Totem Animal Stories - how I found mine...

When I found out I was pregnant (about 2 seconds in fact I knew!), I packed up my car and drove across Canada (isn't that anyone would do?).  I landed in Northern British Columbia.  I had been given the names of people to see but I wasn't sure I was going to do this...not until I drove into Terrace and saw the banners on the street poles.

I have worked with Inuit art in a 4 star president's Inuit Art Gallery in Nova Scotia, and, as a artist and sculptor myself, I recognized immediately the white bears on the banners were definitely not polar bears. This intrigued me so I stopped at the local tourist bureau.

What I learned there, is that in that part of BC there is a sub species of the black bear called the Kermode, ghost or spirit bear. I knew then immediately I was home!

At different stages in my life, I have asked myself what my totem animal is.  I have either gone on drumming journeys or just let life let me know what is it. At the point I became pregnant (yes by choice), I had asked for signs telling me what my power animal is...before it had been a wolf but I felt things were changing for me.

The first thing to happen is I was doing inventory in Alma (Houston's) basement.  If you know anything about the history of Inuit art, then you know this name.  She and James Houston went North and had encouraged, represented the art and carvings in art galleries and museums, help set up the co-ops (Alma's suggestion!) all over the North. 

Anyhow, I digress, I am a nosy bugger and noticed a tooth in a container just setting there.  Poor Alma (always frustrated with my very inquisitive and fast working brain!), explained what it was and gave it to me. I was delighted and I still have it...it was a polar bear tooth first given to her mother, and then from mother to daughter, to Alma who passed it on to me.

Next I moved into a new flat on the top floor of a home on Dufferin Street in Lunenburg NS.  I was snuggled my first night in bed thinking about my totem animal quandary and something made a noise in another room. Upon inspection there turned out to be another side room off the bathroom I had not seen...in it was one poster that had just fallen off the wall, a picture of a polar bear...see where this is going?

When I was young I had a best friend named Ruby.  She had fostered with us until her teens and we got separated.  It was difficult for both of us, and was NOT a good decision but shit happens!  Anyhow, she tracked me down and we were reunited.  She gave me a gift...out of the blue: a Hudson's Bay jacket with polar bears embroidered on the cuffs and lower trim.

Well, I am not a completely slow leak, I was starting to get the message however I remember saying out loud, "If there were a black bear, that is white, THAT would be my power animal.

So, when I learned of the Spirit Bear I knew that was it!  That however, is not where this story ends.  What is the good of knowing your Spirit Animal if it doesn't help you?

Since I was in the area when I landed in Terrace and because I had learned of the Kermode or Spirit bear, I decided to look up the two friends of my friend. When I did I mentioned I was looking for a place to settle and they told me about a little log cabin on a little lake (originally called Cooch Canyon or Hells Bells! but re-named Princess Lake).  This cabin in the middle of no where between Terrace and the highway up to Alaska had been renovated by a wealthy German Heiress (family owned plastics factories in Germany).  It had been her dream so the place also had barns and fenced areas for her horses.  Turns out, she moved into Terrace and left the cabin empty...it was just looking for someone to occupy it.

The fun part of this story is two fold.  One part is I arrived just days after the owner, who had brought in house sittersfrom Germany, said, upon their second attempt, they would not sit the place since each time they came out to look at it, out popped this great big Kermode bear which always scared the pants off them!  This made it available to me!

The second fun this is, not only was it now available for me, this owner was a single mother who had had her son in this cabin on Princess Lake!  She left everything there!  Not only did I have a great place off the grid that was fully functional, I had the best for my son including play pen, baby stroller, hand made cloth diapers, clothes and you name it!

So, you may be wondering if I had an issue with Kermode bears while I lived there.  Truth is, I saw her once and never again but my one neighbour who drove by early every morning says she saw the biggest bear (Kermode) at the top of my driveway each and every day! 
This is not only how I found for sure my totem animal in everyday life, however also how she helped me!

Other ways to find your totem

You can, as mentioned, go on a drumming journey to find your totem.  I have led drumming groups, and journeying is NOT to mistaken for group drumming and I will explain why at another time perhaps.

Anyhow, a person leads the journey. I won't go into details behind the idea of why you drum and journey or what it means to drum. That is for another time.  What I will say, is when you go on a journey it is best to have an intention, in this case finding your power animal (totem animal or spirit helper is other names).  You will know if it is your power animal because you will have at least two of your senses engaged.  You will see it, which is common, however you will also smell it, feel it or hear it.  At least two senses, three is even better!

The oldest and most common way is you just have an affiliation and love of a certain creature.  You might be crazy over owls or frogs or butterflies or who knows what.  Everyone knows it so you get loads of gifts of it.  You have stained glass of it and maybe a blanket or two, a few ornaments, or perhaps an entire collection. If you do, then that is more than likely your primary totem animal. Others may come and go, but at some level that one is just with you.  So be it, enjoy!  Others will likely understand the connections and say things like, your are so like that critter (ok, not THOSE words exactly but you get my drift!). If that is the case, you likely had it with you from birth and possibly another lifetime.  

You may experience one or all of these ways, however seek and ye shall find! All you need to do is ask and then pay attention!

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EW TOTEM ANIMAL   ...     EXAMPLE OF HOW I RECEIVED IT
After moving around Wwoofing at a number of places I landed on Trout Lake in the Kamloops in British Columbia. Trout lake used to be called Trout Lake city and had a population of over 2500 when someone struck gold, silver, etc. Now however there is about 60 homes, if that!

The lake was awesome.  Since I was there in spring I got to watch it change as the snow melted on the surrounding mountain tops.  When I arrived it was easy to walk along the sandy shoreline and around the corner to the mouth of the river which also had a lovely sandbar. I was told the current was low and children played there.

As the days got longer and the sun stronger, the snow began to melt and pour down the sides to the river and lake.  Almost over night the shoreline changed dramatically.  Gone were the sandy beaches the dogs love to dig in, and instead, it because clear where the washed up driftwood had come from.  The sides of the lake in places looked more like an elephant's graveyard than anything else where, instead of white bleach ivory tusks, you found huge sun dried and bleached logs and roots.  There were so many that in some places walking around them was just about impossible.

One night I asked the universe for a new totem animal, preferably one not so solitary, which I promptly forgot. The next morning I took out my bird book and binoculars and began trying to identify the crane on the bank of the lakeside.  The woofer hostess who had spent all her life since childhood summering on that lake said she had not seen any herons in years and there was one!

I never thought anything of it. It didn't look like our Great blue herons but it did look like a blue heron never the less. Just as I was about to get a closer look at it though the lens of my camera, a boat came around the corner and off she or he flew!  So much for a close up. I shrugged and put my camera away.

A few days later the heron was there and there was another.  I thought this was cool and went down to get a close up photo with my camera.

I got into the heavy metal rowboat I fished from and set out to get a few photos. I did do this and was able to get very close unlike the boat of a few days before.  I got bored with taking photos and went in.

I still had not made the connection to heron however when I went out fishing in the rain a couple evenings later, I was starting to wonder if maybe heron was my totem. Mainly because of the similarities I was sharing with my blue heron friend.

It was one of those days when the sun comes out, then it pours, then the sun comes out. All day back and forth and I was determined to catch a trout for my supper so rain or shine I stayed at the mouth of that river fishing.  

The sand bar was starting to show again even though some days the shoreline seemed to disappear.  So, I was out fishing most evenings rain or shine and always heron was there with me.  On one particularly wet evening, I was in my oilskins sitting in the boat fishing and not paying much attention to anything except the beautiful rainbows that seemed to come and go at the other end of the lake.  Suddenly there was a complete outpouring of the skies and I was soaked. I sat in that boat with my rod in hand I thought, screw it, I am wet anyhow, I am not moving until I catch a fish!  

Just then I felt something looking at me and I looked up.  The current in the river and moved my boat close to the sandbar and there, on the end of it eyeing me was that blue heron who seemed as intent on catching a fish and was not going to move either whether some crazy human in a boat was floating by or not! We looked at each other and I laughed. I think the both of use had the same thought, "What the hell am I doing here in this cold miserable rain anyhow!".

One evening as I was rowing against the current I didn't even look to see where I was rowing until I looked up and stopped only a foot or so from that bird!  It didn't move once again...it was only one. Seldom did I see two on my fishing outings, just the one. Still I was not sure if this was my new totem since I have had plenty of creatures in my life come up and greet me. Everything from hawks and eagles to seals and deer, bear and beaver!  So one crane who didn't seem to mind my company wasn't that big a deal. It wasn't until I took the truck for a drive to the end of the lake that I got my answer for sure.

Not far from the mouth of the river at the end of the lake is a pier, on the other side of it the road continues up the mountain.  Before it does however there is a little bridge and a tiny creek that goes back to a brook that runs off from the mountains.  I had kayaked under the bridge and up the creek so knew it split in two. One direction ended behind the end of the lake and campground on the lake only a couple hundred meters because of a beaver damn.  The other slit led back to the stream coming off the mountain.  It was perfect for spawning fish, birds nest and so on.

Well, I usually biked over to the pier for a bit of exercise and to get some space around me.  Wwoofing is fine however a person can only take so much of living with their boss!  By the way, I realized I was breathing again while up on a mountain while quading. I had forgotten until I was up there, that I could inhale!  Sad! 

On this particular day I had the truck to do a dump run so I went over to take a look at the campers and the little stream under the bridge. I went over and turned around.  Just as I was coming down the mountain and heading to the bridge, two blue herons flew over me just a few feet from my truck. I had to slow down to watch them make their decent onto the lake. I thought that was that, but then one of the blues, doesn't land, it circles back and stops right in front of my truck on the road. I am sitting there in the truck looking at this crane, and it is looking back at me.  We commune for a while but I know I have to get the truck back so fortunately he or she takes off again and that is that, I have my new totem animal.  

I looked it up, is crane as solitary as bear?  I had to laugh, NOT quite!  Everything fit perfectly but that is personal and doesn't need sharing to make it clear how one finds a totem animal.  This is my style but there are also other ways.

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If you have a story you want to share here, just send it along to me and I shall put it on this page if it is relevant! Love to hear from you!

Now I Am Waiting for My Next Totem Animal. My Journey Said It Would Come To Me In Real Life Time and Not the Dream time and It Would Be Nothing I Have Ever Known Before! When will it happen? Who knows. Time is all relative on the other side.