At the BC Sports Hall of Fame, Tewanee Joseph is sharing some lacrosse history with his son Koru.
It’s a sport passed down from generation to generation.
“I was handed my first lacrosse stick when I was five years old,” said Joseph. “The whole thing about our community at the Squamish Nation was to go to the North Shore Indians lacrosse game on Friday night in North Vancouver at the rec centre.”
Joseph played on teams that claimed national championships in 1993 and 2001, continuing a winning tradition that goes back almost nine decades.
“For us, a big part of it was the 1936 North Shore Indians that my great-grandfather was the coach of, Andy Paull,” said Joseph.
“He was also a self-taught lawyer. Some of the alliances and brotherhoods that started at that time to not only represent Squamish Nation and First Nations here in British Columbia, but he was a champion across the country for indigenous rights.”
Joseph has continued that legacy not only in the lacrosse box but as a community leader as well.
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“For me to go out and represent the four First Nations at the 2010 Olympics and Paralympic games, and have First Nations, Inuit and Metis people to come to Vancouver, that was one of the proudest moments in my life,” he said.
The Squamish Nation is set to celebrate the grand opening of its new multipurpose recreational building Ḵw’eshḵw’shétsutay̓ this Friday, featuring a lacrosse game.
Tewanee’s competitive days may be over, but the stories live on from those championship teams that were such a great source of pride for so many people.
“Most of those players also came from our community, so that was important for us not only to represent our nation and Indigenous peoples, but to win a national title against teams from the United States and Canada as well,” said Joseph.
“When I got older and played for the North Shore Indians, to me that was the greatest day of my life, because those were our sports heroes, the lacrosse players that were all before us and before them.”
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