It’s the sound of spring on the farm. Geese honk as they
organize their formation and announce their return to the one-mile stretch of
Kemptville Creek that runs along the edge of our property. It’s a goose
paradise over there. Too shallow for watercraft other than a canoe. Alive with
frogs, beetles, fish and other tiny water creatures. The goose hunters love it
too.
A few years ago I was working on a documentary film with the
James Bay Cree of Northern Quebec. The setting for many of the interviews was
their hunting and fishing communities. I spent a couple of hours in a
smokehouse, watching one of the elder women slowly turning a goose on a string
over an open fire. Life goes slowly there, in the hunt camp outside
Waskaganish. You have lots of time to talk. You learn the almost musical
cadence of story-telling. I told stories about my life on the farm. When I
mentioned the creek and the influx of geese in spring, I had their attention.
When goose season rolled around again, a Cree hunting party arrived at the
Fisher farm, ready to harvest.
In Eeyou Istchee, where my Cree friends are from, goose
season is a two-week-long holiday from work and school. Multiple generations of
families return to their hunt camps near the water. The successful hunters
return to the villages with their coolers full of geese and they share it among
their neighbours. They have community feasts and practice their traditional way
of life. They cook the meat slowly, and use the time to reconnect. It is a time
of year that many First Nations People cherish – rich with culture and customs.
The communities of Eeyou Istchee are the most affluent First
Nations towns and villages in Canada, because of the James Bay Northern Quebec
Agreement (JBNQA). In the 1970s the first Grand Council of the Crees, led by
Grand Chief Billy Diamond, packed very non-traditional clothing in their
suitcases and said goodbye to their families. In Montreal, they created quite a
vision walking shoulder-to-shoulder down the city street to the courthouse in
their new business suits. Tall, dark and strikingly handsome men, their long
shining hair flapping in the wind. They were there to make an agreement with
the Canadian government that would allow the damming of seven of their rivers
in order to produce hydro-electric power. This agreement would be sustainable,
to lay the foundation for a successful future for the people of Eeyou Istchee.
As a result, when you go to Nemaska, Mistissini and
Waskaganish – a historic spot in Canada’s history where the first Hudson’s Bay
fur trading post is clearly marked – you see for the most part tidy little
modern homes, expensive trucks and well-dressed people. They have the money to
travel ‘down south’ to shop for the things the rest of us take for granted.
They are well-connected with high-speed Internet, and cable TV.
The remoteness of the communities, however, is stark.
Especially in winter, when the bitter wind makes it too cold to spend a lot of
time outside. If you spend a few days you will inevitably encounter a hint of
what happens in the truly desperate First Nations communities in Canada.
In places like Attawapiskat this year, many will not have
the heart to go on their traditional spring goose hunt. They won’t be able to
pack up their things and take their families to their hunt camps for two weeks,
as they have every year since time immemorial. Because an illness has descended
upon their village, and it is insidious. Pervasive. They don’t know where it
will strike next. Children and young people are making suicide pacts, in an
attempt to draw the country’s attention to their desperate need.
The people of Attawapiskat need far more than a month’s
worth of intensive medical attention by a few psychologists and nurses. Clean
running water, warm, adequate housing and functional toilets would be a good
start. Yes, I know the problems in our native communities run deep and will
take more than simple infrastructure investment to fix. But we have to start
somewhere. It just isn’t right that this is happening in our country. I imagine
how the people in our remote communities feel when they hear we are bringing in
tens of thousands of refugees and giving them a new life. It is the Canadian
way, to help others in need. Every human
being deserves the necessities of life.
Once they have those basic things, we can look at the bigger picture.
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