Petroglyph
The Snuneymuxw First Nation has many stories associated with Jack Point (100 Kb) and the petroglyph that once stood there.
In one of the oral histories, the animals depicted on the Jack Point petroglyph are named. They are: Flounder, Spring Salmon (has a long hooked nose), Humpback Salmon (Pink), Coho Salmon, and Dog Salmon (Chum). A design of a bird that may be Great Blue Heron can also be discerned amongst the fish. The same story explains the petroglyph designs and how the petroglyph was used by the Snuneymuxw people.
"One day a man, who was a priest or spiritual person, caught a strange looking fish on the Nanaimo River. Later in the presence of the priest's daughter, the fish turned into a young man who asked the daughter to marry him. The man who was really a Dog Salmon took her away to his home. When the priest went looking for his daughter the next spring, he found her with the Dog Salmon. She would not return with him, but promised to return to Nanaimo with her husband and his family each year in the fall."
At the time of their return, the priest's family would be able to eat as many Dog Salmon as they liked. The day the daughter returned with her husband marked the first time the Dog Salmon entered the Nanaimo River for spawning. Another version of this story tells of the daughter and her husband leaping out of the water side by side, making themselves known to the Snuneymuxw people. In a ritual each year, to welcome the return of the daughter and Dog Salmon, the priest would paint the petroglyph at Jack Point in ochre, a type of red earth, and make offerings into a fire. The people were not to eat the first Dog Salmon that came back to the river, as they were believed to be the daughter and son-in-law.
In the 1930s, Albert Wesley from the Snuneymuxw First Nation, told ethnographer Diamond Jenness the following creation story about the Jack Point petroglyph:
"Afterwards Haals(Xe.ls) [The Creator] came. Who he was, whence he came, and whither he went, no one knows. He changed people in many different places to rocks, why no one knows. Two persons accompanied him in his travels. Raven (spal) and Mink (tetceq.an). Around Snuneymuxw he performed these wonders. Off Snuneymuxw he made a long point 'Jack Point', at Spal's (Raven) bidding, so that women would have a long way to walk around and could say all they wanted to say during the journey."
That this creation story includes Jack Point confirms the significance of the Nanaimo estuary and River to the Snuneymuxw people. Raven, the Elders say, is always trying to spy on women and listen in on their secrets. That is why he made Jack Point such a long piece of land - would have longer to hear women talk as they walked the length of the Point. For this reason, Jack Point is linked to Snuneymuxw women.
http://www.snuneymuxwvoices.ca/english/petroglyph_elders.asp