‘A bear is coming,’ he said softly, as we made our way back to the raised platform of the hide. Once the bear was past and my camera sat idle again on the rough wooden bench, I came to stand beside William, where he leaned against the railing.

‘You’ve said twice: I’m Gitga’at. What does it mean? Aside from being of the Gitga’at people?’

‘Hmm,’ he paused and looked down at the floor of the hide. ‘That’s hard to put a finger on. It’s something you’re born into. It runs in you like blood. It’s the country, this wilderness.’ He waved his hand at the river and the forest. ‘We’re part of it and it’s part of us. It’s difficult to put into words in a western way of thinking.’ He paused again. ‘It’s not valuing or having a regard for the land, it’s a belonging, indivisible. A ‘we’ rather than something apart’.