PACHENA BAY , B.C. — The low tide, bright sunshine and constant roar of endlessly approaching waves display the full power of the wide-open ...
PACHENA BAY , B.C. — The low tide, bright sunshine and constant roar of endlessly approaching waves display the full power of the wide-open Vancouver Island shoreline at the remote beach handed down to Stella Peters and her family as a wedding dowry.
For generations, Peters and her relatives have been the keepers of Pachena Bay, the picturesque beach that scientists forecast as an epicentre for the next massive earthquake and tsunami.
The bay is also the home to the Huu-ay-aht First Nations village of Anacla, about 300 kilometres northwest of Victoria, which aboriginal oral history says was devastated when an ancient earthquake convulsed the West Coast of North America.
First Nations from Vancouver Island to northern California describe the earthquake and tsunami in similar legends and artwork involving a life-and-death struggle between a thunderbird and a whale that caused the earth to shake violently and the seas to wash away their people and homes.
Every year we hear the same thing, that, ‘Oh, the big waves are going to come, the big waves are going to come’
When the next megathrust quake hits, residents on the west side of Vancouver Island will barely have 20 minutes to get to higher ground.
“Every year we hear the same thing, that, ‘Oh, the big waves are going to come, the big waves are going to come,'” Peters says as she looks out on the Pacific Ocean. “I’m not really too worried about it actually happening. We’re not ready for it, but in a sense we are. We seem to be on the ball when it comes to evacuating the place.”
“Nobody [will be] left behind,” says Peters. “All the elders, the kids, even the dogs are all taken out of here.”
On Jan. 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m., a magnitude nine earthquake struck the Pacific coast, causing violent shaking for minutes that scientists believe was felt as far away as the Manitoba border. The shaking was followed almost immediately by a tsunami that legend and scientists say sucked everybody and everything along the outer coast into the ocean.
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For generations, Peters and her relatives have been the keepers of Pachena Bay, the picturesque beach that scientists forecast as an epicentre for the next massive earthquake and tsunami.
The bay is also the home to the Huu-ay-aht First Nations village of Anacla, about 300 kilometres northwest of Victoria, which aboriginal oral history says was devastated when an ancient earthquake convulsed the West Coast of North America.
First Nations from Vancouver Island to northern California describe the earthquake and tsunami in similar legends and artwork involving a life-and-death struggle between a thunderbird and a whale that caused the earth to shake violently and the seas to wash away their people and homes.
Every year we hear the same thing, that, ‘Oh, the big waves are going to come, the big waves are going to come’
When the next megathrust quake hits, residents on the west side of Vancouver Island will barely have 20 minutes to get to higher ground.
“Every year we hear the same thing, that, ‘Oh, the big waves are going to come, the big waves are going to come,'” Peters says as she looks out on the Pacific Ocean. “I’m not really too worried about it actually happening. We’re not ready for it, but in a sense we are. We seem to be on the ball when it comes to evacuating the place.”
“Nobody [will be] left behind,” says Peters. “All the elders, the kids, even the dogs are all taken out of here.”
On Jan. 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m., a magnitude nine earthquake struck the Pacific coast, causing violent shaking for minutes that scientists believe was felt as far away as the Manitoba border. The shaking was followed almost immediately by a tsunami that legend and scientists say sucked everybody and everything along the outer coast into the ocean.
Read More
