There Were No Roads Back Then – Native Highway 101 (Collaboration with Duane Pasco)

The canoes traveled on the Salish sea before there were paved roads. The Salish Sea was their highway. My weaving includes two styles of canoes: the Salish canoe, and the Northern Nuu-chah-nulth canoe. The designs delineating the path of their travels are their “hghways”. The water is depicted as rolling waves and rough, choppy water. Reversing my weaving allowed me to show the canoes traveling in opposite directions.

The adzed pattern on the boards that frame the weaving is called chax chu in the Nuu-chah-nulth language and is translated to mean “ripples on the water”, so very appropriate for this weaving.

-Betty Pasco, 2020