Ben the Sea Lion

Tsimshian storyteller and artist Roy Henry Vickers shares an adventure from his childhood in the Indigenous Pacific Northwest village of Kitkatla.

When Uncle Johnny accidentally catches an orphaned sea lion pup in his fishing net, young Roy and his cousin Bussy take responsibility for nursing the tiny creature back to health. They name the pup Ben, short for Teeben—the Tsimshian word for sea lion. With the boys’ loving care, Ben eats and eats and grows and grows, getting up to all sorts of ...