The nuns, when they entered at dawn for the first mass of the day, he was well aware, would see him there still on his knees, praying earnestly. How fortunate they were, they must have thought, to have a priest of such exceptional piety and goodness as their spiritual advisor. But often that same afternoon, after a long nap, he would wake up refreshed, the urge would return, and he would summon another little girl to his office.
Years later, when he returned to Quebec and resumed his exploitation of little girls, he had sought solace in prayer and had confessed his sin after each encounter. And each time, he had been absolved of his sin—or so he had thought. But now he saw that he had gained a peace of mind that was at best self-delusion, and at worst a divine joke. For he had never felt pity for the little girls and he had deceived himself when he assumed they had loved him, mistaking their compliance with his demands for genuine affection. He now had to find a way to make amends to his victims before he died. But in his heart, he knew he had pity enough only for himself.
Bishop de Salaberry went to bed in a thoughtful mood. Something had happened that evening, he knew, that would change his life forever. When he heard the stories of the suffering mothers who had lost their children to suicide, he had been overwhelmed by the deepest sorrow and sadness, and a feeling of compassion such as he had never before experienced. His ambition to rise in the hierarchy of the Church was no longer of any importance. He had felt the presence of the divine, and this, he knew in his innermost being, was because of the spirit of forgiveness shown by the families of the children to the representatives of the white society who had done so much harm to Indian people over the centuries.
Perhaps, he thought, before he fell asleep, the archbishop knew this would happen to him when he had asked him to accompany Father Antoine to Cat Lake First Nation.
And that night, the spirits did not come to ask Raven to join them on the other side.
AFTERWORD
IN THE NORTH of the province of Ontario, there is a land so vast that it could swallow up France and still have room left over for Belgium. It is a region of stark, harsh beauty, green and lush in summer, and white and cold in winter, with deep blue skies by day and with countless stars turning dark to light by night. It is the source of several of the greatest rivers in Canada, the Severn, the Winisk, the Attawapiskat, the Albany and the Moose, that rise in the uplands of the Laurentian Shield and flow northwards to the sea through the immense, swampy Hudson Bay Lowlands.
It is also the only part of the province occupied to this day largely by Native people—in the boreal forest by the Anishinabe (Ojibway) and their close cultural cousins the Anishininimouwin (Oji-Cree), and along the Hudson Bay and the James Bay Lowlands by their good friends, the Omushkegowak (Swampy Cree). The Nishnawbe Aski Nation, where this novel is set, is a grouping of forty-nine First Nations whose traditional lands make up more than sixty percent of the area of Ontario running from the height of land to the James and Hudson Bay coast and from the Manitoba to the Quebec borders.
A drama of death and sorrow has been playing out for generations in this region. From the late nineteenth to the latter part of the twentieth century, the people of Ontario’s remote boreal forest, like their Native counterparts across Canada, watched helplessly as the federal government removed their children, often by force, and sent them to Indian residential schools to be turned into brown-skinned white Canadians. All too often the children were abused by predatory caregivers and returned home broken in spirit and devoid of parenting skills. In the infamous “ ’60s Scoop,” the Ontario Children’s Aid Society and its counterparts across Canada entered the reserves and seized children by the thousands and adopted them out to white families across Canada and the United States. In the 1980s, the traditional life of the people was further undermined by exposure to the culture and anti-Native sentiment of the outside world when winter roads were pushed into their communities.
With their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents before them traumatized by their residential school experiences, the youth had no one to turn to in their families for love and support as they confronted these monumental shocks, and they began to kill themselves in staggering numbers. From 1986 to 2010, almost five hundred people, including sixty children under the age of fourteen and one hundred and eighty youth aged fifteen to twenty, took their lives in the territory of the Nishinabe Aski Nation out of a total population of fewer than 30,000 men, women and children. And this despite the frantic efforts of chiefs and councils to stem the epidemic of death that continues to this day, out of sight and mind of the outside world.
In some communities, survivors speak of the ghosts of suicide victims who come calling in nighttime dreams seeking to persuade young people who had joined in suicide pacts to fulfil their part of the bargain and kill themselves. Too often, the appeals are answered and more deaths take place.
For many people, Native and non-Native, dreams, especially about people who have passed away, are not imaginary phenomena but powerful depictions of reality. In the land of the Anishinabe, of the Anishininimouwin and of the Omushkegowak, young people who participate in suicide pacts have spoken to friends and relatives about visits from the spirits of the dead, just before they too killed themselves.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance the characters may have to people living or dead is entirely coincidental. The Cat Lake First Nation is actually a proud Native community of some five hundred people located on the shore of Cat Lake one hundred and fifty miles upstream from the Albany River and one hundred miles by winter road to the west of Pickle Lake. The airport, band office, school, cemetery, rapids and shoreline depicted in the book are, however, composite creations drawn from more than a dozen fly-in Anishinabe reserves in northern Ontario.
The residential school in this novel is also composite based on many residential schools across Canada, including the St. Anne’s Indian Residential School at the mouth of the Albany River on the James Bay, which was in operation from 1904 until its closing in 1973. On May 29, 2002, arsonists, believed to be former students at the school, destroyed the long-abandoned structure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MEEGWETCH TO MY WIFE, Marie-Jeanne, and our children, Anne-Pascale, Laurent and Alain. Meegwetch to my mother, Maureen Benson Bartleman, and Hilda Snake for the translations of key phrases into the Anishinaabemowin dialect of Chippewas of Rama First Nation, my home community. I also thank my mother for telling me tales of Wendigos, bearwalkers and witches that she heard the elders relate on winter evenings around the old box stove in her grandfather Benson’s kitchen when she was a little girl on the Rama Reserve in the 1920s.
Meegwetch to Shirley Hay of the Wahta First Nation for her comments on the aboriginal cultural context and to Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishinabe Aski Nation who introduced me to his people. Meegwetch to the residential school survivors who courageously provided me with the details of the sexual and physical abuse they suffered while attending Indian residential schools in the 1950s and 1960s. Meegwetch to Goyce Kakegamic of the Sandy Lake First Nation, a residential school survivor, former deputy grand chief of the Nishnabe Aski Nation and leader in the fight to combat suicide among Native youth. Meegwetch to Nokomis (Grandmother) and elder Lillian McGregor, Crane Clan, Anishinabe of the Whitefish River First Nation, for her help in preparing the prayer to Gitche Manitou. Meegwetch to Raven Redbird for her insights into the problems faced by Native women new to Toronto and to the staff of the Anishinabe Street Patrol and the Salvation Army Breakfast Mission for allowing me to accompany them over the years to witness first-hand the help they provide to the homeless, Native and non-Native alike. Thank you to Nanda Casucci-Byrne who travelled with me to the fly-in communities in northern Ontario and who made many helpful suggestions throughout the drafting process.
Thank you to John Macfie who spent many years in the 1940s and 1950s in the territory of the Nishinabe Aski Nation and who was willing to share his insights with me. The book he co-authored with B
asil Johnston (Hudson Bay Lowlands, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 1991) and the research paper of Edward Rogers (The Round Lake Ojibwa, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1962) also provided useful information about community celebrations in the 1950s, including details about the construction of water drums that I drew on in the novel. Professor Donald Smith also kindly read the manuscript and provided helpful comments for which I am grateful.
Thank you to the individuals, especially Eric Van Pelt, who were prepared to share with me their insights on life on the streets of Toronto in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A thank you to Alistair MacLeod, Deb Mathews and Shelley Peterson for reading the manuscript and encouraging me to publish it. And most important of all, special thanks and gratitude to Louise Dennys and Diane Martin for their friendship and guidance.
JAMES BARTLEMAN is a member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and rose from humble circumstances to become Canada’s first aboriginal ambassador. After a distinguished career of more than thirty-five years in the Canadian diplomatic service, in 2002 he became the first Native Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. He is the author of four bestselling works of non-fiction including the prize-winning memoirs Out of Muskoka and Raisin Wine.
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