OK. Ok. ok. Okay.
Nahow.
Nanabush Part Two . . . feeling lazy, hungry, yep. Yep. Sees some geese out resting on the lake. Just sitting there. Makes a rope out of cedar bark, swims out with snorkels and fins and ties a few legs of the geese with the rope. It’s going so good and easy with the full-mask deluxe snorkel that they decide to tie up all the geese. Gets over-excited. Gets water in their snorkel. Chokes a bit. Causes a commotion. Scares the geese and they FLY, because they can, and while they’re flying with their legs tied together in a V, they notice it’s easier. So they cut that rope and kept on doing it, because everyone knows geese love PHYSICS.
Kosimaanan
Story Four: Zhaganash and the Ultralight, or On Not Knowing Your Place
FFS, the best allies are really those ones that stay in their own lane and don’t try to help. This friggen zhaganash builds a plane and gets these poor scooped-up goslings to imprint on them and they fly them to Florida and drop them off in a field and what in the actual fuck are we supposed to do with them now? Not to mention that we had already organized our own formations to pick a few of them up but that goddamn ultralight nutbar got there first.
Kosimaanan
Story Five: A Short History of the Indians of Canada
Mashkodiisiminag begins by saying that they learned this story from Thomas King and that it is not their story by any means.
Kosimaanan
Story Six: Omiimiig
One time not that long ago the omiimiig filled the sky over the lakes in mid-afternoon. Name the lakes. So many omiimiig that the sky went dark.
Kosimaanan
Some stories are stories and some are just facts, facts so important that story can’t mess with them.
Kosimaanan
Story Seven: Pink Gull
*Note: The Gull wasn’t really a gull, but the identity of the bird in question has been changed to protect the innocent.
The One Who Stayed told this one the best. They were on a motivational speaking tour making a stop in Yellowknife in the fall. The migrants were already moving and the bird activity was substantial at the airport. The One Who Stayed refrained from taking their tray table out of the locked position during takeoff. The One Who Stayed refrained from lowering their seat back to the reclined position during takeoff. The One Who Stayed begrudgingly removed their headphones for takeoff, staring out the window as the Bombardier CRJ900 sped towards liftoff, stymied only by the Gull that flew into the left engine producing a thump and then a soft, pink mist.
Asin
Asin notices they gather just after the sun has set, so slightly later every day, noticeably later every few weeks. They can see that one of the older ones does most of the communicating, and at first Asin believes they are upset about something, or grieving, perhaps. Over time, they recognize calmness in the spoken words. Asin takes notes about this one first.
Asin
Asin arrives at the lake with Biidaaban. It’s fall and it’s too hot. Asin needs a tank top, a wide-brim hat and copious amounts of sunscreen, not jeans, a hoodie and a beanie. Biidaaban is dressed more appropriately but it is easy for them. They mostly live here.
They can see the stalks on the lake near the shore, filling the bay with prairie. That’s a good sign. At least they can see the stalks of rice.
They’ll have to borrow the lawn of a cottage to get down to the water and launch the canoe, then paddle over to the bay and see if the grains are ripe or already planted in the substrate of the lake.
Asin
Biidaaban in the stern, Asin in the front. It takes a minute to fall into the rhythm of working together, to get the canoe to track straight and paddle across the lake to the far side, where the ducks and geese are gathered. When they arrive, Asin turns around, takes the cedar sticks and begins to knock the rice gently onto the Certified Value Tarps 15 × 20 in royal blue that Mindimooyenh gave them and which are spread out on the bottom of the canoe.
Asin
After a few hours, they have a tiny pile of grains, bugs and leaves.
Asin
After a few more hours, the pile grows, but it is nothing to brag about.
Asin
After a few more hours, Biidaaban comments that the storm last weekend must have knocked a lot of grains off the stock. You almost have to live beside the rice to catch it, they say.
Asin
By the time they start to lose the sun, they have enough, or at least Asin thinks so. They bundle it up in the Certified Value Tarps 15 × 20 in royal blue. Biidaaban asks why they are taking their pile back to the city instead of soaking it overnight, drying it and then parching. Asin smiles.
Asin
Asin and Biidaaban drive into the big city beside the big lake and go directly to Tommy Thompson Park. They park the car, put on their headlamps and hike to the geese’s staging ground with the Certified Value Tarps 15 × 20 in royal blue. In the stopping part of the night, they spread the Certified Value Tarps 15 × 20 in royal blue with the grains out where the geese are sure to find them first thing. Biidaaban lies down on their side in the grass a distance back. Asin lies down in the grass too, beside Biidaaban.
Biidaaban thinks carefully about how to make this happen.
Weweni.
Thinks it through in seven directions.
Thinks it first, before attempting execution.
And then Biidaaban closes the space between Asin’s body and theirs, fits Asin’s body into Biidaaban’s. Biidaaban’s brown warmth holding the ancient rock, their finger circling on Asin’s arm. They face the Certified Value Tarps 15 × 20 in royal blue and fall asleep, waiting to see the look of their faces.
TEN
DEGENTRIFICATION
Adik
Adik took off their backpack for the first time in three days. They paid attention to the sound of the broken brown leaves, and the smell of the lake and the dark. They looked up and then around for the moon. They sighed.
Adik
Adik had been visiting for most of the night. Handing out, with Ninaatig, sleeping bags, naloxone kits, soup and stories to the Nishnaabeg-that-stayed. Smudging off those that needed medicine. Rubbing sore and tired feet and backs as requested. Ninaatig kept the soup in their shopping cart. The sleeping bags were cached in hide-lined pits throughout the city, and most of the Nishnaabeg-that-stayed knew where they were located. Adik and Ninaatig had worked tirelessly for a decade to set up this network, map it out and code it.
Esiban
Esibanag dug caches throughout the city in parks where they stored the essentials:
naloxone kits
sleeping bags
dry caribou meat from the Dene
only the kindest of words
Nishnaabeg-that-stayed
You know the Nishnaabeg-that-stayed as the homeless. The ones we are all related to. The forgotten ones. The ones that we think need help, but we don’t help. The only ones not on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Nishnaabeg-that-stayed
Esibanag know them as the Unceded Nation Under the Gardiner. In tents and tarps. Checking in. Visiting. Taking care the best they can. Using whatever they find. Taking only what they need. Sharing everything they have. My heart.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
Gidigaa Bizhiw drew maps on the sides of buildings with stencils and green spray paint. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was a coordinated system of secret care, hidden under the guise of homeless, pest, defeated and indifferent.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
One might describe Gidigaa Bizhiw as awkward.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
Painfully introverted.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
Incapable of the small talking.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
Gidigaa Bizhiw prefers misunderstood, mysterious, shy even. Extinct.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
stencils
&
nbsp; green paint
speed
a hemisphere of trees
Gidigaa Bizhiw
they spray
white pines
cedar
maples
on steel
concrete
brick
white picket fences
pressure-treated back decks
and the blue light of screens
Gidigaa Bizhiw
*and a plastic wading pool
Gidigaa Bizhiw
**and the green bin with the chicken wings beside the plastic wading pool
Gidigaa Bizhiw
***and the word “ARTIST” on Bougie Kwe’s garage door so Bougie Kwe could take a selfie and post it on Instagram and Gidigaa Bizhiw would be also digital.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
over time they forget the details.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
over time, the flatness of cedar becomes round.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
over time, they forget that softwoods make breath out of light and soft out of sharp edges.
Gidigaa Bizhiw
they spray
white pines
cedar
maples
on steel
concrete
brick
white picket fences
pressure-treated back decks
and the blue light of screens
Gidigaa Bizhiw
stencils
green paint
speed
and a hemisphere of trees
Esiban
The Esibanag were the ultimate radicals and no one knew it. Sure, they had been dispossessed, displaced and their habitat gentrified like everyone else, but they were not taking it. No way. They moved the fuck back in. Committed. Built lodges, spoke their language, did their ceremonies and took care of each other. They had kids and more kids and raised them up to be self-determining fire. They figured out how to live with the asshat humans in harmony such that the biggest asshat human complaint was that they had to clean up their garbage every few days.
Esiban
Esiban important practice number one: Don’t leave. No matter what.
Esiban
Esibanag moved back in, and then learned all kinds of new shit like how to break zip-ties and open the green bins and the new, extra-expensive green bins, and how to do public relations. They learned to tilt their heads at the cameras to look omg so cute. They learned to parade out their babies in a line, ride the subway and steal donuts. They learned how to do the odd well-timed comedic adventure like falling through a skylight or staging a hilarious home invasion or drinking Coke right out of the can or posing for Instagram photos. They staged their own memorials when one of them died, with cheap roses and teddy bears. They signed the scientists’ consent forms and got SSHRC and NSERC funding and got their blood pressure taken and their weight recorded. They listened earnestly to the lectures about over-eating and exercise and smoking. They learned about distemper and diabetes. They learned the importance of presence — showing up at kid soccer games; being overly nice to dogs; and the ultimate, getting spit out onto the baggage carousel at Pearson to cheer those of us that had reached the end of our ropes waiting in lineups, watching shit movies and eating Italian wedding soup like it was going out of style. They dug outhouses and undid zippers and mason jars and made headlines with their raccoon brilliance. “Trash Pandas: Smarter than cats and white rats — with the intelligence of a human toddler!”
Esiban
Esiban important practice number two: Act like you are supposed to be there.
Mindimooyenh
We are supposed to eat raccoons, FFS.
Mindimooyenh
Cooked right, they are tasty, FFS.
Mindimooyenh
Raccoons never line up for brunch.
Bougie Kwe
#urbankwe #bougie
Bougie Kwe
Bougie Kwe decided to classy the joint up a bit.
Bougie Kwe
With a Zen meditation pond in the backyard.
Bougie Kwe
Made out of a plastic wading pool from Canadian Tire that they tied to the roof of an Uber to get home.
Bougie Kwe
Esibanag just watched and watched. First the four $46.99 water lilies planted, one for each direction. Then the rocks repurposed from Ward’s Island. Then the bags of rocks and gravel and mud as substrate. The carefully positioned leaves.
Bougie Kwe
The pièce de résistance: floating hyacinths.
Bougie Kwe
Bougie Kwe googled:
“Beautiful but destructive in the wrong environment, water hyacinths (Eichhornia crassipes) are among the showiest of water garden plants. Flower stalks that grow about six inches above the foliage arise from the centers of the rosettes in spring, and by the end of spring, each plant holds as many as 20 gorgeous purple flowers.”
Read more on the internet at Gardening Know How (“Tips for Growing Water Hyacinth Plants”).
Bougie Kwe
Bougie Kwe googled:
“Nimaamaa ko ogii-nookizwaan iniw esibanan.”
Bougie Kwe
You can make fun of Bougie Kwe all you want, but they are just doing what every other NDN in the city is trying to do, which is not end it all, by bringing a little bit of real right into the city. Pumpkin seeds in “repurposed” Styrofoam coffee cups. Trilliums in the garden. Fires in the backyard. Hyacinths in a plastic wading pool. Semaa at the base of street lights. Duck soup Under the Gardiner.
Bougie Kwe
It was finally finished.
Esiban
It was finally finished.
Esiban
The first night, Esibanag really couldn’t believe their eyes and luck and good fortune. The cool water. The water lilies. The floating hyacinths. The rocks. Brought back the memory of foraging for food along the shore. Brought back the whole washing-their-food debate.
Esiban
Emerged.
Esiban
Floating.
Esiban
Surrounded by hyacinths and moonlight.
Esiban
Drinking the cool night water in, and then out.
Esiban
It was unreal for the first week. A secret night spa at 10 p.m. Diet Coke and chocolate and alone-Netflix. A treat just for Esiban. Glorious, indulgent me time. Then, gradually, word got out. More and more people came. Things got out of hand a bit with all the excitement. One thing, inevitably, led to another.
Esiban
Esiban important practice number three: Make the very, very best of things.
Bougie Kwe
Ripped-up water lilies.
Bougie Kwe
Rocks all tossed.
Bougie Kwe
Floating hyacinths, trashed.
Bougie Kwe
Bougie Kwe hip-hopping mad.
Bougie Kwe
Regrouping.
Bougie Kwe
Refusing.
Bougie Kwe
Rebuilt.
Bougie Kwe
Bougie Kwe rebuilt four times, one for each of the sacred directions. Then the Lee Valley catalogue arrived at the front door because Bougie Kwe, and who doesn’t like a posh garden tool. On page 34 was a Raccoon-Sensing Spray Blaster, which was really called the Pest-Deterring Jet Sprayer, for $59.50 plus shipping. Bougie Kwe indulged. With express shipping it arrived in two days and was immediately installed.
Esiban
Esiban could not believe their eyes. Now the pièce de résistance had a new pièce de résistance and it was a fountain. Glorious. While the alone-time spa party was over, the community pond party was not.
Bougie Kwe
Noopiming Page 9