Saturday, February 20, 2010

Olympics Day #5 - Honoring the First Nations

Transportation Day #5
9 Skytrains
1 Accessible shuttle (Glad they were thinking of people like my Mom and her artificial knee!)

Today was our last day of Olympic events and we watched 3 curling "matches." Still not sure if I have the lingo down - maybe they're called games? I had played once before long ago with a friend from Manitoba and at least knew the basics of the game. The US won, as did Great Britain, but China was the true star of the show, winning 11-1 after 6 ends (the other teams played 10 ends). Apparently, they have a mercy rule in curling if you're winning by such a large margin.
One of the great things about being in Vancouver right now is all the other attractions. One we visited earlier in the week was the Aboriginal Pavilion which honored the Four Host First Nations. These nations - Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh - are four of the over 600 nations who were make up one of the three groups of Aboriginal people of Canada (Inuit and Metis are the other two groups). Their gracious message (they intentionally thanked the crowds of people repeatedly) was a simple one - "We are here." In other words, they are among the Canadian people every day.

From a sustainability perspective, I think there is a lot we could learn from all of these first nations. Not only have they survived this long against great adversity, but they've also respected the Earth in the process.

2 comments:

  1. Your trip sounds wonderful. I enjoyed reading about the games and Vancouver's efforts to be green.

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  2. Erika, great creative,informative,green perspective on the Olympics. Thanks for putting the Olympics into proper perspective for us. AMLD

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