Samuel finagles his way into a high pressure cable television career in Manhattan so he can afford his hard partying lifestyle. But his closest companions, the whiskey bottle and the trusty pint, have turned against him. With his mountain of responsibilities and chaotic bosses, his life implodes. The party is surely over.
As oblivion ends Samuel finds himself in dank church basements and dingy rehab rooms. A sad sack in a sea of clowns, he must face the buffoonery of the corporate world with nothing to take the edge off. As he progresses on a path far from perfect, he finds himself enveloped in a fog, struggling to chart a course in a nonsensical world that sobriety won’t allow him to tune out anymore.
Until he hears a call, a beckoning even, that emerges from an unlikely source — is that Bob Costas? Or is it the voices of Ch’ích’iyúy Elx̱wíḵn (the Two Sisters or “The Lions” as the settlers named them) gleaming behind the sports reporter on an impossibly gorgeous winter’s day? Is it a transcendent voice from the spirit of Kanaka Ranch, an auntie reminding him where he comes from, where his ancestors have come from…?
Soon, on the other side of the continent, Samuel is vulnerable and awkward, a middle-aged newbie on a journey he never considered before. And such an obvious one, he’s ashamed it’s taken all these years to only now see it.
Keepers of the Salish Sea is about finding that path we all seek, a search for meaning in life, to discover answers to existential questions. A probing, searching, hilarious tale infusing Coast Salish traditions — inspired by a phenomenal cultural practice thousands of years old, nearly erased by colonization — with the pressing environmental and social issues of our day.