The past few weeks have been very anxious for so many people in northern Ontario who have had to deal with huge forest fires.
These fires are no surprise to Native elders.
Many Elders I speak to have been warning of the climate changing for a few years now. They worry that the weather will become very hot and the forest dry.
I grew up on the James Bay coast where thinking about what I ate was not something I considered much. The only time anyone I knew thought about food had to do with where to find the cheapest sources of nutrition around. This meant an abundance of natural foods that were mostly centered around wild meat like Niska (goose), Atik (Caribou), Namess (fish), Sheesheep (duck) and Waboose (rabbit). Occasionally in the summer we Cree up the James Bay coast supplemented our diet with wild berries we picked from islands in the Bay.
I was happy to hear recently that my little niece Rita Shisheesh married her childhood sweetheart, Trevor Koostachin. Rita was always an angel and the first grandchild in our family. She had these big friendly almond eyes and her smile was infectious. She was fussed over for at least two years before the next baby in the family arrived.
I am sitting here watching the rain sprinkling down from a grey sky onto the lake. It is a quiet rain. There is very little wind and that adds to the laziness of my morning.
I am nestled in the midst of a vast wilderness and kilometres upon kilometres of pine tree forests. I imagine the rich green forests and all the foliage welcome this rain. The lake will be a little chilly for a few days so my daily swim should be refreshing. That is OK.
I love swimming in northern lakes. The more isolated they are, the more pure and unpolluted.
The sixth annual Wabun Youth Gathering held at the Eco Centre Lodge in Elk Lake featured a mini Powwow, traditional teachings and workshops with an Aboriginal focus. Eighty-five Wabun youth attended the event which ran from July 16 to 27 and was sponsored by Wabun Tribal Council Health Services.
I noticed in the news recently that there seems to be a move from denial of climate change or global warming. It looks like people are finally waking up to the fact that we humans are contributing to a situation that is causing change in the climate and weather patterns.
Sadly, we have wasted a lot of time and missed a lot of opportunities to do our part to fight global warming. People seem to be coming out of denial now because the changes in weather patterns are just too obvious to ignore.
I am accustomed to living in towns and cities surrounded by people. However, when I am out on the land for long periods of time everything changes. There is no longer access to all those luxuries that we take for granted like grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, theatres, television, radio, phone and internet connection. Most of all there are no or few people around.
This week a friend of mine stepped on a nail and had to get a shot for tetanus. It reminded me of the many times I injured myself as a child growing up back home in Attawapiskat. I was always around the family construction business and by the time I was 12, I was driving a half-ton truck around town and operating tractors. You can imagine the close calls I had at that early age but that is what life was like back there in those wild days up north.
My friends get fed up with me when I am sharing a home with them. Not that I am hard to get along with and as a matter of fact they say the opposite but when it comes to keeping the house warm I think I go overboard. I like the heat turned up when I am indoors and in particular if it is fall, winter or early spring. I can think of few things more pleasurable than staring through a frosty window at a blizzard outside with snow blowing all over the place and the temperature freezing while I sit on the couch sipping tea in a very well heated home.
These days I am surrounded by nature’s art and Mother Earth is changing the landscape with incredible colours that she takes from her pallet. The fall colour extravaganza is in full swing up north and vivid yellow, orange, red and green fills the forests. Even though we northerners feel a little sad at the waning of summer our spirits are lifted with joyful colour all through the northland.
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