Lee Maracle
False Creek (Snauq), beneath Burrard Bridge
"Khahtsahlano dreamed of being buried at Snauq.
I dream of living here."
From Goodbye Snauq
In her story ‘Goodbye Snauq’ which appeared in West Coast Line in 2008, Lee Maracle recalls the area that is now mis-identified as False Creek in Vancouver. While incorporating the protests of Chief Khahtsahlano, who decried the loss of First Nations land and food supplies to real estate appropriation and pollution, Maracle writes, “Khahtsahlano dreamed of being buried at Snauq. I dream of living here.” Born in 1950 and raised on the North Shore mudflats, Lee Maracle, of Salish and Cree ancestry, is a member of the Stó:lo First Nation. She became one of the first Aboriginal writers in Canada to publish fiction with her groundbreaking synthesis of autobiography and fiction, Bobbi Lee, Indian Rebel (1975).
