Xavier Kataquapit

My home community of Attawapiskat First Nation on the James Bay coast has been filled with excitement for the past few months in anticipation of Kattawapiskak Keekehwin Gathering 2024. A major week long event from August 4 to 10 will be filled with lots of fun entertainment, games for children, feasting, fund raising activities and major live musical performances. The event will be complimented by the 2nd Annual Attawapiskat First Nation Education Authority (AFNEA) Wellness Initiative Pow Wow taking place on August 9 and 10.

I never quite realized how hard life was when I was growing up in my home community of Attawapiskat on the James Bay coast. At the time in the 1980s, our Elders saw the community as becoming modernized and more comfortable compared to what they had known a few decades before.

We have proof that when governments work together good things can happen and that was demonstrated in Matachewan First Nation when the community announced recently the settlement of a Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE) claim. The announcement was made on May 25, by Chief Alex ‘Sonny’ Batisse of Matachewan FN, along with Will Bouma, Parliamentary Assistant to the Ontario Minister of Indigenous Affairs on behalf of the Honourable Greg Rickford and also by the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Canada’s Minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations.

Every morning for a few weeks now I am waking up to the sound of Pee-Nay-Sheesh (small birds) singing outside my window. Mostly the singing is coming from the tree swallows flying frantically around in what seems like circles. I never learned the Cree name for this pretty little bird because they are rare to see on the James Bay coast. At this time of year, they are either mating or challenging each other for the ownership of the birdhouse I constructed a few years ago and perched on the garage roof.

If you pause to think about it, there are special people in our lives that we always assumed would always be around no matter where our life journey takes us. We take for granted that the things and people we grew up with will never change and will forever stay the same.