Moccasin Square Gardens

by Richard Van Camp

  I have mine now in spades, and I am filled with a trembling light. The trembling light of my ancestors. The trembling light of all the time now I have left.

  Oh. There’s the sirens.

  I want to lie down in that cell and plan the rest of my life and listen to what happens next.

  Now take me away.

  Good night.

  [Audio file ends]

  Ehtsèe/Grandpa

  The time I showed my ehtsèe the movie E.T., it was years ago. He was in on his own from Behchoko, getting a checkup. My grandmother was … well, they had had a disagreement.

  It was summer. My mom’s house was quiet, peaceful. She’d worked hard to rebuild her life after she and her boyfriend separated. There were rumours Patrick was having an affair. He denied it up and down, but Mom had “the sense.” So she decided to take a job in Yellowknife, eight hours north from Fort Smith. The idea was for Patrick and her to take some time to think about what was going to happen next. Patrick and I had gotten along great for the past nine years. I just couldn’t imagine him cheating. The situation was so unbelievable that I wasn’t sure what to do. But I did know my mom needed help around the new house she was renting. It was weird, because our family had built a log home when we were all together. My question was, why did Patrick get to stay in our family’s log house, which my father had built with his bare hands? All of this was why I’d chosen Yellowknife for the summer as a part-time student researcher with the Dene National Office: to help my mom and be closer to my grandparents. Ehtsı̨ and Ehtsèe lived an hour and thirty-five minutes down the road in Fort Rae. “Behchoko,” as they were calling it now, or perhaps as it had always been named.

  I was watching Oprah after spending the day raking, bagging leaves and tidying up my mom’s yard. I’d had a toke and was feeling buzzed. There was a knock on the door. I went around the corner and there, through the curtains, was the perfect silhouette of my grandfather puffing his little pipe: Ehtsèe. Said with breath. Said with respect. Ehtsèe: the miracle worker. The medicine man. The chanter. The holy man.

  Grandpa was looking away, as if listening to something. I ran back, grabbed my camera, snuck up on the perfect portrait and took it. I answered the door after putting my camera down. It will always be the greatest picture of our lifetime together.

  Tłı̨chǫ. He spoke what they used to call us: Dogrib. He said my mother’s name and I told him she was at work, that she’d be home soon.

  He stood there, looking away. He folded his hands around his pipe before sliding it into his jacket pocket. I never saw him light that pipe. Not once. He just liked the taste of it, I guess. It was made of either clay or red willow. I never saw it close up. It was rumoured that was where he kept his medicine power.

  “Leedee Na Woo Nee?” I asked him. Would you like some tea?

  “Heh eh,” he said and came in. It took him forever to take off his moccasin rubbers, and I could smell bush smoke on him.

  “Nezi?” I asked him. “Are you good?”

  “Heh eh,” he said. “Good,” he said in English.

  We were from worlds apart, yet his blood flowed through mine. I was proud to be his grandson. He looked so small without my ehtsı̨. How I remember the difference in the words is, with Ehtsı̨ for grandma, I always think the final ee sound is stronger than the final eh sound in Ehtsèe. Just like owls and ravens: the female is always stronger, bigger. That’s how my grandparents were. My grandmother was cheeky, tough, firm. Yet she cried when we arrived for a visit and she cried when we were leaving. She’d kiss our hands and bow, kiss our hands and bow, kiss our hands.

  I motioned for my grandfather to have a seat in the living room, said that I would call my mom. Maybe her boss would let her leave early. I put the water on to boil.

  My grandfather sat in my mom’s living room on the big couch and looked up at all the photos: my sister, my dad. So many pictures of my mom with Patrick, her hope for them as a couple all over the room. It was like she was manifesting their happiness. And there were pictures of Grandpa, Ehtsı̨, them together, our uncles. All the art. All the plants. The books. The TV. I tried calling my mom’s office, but she had moved to another department and no one could find her number. It was lame.

  I had rented E.T. the night before from the Yellowknife library, my favourite place on Earth along with the loft my father had built for me in the log house. I wanted to watch the movie again and see if it had stood the test of time. After a minute, I hit “play” and it started. I motioned to my grandfather that a good movie was coming on. He crossed his legs, squinted and sat back to watch the film that had changed my life forever. He watched intently, but he kept looking right. It was as if he’d forgotten that my grandmother wasn’t there beside him.

  I decided to make toast and butter and jam for my grandfather. We had no dry meat left. My mom and I were mooches who showed up in Behchoko and usually took a big brown bag of it home. As I prepared his tea, I thought of him in the next room. He’d lost his entire family decades ago and as a young boy—an orphan—made his way through the Mackenzie Mountains to be with the Tłı̨chǫ. The Dogrib. He was a Mountain Dene. He and his dog found the way together, and when they got to Tłı̨chǫ territory, they were met by guards. TB and influenza were killing many Dene. My ehtsèe was not welcome at first. But he explained where he was from, and they asked him how long it had taken him to travel there. He told them, and the guards looked at each other. They did not believe that you could make it through to the Barren Lands in that short a time.

  “I will show you,” Ehtsèe told them. “Me and my dog.”

  And he did. The route shaved off two extra days of travel for the Tłı̨chǫ, and that is why we have our family name: Sih. It means mountain. I had also heard that my grandfather performed many miracles when he was young. He took a hunter’s appendix out with his knife. He cured a stutterer. He tied a man’s mouth shut over a distance, a man who was spreading lies about us as a family.

  And now here we were. Together. Watching E.T. From time to time, he would point to the TV, and I could tell he wanted to ask me questions. I did my best to answer using sign language. As happy as I was, I felt that old soul ache of not being fluent in Tłı̨chǫ. I had about eighty words in me, but I wasn’t conversational. Being fluent was my dream. It was always my dream. I was so worried about our language, but I was raised away from the Tłı̨chǫ, and we never spoke it at home.

  Grandpa cried when he thought E.T. was going to die. I cried too. We took turns blowing our noses into Kleenex. I kept the movie running so we could each maintain our dignity.

  At the end, my grandfather was so happy. When the credits came on, he gave me a thumbs-up and smiled. “Nezi!” he said. I helped him into the bathroom and then I helped him out onto our porch and settled him in a chair. He tasted his pipe as I made him more tea. I asked him if he was hungry. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

  “Good movie,” he said. “Good boy. Good friend.”

  I almost started crying again.

  He tried asking me questions about my life, but I didn’t know if I answered correctly. He nodded, watching me, watching me, watching me. My grandpa. I showed him my portraits of Elders from different Nations, all the children too. I carry my portfolio around for clients. For him to see the button blankets, the Sun Dance Makers, the Matriarchs, the braids, the beautiful brown skin, the veterans, the pride. He patted my shoulder and nodded. “Nezi,” he said. “Nezi.”

  I told him that I was working on my master’s at UBC and that the people there were strong. The Musqueam. I told him I helped out a lot with ceremonies on campus. Sweat lodges. I said I was getting ready to go into the lodge when I returned. I saw him stop nodding, and he looked at me in a new way.

  My mom came home, and soon after that my uncles showed up. They drove my ehtsèe the hour and thirty-five minutes that it takes to return to Behchoko.

 
; That night, my mother woke me up to say that Grandma was on the phone. She had a message for me from Grandpa, which my mom translated.

  “Grandpa says you are not to go into the sweat lodge, because that is not our way. That medicine is from the south. When you go in, they wrap a blanket around you. The more times you go in, the more blankets. If Grandpa ever has to work on you—even from the other side—he will have to take off those blankets, and he could lose time. He could lose you trying to take those blankets off, Grandson.”

  I nodded as my mom passed on my grandma’s message. I listened and understood.

  “You can help,” my grandma relayed through my mom. “Help them with the fire, the water, but you must not go in. You are our grandson. Will you listen?”

  I nodded.

  “Say it,” my mom said.

  “I will not go in,” I said.

  She and her mom spoke Tłı̨chǫ, and then my mom hung up.

  “How come my dad told her you showed him a movie about a mushroom who helped a boy?” she asked me.

  “A mushroom?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. She looked very serious.

  I started laughing. “It was E.T.”

  “What?” she said. “Why did you show him that movie?”

  “Because you never gave me your new work number, you,” I said. “I had no choice.”

  Then she started laughing too.

  “Know how to say mushroom in Tłı̨chǫ?” she asked. “Dlòodıı̀. It means squirrel food or frog house.”

  I could have asked why she had never taught my sister and me Tłı̨chǫ but I didn’t. I knew that we had been raised in Smith because of the drinking and violence and chaos in Behchoko. In Smith we were raised with the Cree, the Chipewyan, the French, the Gwich’in, the Inuit, the Slavey and other friends from across Canada. We had a happy upbringing. We built our own log house as a family. I think that was our proudest achievement. Well, and we partied tamely. We were proud of that too.

  I was happy for a long time after that, because I felt like my grandfather had heard me. He’d understood. I was happy he thought of E.T. when he thought of me. I was so proud I’d shown him the portraits I was taking.

  Even so, to my shame, I did not see him or my ehtsı̨ again that summer. I was caught up with work in the small capital city of Yellowknife, the cookouts in Mom’s backyard, my weed.

  My uncles were always in competition to help Grandpa, because it was rumoured that my ehtsèe was going to choose soon who to pass his medicine onto when he crossed over. The only problem was that my uncles drank. Hard. One by one they were losing their families, by getting kicked out. One or another would show up at Mom’s door at four in the morning asking for money and a coffee. Sometimes my mom let them in; sometimes we waited them out.

  * * *

  As time went on, I got interested in becoming an archivist. I would devote my life to archiving and helping the people, I decided. I would be able to share recordings from Elders I had interviewed years or decades before. I kept taking portraits, and I started selling my services. I’d move into a community for a month or two and archive, photograph, interview community members, leaders and Elders. I loved it. I was positive that this was why I was born.

  When the invitation came for me to be the Tłı̨chǫ Archivist in Residence, I jumped at the chance. I was in a disastrous relationship at the time. Abusive. Holy cow, Harmony just dragged me right out. I had little left of myself, but this was my chance. Harmony helped me pack, and I think we both knew I was never coming back. My stories had no power with her or her family or her friends. No one had time for them. I could tell she didn’t believe half of what I shared with her about the North, my family, what I was hoping could be ours. By the time I left I was soul sick.

  I felt my old self returning with every mile I gained on my return to Yellowknife. I had a week there before my two months in Behchoko. My mom was overjoyed that I was free. She’d seen me vanish in that relationship with Harmony, had heard it in my voice when she called.

  Now that I was in my mom’s new home, I relaxed into her couch, her cooking, her laughter. The North was going to cure me. My clothes didn’t fit me anymore. I didn’t fit in the world. I’d always enjoyed my pot, but over time I’d become a gentle slave to it. I knew exactly how many days I had left in my stash, how many joints, how many puffs, how many, how many, how many. When I first got high as a teenager, my tongue used to tingle. I used to wait for that, hope for it, ride it out, let it take its time. Now my tongue just felt fat. Explain that, someone. The tingle was gone, and I missed it.

  When I moved to Behchoko, I had a mild panic attack. Where would I buy my weed when I ran out? It was such a small town, and I didn’t want anyone to know I puffed. I detested the idea of going to Yellowknife to score when all I wanted was to stay still and breathe in as much Tłı̨cho everything as I could. My time there was my chance to become conversational, and I did my best.

  “Zhah” for snow. “Gocho” for ancestors. “Adu!” for “I’m scared.” Baby steps.

  The work was pretty simple. I lived in a teacher’s house, fully furnished—she was down south on maternity leave—and I interviewed Elders and took portraits of the kids and Elders and teachers. At night, I would upload the portraits, along with each person’s signed permission, and transcribe the interviews I’d done. Holy cow, it was fun. I learned a lot. I learned about protocol for handling caribou bones and hide; I learned about the Chipewyan/Dogrib war and how the leaders Akaitcho and Edzo had made peace together at Marion Lake. I recorded stories like “How Frog Brought Winter for Everyone,” “The Time the Blue Jay and Whisky Jack Traded Wives,” and a heartbreaking story about why we need to listen to our parents when they tell us to work or move quickly. I had no idea we believed in reincarnation. I learned from other Elders about a game that my grandfather used to play, where he dressed up in a mask and chased people. It was a ceremony I wrote down called Dzèhkw’ı̨ı̨̀. The ceremony was so scary the priest had tried to forbid it, but the people continued the game in secret. My grandfather and grandmother were out on the land when I started my term in Behchoko, at Stagg River. I couldn’t wait to see them, to record them, to take their portraits, to share time.

  Most of the junior Elders I photographed would ask me the same question: “Has your grandpa decided yet who gets his medicine?”

  I thought it curious. Most elder Elders didn’t ask me that. It was the younger generation who did.

  I’d shrug. “Oh, I’m not too sure.”

  I did hear rumours about my uncles arguing over who had been the best son. Yet, and I hate to say it, these were the same uncles I’d see drinking, stumbling on wobbly legs at 6:00 a.m., either in Behchoko or out on the streets in Yellowknife. Booze was eating my family alive. That’s why I didn’t drink. I never had.

  One thing I learned in community discussions, and a thing that worried me, was that the Bathurst caribou numbers had dwindled from hundreds of thousands to only nineteen thousand. We were down to a system where we hunted with tags. The majority of northern leaders agreed this was the best way to manage the herd. Yet there was still poaching and, worse, the wasting of meat by our own people. I had heard a long time earlier that the Cree say when you break a treaty with the animals, like you make them suffer or you waste the gift of them, what comes doesn’t come for you, it comes for your children.

  As the weeks passed, I could see my payments were not coming from the Band. At first I thought maybe there was a hold on payment, but after three weeks my Visa was maxed out and I was running low on my weed supply. I had thirty-six dollars in my wallet. That was it. This was me. And when I didn’t have my three daily puffs I got achy, snappy, dazed.

  “Eff this,” I thought one morning, after I’d been checking my bank account, oh, a hundred times a day. “If they’re not going to pay me, I’m taking the rest of the day off.” I decided
to make a run to Yellowknife.

  And who did I see on the highway waiting for me outside of Behchoko?

  My grandparents.

  Oh dear, I thought. As happy as I was to see them, I had heard stories from my uncles about the scenarios they were capable of in terms of their Elderly demands. I knew that if I picked them up, it would be Bingo, Walmart, KFC, more Bingo, church, A&W, back to Bingo, possibly paying for them at the Super 8 for a night, plus bags and bags of groceries that I’d have to pay for. Along with meals out all day, all weekend. My mom was visiting friends in Fort Providence, and she had both her house keys.

  I had no money. I was going through withdrawal. A headache was starting to split my head wide open, and I needed a puff of the good stuff.

  They flagged me down. My grandmother was waving her arms around like windmills, but when my grandpa waved his hand waist-high, well, how could I say no? He never asked me for anything. I had a soft spot. Maybe he could take away my headache.

  I pulled over.

  As they got in, my grandmother climbed right in the back and fell asleep. Her luggage was a plastic Northern bag with a change of clothes in it, or maybe it was knitting and a pillow. I could smell the heavenly scent of fresh tanned moosehide. My grandfather wasn’t carrying anything except his little pipe, which he put in his front pocket before getting settled. Maybe this was only a day trip. A quick trip. He looked at me, shook my hand, smiled and then fell asleep himself. I decided to drive and make the most of this.

  As we headed toward Yellowknife, I remembered that I had hidden a joint on the inside panel of the truck on the driver’s side, behind some paperwork. I reached in and found it. Yes! I waited another twenty minutes, slowed down, lowered my window and decided to light up. It was 4:20 somewhere.

  Long story short?

  My grandfather asked in Tłı̨chǫ: “What smells like dirty socks?”

  I told him it was cigarettes from the US.