Hazel Alfred

"An afternoon with Laudie" ,
from Awa'K'Wis, June, 1994

Her name is Hazel Alfred, but as far back as anyone can remember her family and friends have called her by her nickname, Laudie.

Wearing a Canuck sweatshirt, and sitting back on the couch in her cozy Fort Rupert home she shares with her daughter-in-law, Bea, the strong-spirited elder is taking a breather after some very emotional days. Four days have passed since her surprise 75th birthday celebration which more than 225 guests attended in the U'gwamalis Hall. Many speeches were made and songs sung in her honor.

As she stood and cut the cake that evening, she was surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and tears were in her eyes as she thanked everyone, deeply touched by their presence and words.

Born on June 10, 1919, she is one of eight children of Chief Jonathan Hunt (Odie) and Alice Hunt of the Kwakiutl First Nation. "I had a very good life because I had very good parents," she says. "We had a very happy life as a family."

My mom was a noblewoman. She was very high-ranking in the way our potlatches go. her marriage to my dad was arranged, and through her, my dad got a lot of dances and songs."

She describes her parents as quiet people who were well-respected, and her dad hosting a lot of potlatches.

She lived with her family in Fort Rupert until she was fifteen, when her life changed dramatically. One evening, she recalls, her father received a number of visitors from Alert Bay -- Moses Alfred, Jim Roberts, Pete Knox, Sr. and dan Cranmer. They stayed for two days.

"I was sitting in the front room, and they ere talking in the other room, and the next thing they told me was that I was getting married," she says. the man she married was Moses Alfred's son, George. He was 21 years old, and she had only ever seen him in passing when she went to Grade 2 in St. Michael's, the residential school in Alert Bay.

"Because I had such respect for my parents, I never said nothing. I did what they told me," she remembers. But it was not without a little fear. "I was scared because I was young, and didn't know what kind of man he was." But she says her parents chose well. "I was lucky. He was good, and handsome -- a good man and a good father."

Shortly after the marriage arrangement she went to Alert Bay where a marriage ceremony was held on January 17, 1935. But before it took place, she remembers meeting the preacher and his questioning eyes. "He asked me how old I was. I wouldn't lie, so I just turned and looked at my dad, and he said '16'," she remembers with a laugh.

"We had seven children," says Laudie. In due time, she and George moved to a large five-bedroom house that was always filled with friends and family visiting Alert Bay. George skippered a seine boat and for 13 years Laudie worked in housekeeping at st. George's hospital. Every August she'd go out fishing with George for a month. "That's my holiday when I'd go out fishing."

In the years that followed, George worked as a band councilor in Alert Bay. George died October 16, 1974.

Unlike her father, George didn't believe in potlatching. that's why it surprises her that her son is reviving potlatches and learning about the culture and the old ways.

I was her son's potlatch that she first attended after staying away from them for years. She also speaks with pride of the replica of her father's longhouse that is now in the Provincial Museum in Victoria. She often listens to the tape recording of one of his potlatches. "I'm learning from it. I just listen to it over and over. Now why didn't I learn that when they were around? I guess when you get older, you start to pay more attention to what's going on."

There is one thing that has been weighing on Laudie's mind. "When you go into the longhouse for a potlatch or a feast, you go out of respect for the person who is hosting, and you must leave all bad feelings toward anyone behind when you enter. we go in there as one people."

And she praises the youth who are learning the culture. "We need to be grateful to the young men who are learning our dances and songs. we need to respect them and be proud of what they're learning."