For this work, I have won a couple of awards, including the western elders honorary headdress, “for leadership shown in the fight for the rights of First Nations,” and a community leader award by Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a political union of forty-nine First Nations communities across northern Ontario in honour of “raising the profile of the residential school issue.”
After I heard about my friend Amocheesh’s death, I carried the burden with me for a few months, wondering why I hadn’t done more to reach out to him. Finally Joan told me to stop bottling it all up. I called Tony. We had gotten closer ever since the conference; he was one of the few people who knew about Mike.
I picked him up at the airport, and with fishing rods in the back of my pickup truck we drove down to my beauty, the Albany. It was a gentle fall day, the sky dotted with a few clouds that moved slowly, despite the occasional burst of wind. In the early morning, trout and walleye like to rest in the back-eddies swirling by the rocky outcrops mid-river, but by late afternoon, they’d moved to the warmer shallows where we cast our lines. I had some mayfly worms, but Tony, he could make anything dance, and the metallic light from his lure flitted along the gently lapping lake.
We laughed about the time in Grade 5 when Amocheesh had broken character in a school play and had danced across the stage dressed up as a witch. Tony remembered a few more anecdotes, and I laughed along, but to be honest, I couldn’t remember them. I’ve blocked out the good as well as the bad.
“How’s the kid?” he asked. I had already told Tony that I was worried about Cedar having fetal alcohol syndrome because of Angela’s history.
“I think she’s fine.”
“You’re lucky,” he said. I nodded. I hadn’t been a great dad when my own children were young. I’d almost drowned under the weight of memory and dragged everyone around me into my whirlpool of rage and hurt. And yet, here I was, with all the trappings of success: a chief, married and raising five kids. Cedar had given me a second chance. How had I gotten here? Did I get what I deserved? What about Amocheesh? Did he deserve the life he got? What did anyone deserve?
“Ed?” Tony said, snapping his fingers in front of my eyes.
“Sorry, man.” Easy to get lost in those thoughts.
“Remember that time when you told me not to break the rules?”
“Which time? I was always saying things like that.”
“Damn right … goody two-shoes.”
“Meant I got whipped less.”
“Meant you sucked up more. Geesh. I was talking about the time when we tried to run away.”
“What about it?”
“I tell it to my kids,” he said. “Then I tell them all those Cree stories you told me.”
“Which ones?”
“Rita dying … that kind of stuff.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Yeah, but when our gookum died, we did the same.”
“You carried the body and buried her upstream?”
“Nah. We buried her with pemmican. Pemmican and cigarettes. We put it right in the coffin.”
“Good for you. Now that’s something.”
EPILOGUE
For thousands of years, we have crossed the waters of sufferings to seek the path of healing. We take a trip along the landscape of our forefathers to honour the memory and the harms done to the ancestors. We respect their lives so that we can stand proud. We walk and paddle in their shadows to remind ourselves they are still here, all around us, guiding those who listen.
Those traditions continue today. Each year the Dakota Nation revisit their tragic history by marching along the route of their forced dislocation from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to Lower Sioux Reservation, Minnesota, to honour the harms done to the ancestors. Each year, I dip my paddle into the river of healing, by taking ten youth 480 kilometres along the Albany so they can learn their culture and history, and start to reclaim what was lost in the residential schools. I teach them ancient traditions that have been passed down for millennia, spiritual teachings that helped me heal from my alcoholism and the abuse I endured at St. Anne’s. Fundraising for the trip takes place all year round. Some filmmakers even made a documentary about it called Paquataskamik Is Home.
In late 2012, such journeys became threatened by a series of laws that were considered a direct attack on the environment and native sovereignty. Bill C-45 and other similar legislation by the Harper government made it easier for development to occur on our land and waterways without our approval. Targeting the health of our land, they jeopardized our ability to fish, hunt and trap, and the deep healing and peace that comes from settling the mind into nature, and connecting to the beyond. And they silenced one of the few remaining rights accorded to First Nations people: consultation over our traditional land. In response, Idle No More was born.
In my household, the political movement became a family affair. Joan, who has for the past twenty years worked toward improving kids’ nutrition, received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for her volunteerism. Charlie Angus, the Member of Parliament for Timmins–James Bay, and Gilles Bisson, the Member of Provincial Parliament for Timmins–James Bay, travelled to Fort Albany for the ceremony, just as Idle No More ramped up. Joan went to the ceremony but refused the award, as she didn’t want to accept a medal from the Crown given the current political situation. I signed petitions, and talked about Idle No More with the Fort Albany youth.
The Harper government’s bills set fire to years of frustration pent up from the residential schools, racism, broken treaty promises, the Indian Act, and everything else that has kept us down. The movement began as rallies in a few Canadian cities, but then exploded across Canada and beyond, spreading ideas and native engagement around the world. There were protests in more than fifty countries, with international indigenous groups offering letters of support.
“I invite all who support my activities to also support Idle No More and I invite all those who support Idle No More to also support the struggle of my people, the Kayapo, for the protection of the indigenous territories and the opposition to the Belo Monte dam,” wrote Chief Raoni Metuktire, who has been fighting to stop the flooding of 400 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest, predicted to displace twenty thousand people, a fight that film director James Cameron has compared to a real-life version of Avatar.
The movement’s outreach and peacefulness led many to describe it in prophetic terms. “The news about what’s happening in the North, in these cold lands that we call Canada, came like hot hurricane winds,” Oscar Olivera, one of the leading indigenous organizers in Bolivia’s battle against water privatization wrote on the Idle No More website. “It is our struggle like all of the battles that our brothers of the South are fighting: brothers and sisters in Argentinean Patagonia, Mapuches in Chile, Quechuas of the Cajamarca in Peru, Quichuas from CONAIE, peasants in Paraguay, indigenous people from the lower lands of TIPNIS in Bolivia …” Many saw it as a movement of hope, as predicted by an ancient indigenous teaching, the Seven Fires prophecy. The Anishinaabe prophecy was woven onto a wampum belt around the year 1400 CE, but has become pan-indigenous, with Crees, Ojibways, Stoneys, Iroquois, Denes, Haida and many others talking about it from coast to coast. Each Fire describes a period of native history, with the Sixth Fire usually interpreted as the creation of residential schools and the rise of Christianity.
Grandsons and granddaughters will turn against the Elders. In this way the Elders will lose their reason for living. They will lose their purpose in life. At this time a new sickness will come among the people. The balance of many people will be disturbed. The cup of life will almost become the cup of grief.10
The Seventh Fire explains what we must do now to move forward:
In the time of the Seventh Fire New People will emerge. They will retrace their steps to find what was left by the trail. Their steps will take them to the Elders who they will ask to guide them on their journey … If the New People will remain strong in their quest the Water Drum of the Mi
dewiwin Lodge11 will again sound its voice … The Sacred Fire will again be lit.
The series of marches to protest Idle No More was symbolic of young people finding their voices by retracing “their steps to find what was left by the trail.” As part of Idle No More, the Youth for the Lakes, many from Jackhead First Nation in Manitoba, marched to Ottawa to seek protection for Lake Winnipeg, which has become severely polluted. The Crees of northern Quebec walked 1,600 kilometres from Whapmagoostui to Ottawa. They named it the Journey of Nishiyuu, a word that means how humans are interconnected with nature and all living beings. Hundreds of aboriginals and others joined them along the way.
What was accomplished by Idle No More? With Stephen Harper’s parliamentary majority, it was hard for us to stop the Acts from becoming law. And yet, it soon became apparent that the movement was bigger than the original legislation that sparked it. We organized and demonstrated politically and spiritually, championing those aspects of our culture that the residential schools had tried to destroy. At the protests worldwide, we raised our voices and sang to the four directions to show that we are still here. We banged the moosehide drum because it symbolizes the union between the heartbeat of Mother Earth and our people, still beating strong after centuries of oppression. We rose up, strong and united, to return to the Red Road. We took to the streets and retraced the ancient trails. We found our spirits and our voices, and told our stories of renewed pride and strength in powerful traditions. We took a healing journey, as I have been doing ever since I left St. Anne’s. We honoured the memories of our living ghosts.
Three women with a child in a tikinagan (between the two women on the right), ca. 1945. They are de-branching and loading logs to a sled, which a horse would then haul to the sawmill. The Roman Catholic Church Mission hired local women to do the heavy work, including harvesting trees, working the mill, clearing the land, and doing farm work. They worked Monday to Friday, from dawn to nightfall, and were paid a small daily wage (using O.M.I. coinage), along with half a loaf of homemade bread and a 20 oz. can of beans.
Crossing Yellow Creek, over a bridge during spring high water, ca. 1950. The bridge connected St. Anne’s Residential School to the village of Fort Albany, where there were services such as the Hudson’s Bay store, post office and Holy Angels Catholic Church. Yellow Creek fed into the Albany River to the west.
My parents, Abraham and Mary Metatawabin, on their wedding day in 1947.
Our old family home in Fort Albany, 1956.
Me at age four in Fort Albany. I would go to St. Anne’s nearly four years later.
Local Cree women who worked at St. Anne’s Residential School. At the far right is my mom, Mary Metatawabin.
Father Lavois and the St. Anne’s girl students on a weekend canoeing trip, ca. 1953. A popular destination was a camp across the lake, where they would have picnics and campfires.
The St. Anne’s mission boat was used to bring food, household and hunting supplies from Moosonee to Fort Albany. During the holidays, it took students from the nearby communities to and from school.
St. Anne’s Residential School, ca. 1954, and again in 1962/63.
The school was destroyed by fire in 2002.
Children digging potatoes in the field. By the 1950s the Catholic mission had expansive fields of potatoes, carrots and other hardy vegetables. In the greenhouse they grew strawberries, blueberries and tomatoes—none of which we ever tasted.
Boys in uniform at St. Anne’s Residential School.
Graduating class at St. Anne’s Residential School, ca. 1963. I’m on the left, in the second row from the top. Sister Anne is in front of me, Sister Gloria is at far right, and Brother Lauzon and Father Leguerrier, Bishop of Moosonee, are in front-row centre.
Fort Albany, Ontario, ca. 1955, looking north, and showing Holy Angels Catholic Church.
Me in spring 1964 at Kirkland Lake Collegiate Vocational Institute, Ontario. That summer I went to Montreal with Mike Pasko.
Christmas at the Ryans’ foster home, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, ca. 1963. I’m at bottom left.
My family on a trip from Edmonton, Alberta, to Fort Albany, Ontario, in fall 1983. Once in Ontario, we travelled by freighter canoe on the Albany River, a distance of 400 km. The trip took ten days to complete, moving through a variety of terrain. From left: Shannin, Albalina, me, Jassen. Joan took the picture.
As Chief of Fort Albany, Ontario, awarding bikes for good attendance and performance in school, 1991.
Yours truly completing the Canadian International Marathon in Toronto in 2001. All those years of track paid off.
The crew of the annual Paquataskamik rafting trip. Each summer we bring youths on a multi-day expedition down the Albany River, moving 40 km each day. The trip brings youths together with elders, and teaches them about the natural environment (Paquataskamik), cultural wisdom and working together as a community. From left to right, starting at top: Bernard Sutherland, Captain Edmund Metatawabin, Corey Reuben, Andrea Iahtail, Austin Nakogee, Malesh Kataquapit, Geronimo Spence (partially hidden), Kendall Nakogee, Anastash Paul-Martin, Shelton Metatawabin, Elder Joseph Sutherland, Braiden Metatawabin, Andrew Iahtail, Corey Reuben, Karen and Jassen Metatawabin.
The Paquataskamik raft with crew aboard.
Working together to build the Paquataskamik raft.
John Edwards and me at the sawmill I operate in Fort Albany. The sawmill employs four people in the summer months and two during the winter.
The log home that Joan and I built together in Fort Albany.
GETTING INVOLVED
How do we heal? I’ll begin with the words of Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor:
Regarding our “provisional existence” as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life; everything in a way became pointless. Such people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.12
For Frankl, the external situation was the hard fight for survival in the camps, an existence that pitted man against man, guard against prisoner, father against son. In the camps, people died for hunger, thirst, by bullets and gas, but perhaps most tragically, for lack of hope. The pointlessness of the suffering itself became the trial to endure, and extinguished the qualities of humanity that we hold most dear: pleasure, generosity, kindness, and even the ability to experience real love. And yet, out of this emptiness, from this spiritual wasteland, Frankl found value. We suffered greatly in the residential schools, but finding a worthwhile response to my past has become my life’s mission, and led to my own search for meaning. As First Nations people, we have long endured oppressive laws and policy that tested our own will to live, and as yet, as the rise of the Idle No More movement demonstrates, the spark of the soul is not easy to eliminate.
It seems that for any First Nation, community or individual to be reminded of their own inner strengths, uniqueness and power, they must periodically undergo a trial. This trial will test their resolve to exist, and can be so severe it will threaten them with extinction. We Mushkegowuk Cree have been blessed to have undergone our trial. To say we have passed it successfully is premature because we are still being tested. Recognizing it as a challenge and giving ourselves the authority to find a solution will assist our youth in aspiring to bigger goals. Claiming authority is important for us because we, as the targets of institutionalization, can too easily identify with the position given to us by our victimizers.
Where do we go from here? How long do we yell and scream that the promises of the treaties have not been fulfilled? How long can we complain to the Canadian public that our houses are dilapidated, our roads bad, and our education system broken before we take the reins ourselves? Somehow the mental effort to step outside, grab a hammer (if you have one) and climb onto the roof to fix it is missing. Frankl calls living under this spell of inaction and blames a “provisional existence,” as the person suspends forward motio
n while waiting for this uncomfortable period to be over. But Frankl reminds us that we are the ones who can affect change. It is by our shining through that we can help others overcome injustice. Acknowledge first what your life looks like now; and secondly, consider what about your life needs to change to benefit yourself and your community.
When I ask myself what needs to be done, I recall a dream:
We are on Parliament Hill in a procession that stretches as far as the eye can see. Drums guide us past the Centennial Flame toward Peace Tower and we walk toward the open doors. Waiting outside are Mounties in official uniforms, and political dignitaries.
“Welcoming Committee,” I say to myself. “They will walk us inside.”
It is a very important moment, unexpected and long fought for.
As we reach the entrance, we pause and move to either side. Across the walkway I see an elder, tears in his eyes, holding an eagle staff in one hand, and the hand of his friend in the other.
People shake bells, and with the noise, young men wearing traditional clothing sway, twirl and jump to the beat. My body moves to their rhythm, and the fringe of my beaded vest flies as I dance.
And now the moment has come. I see our National Chief, walking down the pathway toward the open doors. Some chiefs said she should be carried, but she wanted her feet on the ground with her people. Just days before, the Government of Canada had issued an official statement. To recognize the treaties, and align all policy and laws according to the spirit of their promises. And to give the Office of the National Chief some political power, with her own seat to represent us in the House of Commons …
Up Ghost River Page 26