I am sitting here listening to the birds outside and I can hear a squirrel or chipmunk scrambling around a few feet away on a tree. The wind is sweeping up the fallen leaves outside and I can hear the scream of a chainsaw off in the distance.
Tah-gwah-gun, or the fall season has always been a time of foreboding and worry for every culture in the northern hemisphere. It means that winter is on the way and for my people, it meant that we must prepare if we are to survive and endure another freezing season. In many ways this particular fall demands that we need to prepare for dealing with historic developments. With the turning of this season there are other changes on the horizon that are somewhat threatening.
As much as I would like to follow the recommendations for the pandemic, it is getting difficult after several months. At first I was comfortable with following the suggestions of staying away from public places and having to avoid visiting my favourite restaurants, fast food joints or places for a quick coffee. I knew that with the dangers of a new virus lurking around, mixing with the public more than essential meant I was putting myself at risk of exposure at every turn.
Last week, I had an opportunity while visiting a northern cottage to sit outside and contemplate the night time sky. Normally, in the summer this is almost always impossible as either the weather is not favourable, the bugs are too numerous or a full or partial moon throws too much light to see many stars clearly. On this night, all the conditions were perfect as there was no moon, the sky was completely clear of weather and the biting insects somehow had miraculously disappeared.
I come from a large family with eight siblings. My mom Susan and my dad Marius certainly had a lot of challenges in caring for such a large group of children. These days as I find myself with some time during this pandemic I drift back to an earlier time when I was a child at home in Attawapiskat and I think about all the work my parents had to do to raise us.
We humans are definitely good at adapting. Although the going has been tough, in the middle of a terrible pandemic with Covid-19, we are all for the most part dealing with it. I see people out and about now at stores and offices with masks on, being careful with each other and staying two meters away. Things are opening up slowly and we are adapting to a new normal.
The 14th Annual Wabun Youth Gathering is being held in the Wabun territory this summer in multiple stages with a new format to protect youth and participants during a global pandemic. A small gathering was held in Matachewan First Nation on July 21 and 22 and a second compact gathering was held in Mattagami First Nation on July 28. A second day of events had been planned for Mattagami FN but due to severe storm activity and a community power outage the second day of events was cancelled.
It is raining. It will be raining most of this week and that very much puts my plans on hold as Mother Earth reminds me that my notions don’t mean much in the big picture. At times like this as I feel helpless in the midst of this Covid-19 pandemic, a number of rainy days in a row really drives home the fact that nature rules all.
You would think that this Corona-virus pandemic had gone away judging by the way people are acting here in northern Ontario. I have been doing curbside pick up mostly at grocery and hardware stores now for some time. It surprises me to see people heading into stores with no mask or gloves and seeming to not pay too much attention to the two metre social distance rule.
We are still reeling from the shock of dealing with a pandemic. Most of us can’t leave the house, many people are not able to go to work or school and life has almost come to a halt world wide. The power of a virus that we can not see has been devastating and in a way we are learning a hard lesson. All of us in every city, town across the world have had time to think about life in general and what is most meaningful to us.
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