Xavier Kataquapit

November 11, Remembrance Day is very meaningful to myself and my partner Mike. Myself and my family lost my great-grandfather John Chookomolin during the First World War or what is referred to as the Great War. This is a very sad and tragic story as the Canadian military in 1917 sent a recruiter up the James Bay coast to look for young Indigenous men to join the conflict in Europe. This recruiter more or less kidnapped 24 young men who could not even speak English from Attawapiskat and convinced them to join him.

Northern Ontario featured the hugely successful Second Annual “Every Child Matters” Pow Wow in Kirkland Lake on September 30. The event which was held at Civic Park brought in over 2,000 visitors from Northeastern Ontario including the participation of children from schools from Kirkland Lake, Englehart and Temiskaming Shores. The gathering also brought performers, drummers and singers from across the north and Quebec.

This September 30 marks the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a nationally recognized federal holiday in Canada commemorating the memory of the residential school era that affected thousands of Indigenous children and their families across the country.

COVID19 is still a very prominent part of our lives. As much as we would like to think that this pandemic is coming to an end, it is still a very dangerous period for many people.

This past month, I lost my uncle Elder Alex Kataquapit through complications from the COVID19 virus. At 89 years of age, he was doing well for his age until he contracted the virus which completely weakened him and sent him to hospital. Older people and those with compromised health issues are most at risk with COVID19 but many younger people are also having problems and what is known as long COVID.

My people have a long history of dealing with new dangerous and deadly diseases that we had no protection against. During the First World War I lost my great-grandfather to the 1918 influenza pandemic when he left his homeland on James Bay to volunteer for the war overseas. He never returned and he now lies in a burial plot just outside the city of London. In the decades that followed, wave after wave of influenza, small pox, measles, polio and most commonly tuberculosis claimed many people on the James Bay coast because there was little to no immunity to these new diseases.