Asked about the first Guardian gathering at Hakai, Eric Peterson recalls:
“It was late in 2009, just months after we bought the Hakai Beach Resort, and before we'd settled on our plans for the place. We'd supported projects on the central coast for about five years, working mainly at Rivers Inlet and the Koeye River, but now we were shifting gears dramatically. Hakai was a big opportunity, a big responsibility. Christina and I talked about somehow doing ‘science in a social context’—integrating science and community—but we were fishing for ideas.
“I was driving up the Island highway listening to CBC radio. Claire Hutton, then with the Sierra Club, came on and spoke about Indigenous Guardian programs on the central and north coast and Haida Gwaii.
“It immediately clicked that was exactly what we'd been talking about for Hakai.
“I tracked Claire down, and in December she brought me into a conference call with several Guardians from across the coast. They were planning a gathering in the spring, and they needed a venue. I insisted they come to Hakai. We're all set up for that sort of thing, I said.
“It turned out that the former resort needed a great deal of work.
“As we closed in on the planned meeting, it was a construction site. The extra beds we needed had arrived just days before—Claire and other volunteers were assembling beds rather than preparing agendas.
“At least the kitchen was working.
“On the first day of the conference, boats streamed in from across the coast carrying community leaders as well as Guardians, plus a number of BC Parks rangers, there to show support. A lot was at stake. It wasn't obvious that all would go smoothly. There was common ground but potential areas of division. At the kickoff ceremony after supper, there was excitement but also tension.
