Tseshaht First Nation mourns loss of oldest elder

The Tseshaht First Nation's oldest elder, Richard Gus, known as Cody, died last week at 93.

A pillar of his First Nation and the local Port Alberni community, Gus is remembered for the smiles he brought those who encountered him on his long daily walks into town, his legacy as a boxer and his resilient advocacy work as a residential school survivor.

At home in his final days, Gus was surrounded by his large family – he had four daughters, six grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren, along with many nieces and nephews who looked to him as the oldest surviving member of their family.

While they knew he cared for them deeply, Gus's family said he struggled to say that he loved them, which they believe was a result of the trauma he carried as a survivor of two residential schools. 

"If we said 'I love you dad,' he'd just say 'Yeah, yeah yeah,'" said Gloria Fred, one of Gus's daughters.

However, this changed right before his death, when Gus left the hospital to be with his family.

"When we brought him home, that's all he just kept saying, over and over again, was 'I love you all, I love you all,'" said Fred. "It was amazing that he got to do that."

Gus was born on Nettle Island in the Broken Group archipelago off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1931. He was one of 12 siblings, all of whom he outlived. 

As a child, Gus was forced to attend Ahousaht Residential School and Alberni Indian Residential School for a total of nine years. 

Gus and his wife, Bertha, who passed away in 2020 after nearly 60 years of marriage, never told their daughters anything about their time in residential school.

"They told each other that when they have kids that they didn't want them to know the bad stories that happened to them," said Samantha Gus, one of Gus's children.

In spite of all he endured, Tseshaht First Nation elected chief councillor Ken Watts said Gus was always willing to volunteer his time for anything related to Orange Shirt Day and making sure the harm caused by the residential school system was not forgotten. For this work, he was invited as an honoured guest to Alberni Valley Bulldogs local hockey games, where he dropped the puck several times.

"Any of the residential school work, Cody would be there without question. He'd just show up," said Watts. "To get out of bed and come to these events is not an easy thing at the best of times – when you're in your 90s, it's even more challenging."

The 93-year-old was one of the few surviving speakers of the Tseshaht language, c̓išaaʔatḥ, although he preferred to speak it only with other fluent speakers. 

While he stood just over five feet tall, Gus could pack a punch. As a young man, he ran track and was a boxer in the Golden Gloves amateur boxing league in the United States, which earned him a place in the Nuuchahnulth Sports Hall Of Fame. 

Prior to his retirement, Gus worked at fish plants and as a tugboat driver at logging company MacMillan Bloedel's booming grounds. 

Gus could often be spotted in his later years walking many kilometres each day with a self-rolled cigarette hanging from his mouth, making his way down River Road and into the community to buy scratch off tickets and strike up a conversation with anyone he ran into along the way.

"If we were looking for my dad while he was out walking — he used to walk miles every day — we'd post on Facebook, 'Anybody see my dad?'" said his daughter, Samantha Gus. "Then everybody would tell us where he is, because everybody was watching out for him."

Gus would regularly stop by the First Nation's offices to chat and crack jokes with Watts and the staff.

"He'd come to our office and I'm like, 'What are you up to, Cody?' and he'd be like, 'No good!'" said Watts.

He died August 7, surrounded by his family. That day, members of the Tseshaht and Hupacasath First Nations, along with residents from Port Alberni, dropped orange roses in the Somass River. Flags in the city flew at half mast.

"It's sad in one aspect, but in our culture too you realize that people who lived a long life, you're there to celebrate that they lived that long and that we were able to have them as long as we did," said Watts.

This week, Gus's family plans to take his ashes to Nettle Island, where he was born.

Gus's nephew, Richard Watts, said he can't look at an orange shirt or his uncle's birth year without remembering what Gus meant to him and others.

"Whenever I see that number, I'll remember all the things he stood for,"  the 73-year-old said, "and the things he fought for."