be on this beautiful land today to speak about my language. But I do recognize that this is the territory of the Musqueam people.

Farha: Could you introduce yourself for us?

Jasḵwaan: (First spoken in X̱aad Kíl)

My great-grandparents were Emma Matthews, Sáandlanee, and Chief Weah, William Matthews, from Old Massett. Those were my father's grandparents. My father is the late Kwiiyaans Ken Bedard.

My mother is Kathy Bedard, and her Haida name is Kunaajat. She was adopted into the Haida Nation before she married my dad.

My children are Haana, Nora-jane, and Wiijaa.

I have three Haida names. One of them is Jasḵwaan, which is the name I go by, and I was given that name at birth by one of my grandmothers, the late Katie Atkins. She had a dream of Jasḵwaan before I was born, so I was given that name then. But it belongs to the Kun 'Laanaas clan, and when names are given that way, I cannot pass that name on. I can just keep it and hold it through my lifetime.

I was also given another name, which is a Tsiits Git'anee name, and that's my clan. I was given that when I married my now ex-husband, but my good friend, Jaalen.

And then I was recently given a name that means Hummingbird Doctor. Hummingbird is one of our crests, and I just became a doctor relatively recently, in 2025.

Farha: That's beautiful. Jasḵwaan, I'd like you, if you don't mind, to tell us where you come from.

Jasḵwaan: I come from G̱aw Tlagée, the area where the village of Old Massett is situated in Haida Gwaii.

G̱aw is actually the name of the inlet, now called Masset Inlet on the maps, and G̱aw Tlagée is all the land beside the inlet, which situated many villages before we all amalgamated into the northern village of Old Massett. To recognize all of those villages, we say that one overarching term, G̱aw Tlagée.

I was born in Masset, but I grew up in Prince Rupert, and I've returned to Masset to raise my family. I've been there now for over 20 years. My oldest daughter is 23.

It's just this beautiful, windy, extraordinary land that I love dearly.

Farha: And it's an archipelago of about 150 islands. Is that about right?

Jasḵwaan: That's right. We're surrounded by beautiful beaches, beautiful rainforest. We are in the middle of a rainforest, so it's quite rainy quite often.

In the north, it's quite stormy, especially in the fall and winter, but it's endearing. The storms are quite endearing. They toughen us up, and there's so much to do when it's stormy out. It brings us closer together.

There's been a lot of activity on Haida Gwaii, as there has been throughout what is now Canada. But it's a special place, and special places attract a lot of attention.

We've done a lot of work as the Haida Nation to protect our lands and waters, and that's an ongoing effort. It's a lifelong, ongoing effort for each and every one of us.

Farha: And there have been some positive moves in the right direction, do you think, in ensuring that protection?

Jasḵwaan: There have been. It's interesting the way that we're conditioned to believe that when we reach some kind of protection or agreement, our work is done. But quite often, it's just beginning.

That's because of how those protective measures are interpreted by the other parties, which in this case are BC and Canada, who have claimed a lot of rights on our lands since colonization began here, which was done in nefarious ways.

We often have to negotiate with Canada and BC, and we've negotiated Haida Aboriginal title to our territory, which is very significant. But it's how it's interpreted on the other side.

We know what we mean when we're laying out the terms of these agreements, and quite often we feel like the other side does also, but then there needs to be constant education and pressure to ensure that those protective measures are honoured.

Farha: I think that hits at the heart of this National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. But as you say, this is something that is continuous.

A big part of why you're here is to talk about language. And you use different words. It's not necessarily revitalization for you, is it? It's something else too.

Jasḵwaan: I really enjoy the use of strengthening. I feel that encapsulates the meaning more accurately.

When we say revitalization, it really, in my view, plays into this notion that it has gone away or died and we have to revitalize something that's no longer with us.

Through my teachings and my journey in the Haida language, I've really come to understand that the language has been with us throughout time. We just need to strengthen what is within us already, what's been left by the many, many people in our communities who have done incredible work through the generations to ensure that the language remains with us.

To strengthen that, I feel that type of language centres our work on our autonomy, our sovereignty, and our abilities, rather than framing it in the carnage that colonization has left behind, which is this power dynamic that everyone is quite comfortable accepting and believing. We're all kind of in it.

The language we use is very important. That's understood, I believe, by the forces of colonialism, which contain actors who choose words about how we understand Indigenous languages, Indigenous communities, Indigenous cultures.

Farha: Let's start there. Tell us about Haida, especially the dialect that you know well, X̱aad Kíl, and put it into perspective for someone listening who doesn't know anything about Indigenous languages, and certainly nothing about this extraordinary language.

Even if we group it as Haida, it's what we call a language isolate. It even puzzles linguists today, and in this way, is similar to Basque. It's a remarkable language, and I think that says something about how special it is.

What would someone want to know about the Haida language? We heard it at the start. How would they feel if they were to sit with you and you were to tell them about your language?

Jasḵwaan: Wow, there's so much to say.

First of all, there are so many Indigenous languages in what is now Canada. There are about 70 Indigenous languages, and 60 percent of those languages reside here in what is now British Columbia, which is fantastic. They're so beautiful.

I have the pleasure and honour of working with many different people who work within their communities to strengthen their languages. I understand the specialness of their work and their languages and how beautiful those histories are.

X̱aad Kíl is how I refer to our dialect. It's the word for Haida language in our dialect. It is differentiated from our southern dialect, X̱aayda Kil, and they both mean the same thing, the Haida language.

X̱aad being Haida and Kíl being language.

It is a language isolate, meaning that it is not related to any other language in the world. That is so special and unique. It speaks to the lived history on Haida Gwaii.

The oldest archaeological site that archaeologists have found is over 15,000 years of human habitation on Haida Gwaii. That's a really important fact, I believe, because often I find myself in the position of speaking to falsehoods about Indigenous people, Indigenous cultures, Indigenous histories, and our languages, and always having to legitimize us as a people and the history that we know.

It's really helpful when there are these Western scientific findings that corroborate our own histories. That's one of them.

That really speaks to our language development. We are an archipelago and we are known for our monumental cedar trees.

This is important because the first known cedar tree, according to botanists, is dated to about 5,000 years ago on Haida Gwaii. When those become big enough to create our ocean-going canoes, that's really significant.

Understanding the time period between when we were known to be on the islands, and our stories tell us that we were created there on the islands, and the development of our ocean-going canoes, there's quite a bit of time in between that.

Our creation stories are there on the islands. We were found by Yáahl, or Nang Kílslaas, Raven, near Naikoon, on the northeastern tip of Haida Gwaii.

For us to have our cultural history and to understand our world through language, we've developed that on our own. That really speaks to this language-isolate piece.

We have many stories about language. We have a really close connection in our stories to our supernatural world. Those understandings of the world continue through our songs and through the way in which we practice our ceremonies and our spirituality, understanding that there are powers in existence that coexist with us, especially in our territories of Haida Gwaii.

Through those interactions with the supernatural world, we were also gifted our ability to speak.

That's really powerful and significant, and I'm very aware of that when I speak and learn and teach our language.

There are many sounds in our language that really emulate our surroundings on Haida Gwaii, especially Raven. I love that.

We have a lot of sounds that come from our throat, as opposed to English, where the sounds are made very much in the mouth. There are four different k sounds in our language, and they're very subtle.

They remind me of Raven quite often when I hear Raven chirp away at us, speak to us.

There are also other guttural sounds in our language which have us really utilize the throat when we speak.

I find the language quite beautiful because it's representative of a way of thinking that has been in existence for thousands and thousands of years. It connects us to the supernatural world. It connects us to where we are, where we're situated as we move through the world. Are we facing the ocean? Are we going towards the forest? These are really important directions in our language.

It's a very truthful language also. You can't say something happened without indicating either that you experienced it or someone told you.

I really enjoy that piece too.

Farha: One has to think about Haida, and like many Indigenous languages, you mentioned the number, about 60 percent of Indigenous languages reside in this province. But we also need to think about the countless dialects, right? I don't know what that number is, but it's got to be over a hundred dialects, I would imagine.

Jasḵwaan: Oh, yes. I think several hundred. Even within the Haida language, there are dozens of dialects.

They're now represented through these three main dialects, umbrella dialects, I like to call them.

The X̱aad Kíl that I know, learn, and teach is representative of about five or six northern dialects that amalgamated into this one, what we commonly refer to as the Massett dialect.

Now we use G̱aw Tlagée, the name that we prefer in our language for the north, so the G̱aw Tlagée dialect. I often also say northern dialect.

There are three ways to really talk about it.

Farha: What's really important for those listening, when you say languages, I want people to realize that we're talking about languages as different as, say, French, Italian, and Spanish. Those are languages that I happen to speak, including English.

When you say 60 percent of Indigenous languages reside in this province, that's an extraordinary thing to think about. These are languages.

And then when we think of dialects, we have to think about that breadth of diversity as well. This is an extraordinarily diverse province linguistically.

You happen to be speaking one that I will say again is very, very special because it is an isolate. As you said, it still puzzles us today where it comes from.

There's one word, and you're going to have to forgive me for the pronunciation, but I've been using this on my tours at the Audain Museum. I'm a docent.

There's a beautiful Dogfish cedar piece/mask by Robert Davidson, who is also from Haida Gwaii, and his work of art is positioned at the very end of a long corridor at the entrance to the Audain museum.

When I began my tours after I first learned of you, Jasḵwaan, I hope you don't mind, but I've been saying this every time. The word is sG̱aslang.

Can you tell us what that means? What really struck me is that there's a wave-shaped object embedded in that word. It's this thought that extends like a rope.

Jasḵwaan: sG̱aslang.

Farha: There we go.

What I do is start my tours so that people can feel that Robert Davidson, this dogfish crest, is almost bringing us down this long corridor. You can imagine it in this gorgeous museum. It brings people down, and people love it.

Of course I tell them my pronunciation is not perfect, but I read what you've written about this word.

Can you explain that wave-shaped idea and how, like you said, many of these words can be inspired by something like Raven, but maybe also by the landscape?

Jasḵwaan: I really love that question.

Thinking about this word, I arrived in Vancouver two days ago, just as a little aside leading up to my answer.

Yesterday I was actually acknowledged at SFU in a blanketing ceremony, as they acknowledged all the faculty who had been promoted in the last few years. I was promoted from instructor to assistant professor.

I should have felt really amazing after being acknowledged like that, but I became kind of heartbroken and sad. I couldn't really figure out why I felt that way.

I think it's difficult work. Recognition sometimes goes against our protocols and ways of being, to be held up by others, because there are so many people who hold so much knowledge and who've done so much work.

The way that colonial systems work, just because they weren't educated, they didn't have the opportunities that I had or take to the systems the way that I endured, they wouldn't have that opportunity to be acknowledged the way that I was. I guess that was part of the feelings that I was going through.

Often, when I feel that way, I look for some sort of lifeline to lift me out of it.

What I have found really helpful is listening to recordings of Elders who I've worked with in the past and who are no longer with us.

One of those Elders was the late Tsinii Stephen Brown. He was the one who taught us this adage and this way of thinking, that if you really want to learn something, you put your mind to it.

When you want to learn something, you put your mind to it.

He uses this sG̱aslang there, and this represents that wave-like shape. It's a really special and unique part of our language that we use these things called shape classifiers, linguistically defined as shape classifiers.

One of them is this shape, sG̱a. The G̱ in X̱aad Kíl, in the northern dialect, is a non-vocalized letter, but you do actually have to make the movement as if you're vocalizing it.

It's complex and complicated because that movement is way down in your throat, at the bottom of your throat.

In the Alaskan dialect, they aspirate that sound. In X̱aayda Kil, the southern dialect, they vocalize that sound. But in the Massett dialect, we say sG̱aslang.

That shape classifier actually comes up in the word for song, sG̱áalangee. It's indicating that we are making, basically, sound waves with our voice.

When he says, "When you want to learn something, you put your mind to it," that sG̱a piece is like you're devoting that energy to a thought.

This also comes when we talk about waves, or a string.

I don't know enough about string theory. Actually, I know nothing about it. But I can recognize that it's quite interesting how we classify the world in that way, including waves and thoughts and a long, unbroken line and song in the same classification.

Farha: Do you think it's okay if I ask you to play a song, I saw that you brought a drum.

Jasḵwaan: It's perfect timing.

I usually always have a song I want to sing, and I'd like to sing the lullaby song.

This is an ancient song that has survived, a Massett song from G̱aw Tlagée.

I'm thinking about my children. I'm thinking about the children of the Haida Nation. I'm thinking of Indigenous children everywhere.

In the context of today, Truth and Reconciliation, I'm thinking of all those children who were denied, really, a childhood.

Children are so important in our culture. They're uplifted and upheld.

I want to do that right now with the song.

[Jasḵwaan sings a Haida lullaby.]

Farha: Thank you. It got me a little teary-eyed. You have a beautiful voice, Jasḵwaan.

Jasḵwaan: I really love to sing.

Farha: I've always believed that music and language are so connected. Do you feel that?

Jasḵwaan: I do. It's really what brought me to this exact space and time with the job I do, the work I do.

I was quite young when I learned Haida songs. I'm so grateful that there was a Haida dance group in Prince Rupert, where we grew up. My parents put my brother and me in that group.

It was led by Margaret Atkins. I think she just recently turned 90. She's an amazing leader, and she still continues to live in Massett. She's a member of the Kwe Unglis Yahgu 'Laanaas Ravens. My dad is also Yahgu 'Laanaas Raven.

Her late mother, old Náanii Connie Spence, led the group with her knowledge. They taught us children the songs and the dances.

I was in the group for about 10 years growing up. That's how I felt so connected to that part of my identity.

Prince Rupert is an interesting place to grow up. Over 50 percent of the population is Indigenous, from all the surrounding communities. But it is a Canadian town, and there are a lot of dynamics.

I'm grateful for growing up there. I was grateful to have this connection to my culture and community through the dance group.

I kept that with me through difficult times pursuing my university education as a young adult. Singing, when I had difficult times, really carried me through what could have been a much more horrible experience doing my undergraduate degree at the University of Victoria.

Although I sang Haida songs, I didn't know the language. It was really understanding that I had a missing piece, and pursuing the language when we were expecting my oldest daughter, who's now 23.

Having that kind of unbroken line through the singing made, I think, the language journey much more bearable.

Learning an Indigenous language can be very traumatic, and I recognized that early on.

I am a big-feeling person. I do put stock into this, I am a Cancer, which is a big emotional sign. I'm a very emotional person and I really pick up on emotions.

I didn't expect to become emotional.

When those emotions came up during language learning, which they often did, they were associated with the trauma of how language was taken away and forbidden in our community.

I felt that.

A lot of people turn away from language learning when it becomes hard, because why hurt yourself? Why put yourself in a situation where you're being harmed?

We can do anything else. We can continue to just speak English and not go that way.

But it was the singing that provided the healing, provided joy.

It continues to do that for me.

Farha: Do you feel, like I do when you learn a language, and in this case it's very intimately connected with your ancestry, that you also enter a world that is very different from the English world that you grew up in?

Jasḵwaan: Yes. And it's hard.

Farha: What's really important, whether you're Indigenous or not, is that languages are hard to learn.

Many people feel, and you may hear this as an instructor, "I can't learn because I don't have the ability to."

And yet we all do because most of us can speak one language. But to add another one is a challenge.

I almost liken it to rock climbing. It's hard, but you've got to persist. Because when you do, like music, you become so connected. You start to live and breathe it.

Do you feel that?

Jasḵwaan: Yes, I do feel that. It's beautiful to get to that point in language learning.

Farha: Do you remember when you started to dream in the dialect that you were learning?

That's what I remember, the moment that I started to dream in one of the languages I was studying. That's when I said, "That's it. I feel it's in me."

Jasḵwaan: I don't remember many of my dreams, actually. I think I'm one of those people who's just out like a light.

But I do remember this very significant dream.

It was very early on in my language-learning journey. I didn't know yet that it would be basically my life's work. I thought I was doing it at the time and it fit.

We wanted to have language around the home for our children.

I began working in the language soon after starting to learn it, and there was a language gathering that we had organized, because there are many people who work in the language in different communities. They're all doing different things, and it's really helpful to bring everyone together.

I remember dreaming around that time that I was running, running, running to get to a room. I had to make a presentation.

There were all these Elders. Some of them I recognized, and a lot of them I didn't because there weren't that many Elders that I had known.

It was a room full of Elders, and I recognized that they were all Haida speakers. They were waiting for me to come.

I started to speak.

That's when I woke up.

But I was starting to speak in the language.

That dream stuck with me.

Farha: And look at you now.

That's emotional.

When I played your podcast on an earlier episode of The Blue Hour, you mentioned some of your language teachers used some cassette tapes, especially this one man who had recorded on them so meticulously.

That's a treasure. Maybe that's the only way to describe what he did.

It's taken you a long time to get where you are. This is hard work.

Jasḵwaan: It was really hard work.

This man, the late Tsinii Stephen Brown, I find the tape collection so important because what he was doing was finding a solution.

He was working in the language at the high school. He was helping us out at the language nest. He was being asked all the time for translations. These Elders were inundated with, "Translate this. Translate that. Translate this."

I know it now because I'm in their shoes.

A lot of what he was asked to do with his precious time at the school was coming from an English perspective.

How many times can you say, "We wouldn't say that in the language," knowing that our language has the perfect capability to describe the thing?

But the asking was where it would get all muddled up. It's a really interesting conundrum because I face it all the time.

English speakers don't know what they don't know.

On top of that, there's the English dominance in the world. And on top of that, colonialism and the white supremacy that is entrenched in colonialism, this idea that the superior way of thinking has won.

Of course English can do all these things. But actually...

What he was doing was going home at night and thinking of ways that were only a Haida thought. It wouldn't even become a question that he was being asked, nor would it have been from someone who only knew the English language.

He was finding those gems and those pieces and explaining them through the language and through these tapes.

It was so valuable and so amazing. I really value that work that he's done.

I also wanted to mention this amazing work that's happening now.

We are in our second cohort of an immersion program in Old Massett through the language office, which is called X̱aad Kíl Née, the Haida Language Office.

This immersion program utilizes a technique called Where Are Your Keys, which is a combination of techniques that are named, essentially learning activities, and modified sign language.

It works wonderfully.

One thing I noticed about some of the students who've really taken to it, and they've all taken to it to various degrees, is that what took me 10 years to understand, because of the situation and the conditions around my learning, took them a year.

It's concentrated learning because we're together nine to four, Monday to Thursday, as opposed to eking out a few hours to visit an Elder in the midst of raising a family and having multiple jobs. I was a contract worker.

Farha: This is also a kind of revolution, maybe, in pedagogy that's really changing how the language is taught.

This immersion program is happening right now, as we speak?

Jasḵwaan: As we speak.

I'm one of three instructors in the program. There are two full-time instructors, myself and Jaasaljuus Yakgujanaas, who runs X̱aad Kíl Née now. She took it over from me about three or four years ago.

She's just a phenomenal young woman. She's actually trained, I believe, in marine biology. But she's grown up in the language.

Her mom was one of the pioneers in the community, Elizabeth Moore, who was one of many people who went over to New Zealand and visited the language nest there and brought that information home.

That was the program that really drew myself and our family in.

It's interesting because I think we had to go through the timeline we did go through.

There are things that, as a community collectively, we wouldn't have been ready for, a program like this. There was healing that needed to happen, difficult times, difficult conversations, pauses and waits for the right time.

There's this sense of urgency that we're always fighting up against, or that I find myself really noticing.

It's something very common in Indigenous language work: "Has all this been recorded? Why isn't this being done now? This should be happening now."

That creates this panic.

Farha: And it almost goes against what you're trying eventually to make possible, that people can embrace the language willingly.

Jasḵwaan: Yes.

Farha: That they can live in it.

Jasḵwaan: Yes. It can breathe in them.

Farha: That's almost a different set of ideas. It's much more internal and intuitive and something that people come to.

Most importantly, maybe, they come to it.

You want people to be learning Haida because they want to.

Jasḵwaan: Yes.

There's an incredible need and an incredible want to learn the language out there. It's about making that language accessible and those learning spaces accessible.

There's a lot of interesting psychology around it that I want to take the time to write about one day, when I do have the time.

Farha: And you will.

And now you're in the footsteps of all those teachers that you had. You've got to pass on that torch - and it's a huge responsibility.

I'm a real fan of immersion because you mentioned this, even when you were in Mexico, when you are immersed in a culture, the language is just so much easier.

And you are now creating those circumstances.

But I think it's such a joy.

Jasḵwaan: Language is a joy. It really is.

Finding that joy through all of the obstacles that have been put in our way, these circumstances of language oppression through things like the Indian Act and what were residential schools, so-called schools, that joy piece is so important.

It's interesting because there can be this feeling, and I understand it, because it was wrenched from us.

So many of us living Haida were not raised in the language in the way that we should have been. There's a sense of, "If all this work is being done, just give me the answer. Give me that magic bullet of how I can learn and speak what was taken from me."

There's this push and pull.

Like you said, going back to that piece, languages are really hard to learn.

You have to put in a massive amount of effort to learn the language properly, and practice and time and effort.

Farha: And dream.

Jasḵwaan: Yes, and dream, and all of those things.

That's really the goal, I think, of a lot of work in communities, to remove those barriers.

I recognize that I had many fewer barriers than those who came before me because of the work that they did.

I want that for those who have come after me, and I know I have achieved that, that they don't have to go into a situation of harm simply to learn their language.

Farha: I feel, just knowing you, and I know there are many others, and I would say this to anyone in this country or even around the world who is working hard in the same way you are, to make sure that we know these languages are alive.

They never died.

They're part of our life. They're part of our rich and diverse culture, and something everyone should be so proud of.

We can drive up this coast. When I studied Musqueam, hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ is what I really should say, when it was first offered at UBC, it was taught by Linguistics and an Elder.

I also studied Ojibwe when I was in Ontario.

But what I couldn't believe when I moved up the coast to Whistler was realizing that there are other languages spoken by the Squamish and Lil'wat peoples. And that doesn't feel far for a Canadian.

Yet it dawned on me that we are talking about so many extraordinary languages that are with us across such short distances.

Thanks to people like you, Jasḵwaan, they will continue to be passed on.

I just want to honour you. That's huge work.

Never feel for a moment that what you're doing is not worth so much. It's a very, very special role.

Jasḵwaan: I really appreciate that.

When you're speaking, I love that piece about the diversity of languages here.

Even just in this one area, which we call the Lower Mainland, that diversity of language really matches this diversity of landscape, and this intimate knowledge of our lands and waters and airs that each language contains.

Just speaking about that one word in X̱aad Kíl, and how it speaks to the landscape of Haida Gwaii and understanding the shape of waves, there are many different words that can describe things in so many different ways.

Understanding that is really important.

That beautiful honouring you just did is so powerful and significant because that attempt at erasure continues to echo today in the mindsets of a lot of Canadians, people who cannot conceptualize the diversity of Indigenous peoples or the diversity of Indigenous languages.

Or the fact that that knowledge hasn't become extinct just with the creation of BC and Canada.

That knowledge has sustained and continued despite the attacks, in regards to policy, to wipe them out, essentially.

And the power that is held in a word.

Farha: Oh, yes. One word.

One word that I repeat every week on my tours at the Audain museum, and I hope with your permission (although I think I did ask you first!).

Jasḵwaan: Yes, you did.

Farha: Every week, peopled are moved on my tours with just one word of Haida.

It's been such a pleasure. We are out of time, but I think we're going to have to continue this discussion.

Jasḵwaan: We will.

Farha: I think we're going to have to do a part two.

Jasḵwaan: Do I have time for a song, or do we have to go?

Farha: Can you do a very, very quick song?

Jasḵwaan: Yes. I'll sing one verse of this song. This was a song I composed for my dad. It just came to my heart.

[Jasḵwaan sings one verse of a Haida song.]

Farha: It's beautiful.

Farha: And can you tell me how to say thank you in Haida?

Jasḵwaan: Háw'aa.

Farha: Háw'aa. Take good care.

Further reading and listening

Listening

Reading and resources