After more than a year of operating her tour company in a pandemic, shíshálh Nation member Candace Campo has become well versed at changing plans and adapting. So when a recent tour of Stanley Park in Vancouver was joined at the last minute by the Lieutenant Governor of B.C. and five other dignitaries, Campo and her daughter were ready.
“For ambassadors of the country, I never had so many laughs. It was a joy,” Campo, whose ancestral name is xets’emits’a, said. “I was really honoured to work with some of the Indigenous governor generals representing the provinces and territories.”
Lieutenant Governor of B.C. Janet Austin took part in the outdoor experience on Nov. 24 with Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan Russ Mirasty, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Salma Lakhani, commissioner of the Northwest Territories Margaret M. Thom, commissioner of Nunavut Eva Aariak, commissioner of Yukon Angélique Bernard and their families. Afterwards, they invited Campo and her daughter, Talaysay, to dinner.
The 75-minute tour is called the Spoken Treasures Walk, and shares the history of Vancouver and Stanley Park through Indigenous eyes, Campo said. The tour starts as a historical account of Indigenous life on and by the Salish Sea and continues through to where we are today, as well as efforts towards reconciliation and cultural language revitalization. It also weaves in personal accounts of growing up in a family with parents and grandparents who attended residential schools. Campo ends the tour with a discussion about diversity in British Columbia and the history and significance of the totem poles in Stanley Park.
“We just wanted to be good cultural ambassadors for our communities. That’s how we approach our work – we’re sharing information, we’re sharing culture and history,” Campo said. “I really hope to give them a good time and have some good conversations.”
The experience was yet another highlight of a busy year for Campo. Since the pandemic began, her company, Talaysay Tours, started offering virtual tours and program options on top of their walking tours to student groups and corporations alike. The company’s first online experience was in April 2020 with the Jane Goodall Institute, which has hired them ever since. Talaysay Tours has since worked with other big names such as IBM and Microsoft and shared online experiences with groups in more than 17 countries. Outdoor tours have also continued on the Sunshine Coast, in Vancouver and Squamish.
In recent weeks, her company also launched a new collaborative apparel line called “Where we are from.” T-shirts and sweaters share some of the primary village locations of the Skwxwu7mesh and shíshálh people in their traditional names, and other place names will be added in the future, Campo said.
“It’s just pivoting for COVID and just humbly accepting the opportunities that are coming,” Campo said. “It was extremely stressful when COVID first happened. We just feel really lucky to be able to adapt.”
