june updates

Hello!


Welcome back to this corner of the poplar-treed north! I've returned to Chateh after a week of travelling, and I'm happy to be back. I received a warm welcome from both my coworkers and the plague of boreal mosquitoes. My skin is covered in what most closely resemble possum nipples. This is horrifying, but I feel initiated.

The longer I have been here, the more I have been exposed to rich Dene tradition. The week before I left, I was welcomed into the traditional drum dance group that meets weekly at the health centre. I was the only person over thirteen, but this didn't stop me from having a great time. I now feel more ready for the upcoming Dene Tha' assembly, where everyone will be out dancing.

Before I left Chateh, I was also lucky to witness hand games for the first time. Hand games are the game of the north, with tournaments attracting teams from all over the northerly provinces and territories. The game is a beautifully rhythmic gambling sport. Players in two teams kneel on opposite sides of a tarp. The teams take turns hiding an object, such a coin, in one of their hands while plunging their arms under the tarp. The captain of the other team tries to guess which hand of each player the object is in. For every incorrect guess, the hiding team gets a point. Hand games can go on for hours, and they are played to the music of drums. The motions of the hands are strong and dramatic. Traditionally, hand games are played only by men, but in recent years women have begun to participate in some matches.

Last Monday, I said goodbye to the hand games arbor, the dogs, and the horses, and boarded a plane to Edmonton. High Level airport is small. Nobody even wanted to see my liquids. From there I went east to attend a conference in Ottawa, basking in the Parliamentary atmosphere and drinking artisanal coffee. Coming from an environment where signs of indigeneity are everywhere, embedded in architecture, speech, and activity, I think I was more conscious of those reminders in Ottawa. I noticed some cool public art and a statue of Thayendanageya/Joseph Brant, and I know that the National Gallery has a great collection of art from diverse Indigenous artists. At the same time, I know that our nation's capital is on unceded Algonquin territory, and that Samuel de Champlain, for all his wonderful sculptured pants, pushed for the colony.

damn, sam!

When I returned, exhausted, to Chateh on Sunday night, I found little had changed. The sky was bright well past midnight. I am back to chasing puppies and watering the garden. Alas, the second puppy to come into our possession has been claimed by a neighbour. I watched her scoop him under the forelegs today and carry him into her home, but I don't think I can protest. I have decided that dogs, like happiness, are not attained by seeking.

Last night, I was invited to a neighbour's to learn how to dry moose meat. This woman's partner and his cousin had just shot a moose the night before. My relationship with gore is shaped by my being both a vegetarian and a nurse. I thought it was more exciting, however, than gross, and I got wrist deep into this meat.  To dry meat, it is first sliced into long continuous strips, then hung over wood racks above a fire. The whole drying process takes about three days. 

My neighbour and her partner tried to teach me a few words and phrases in Dene. Her partner's favourite joke is to charge me money every time I see him, but I am now safe from bankruptcy because I can say "Eh duli sunya!" I have no money! 

xedah -moose

I'm making an exception with vegetarianism, because the kind folks sent me home with a few pieces of meat. My lovely roommate Jess has promised to try her hand at moose adobo, in the great filipino tradition.

Jessica! (left)

Jess and I are busy! We have many trips and activities planned for the youth, and are latching onto initiatives that the community has already started. As much as I feel like we only just got here, we are leaving sooner than I thought, especially because we're planning to travel with the youth for much of August. In particular, we're going to be accompanying the youth to tour post-secondary institutions in Edmonton and Calgary. If you have any cool University connections, could you please let me know?

It's the end of June, but the garden plants are just starting to grow. Even though I'm already surrounded by green things, here also is some lemon balm that I started in a little container. The plants here get a long long day of sun. Total solstice daylight was a good nineteen hours!

Are you curious about anything in the North? Is there anything I should learn about before my next blog post? Hit me up!

xx

Liza

glitter, power, meme

scroll down for dog introduction

Hi again,

Today marks three weeks of my internship. It's been a gratifying time of getting to know a new community, a new culture, and beautiful land. I've also been spending time feeling out a routine and making a home life. The house where I am living has a massive yard and no internet, so I am feeling particularly wholesome. 

It is mud season here. It rained for three days straight. The roads look like fudge ice cream cake squished into a runny mess by a petulant eight-year-old. I feel like a monster truck in my rubber boots.

I've been meeting a lot of people, including some youth, and I now have a hardy young crew of co-gardeners who braved cold and rain to plant vegetable seeds in the community garden. I will probably spend the rest of the summer discussing bugs, potato blight, and horse tramplings in excruciating detail. I also hope to celebrate a rich harvest, which seems promising given the abundance of garden worms.

In my last post, I promised dog updates. Things moved fast, and I sort of have a dog of my very own. Masha is a willowy pup who followed me home one day. She was still there the next morning, and has been periodically around ever since. In certain moods, she will even wait by the door of the health centre for me to come back out. I miss her when I don't see her, but I'm glad that dogs here roam freely. 

sleepy doogler enjoys a scratch

We get two radio stations here: CBC Radio One and the CFWE. CBC is self-explanatory. But CFWE? A pipeline of First Nations communities! It has community announcements, informative talk, C&W and traditional music, and the iconic bingo. In many places, it is a sin to disturb a household on Tuesday and Thursday nights for fear of interrupting radio bingo. 

me whenever CFWE is on, trying to act local

A mainstay of local life here is bannock. The very core truth is that frybread is not traditional food,  but sometimes the truth is not what counts. I went to my first pow wow this weekend, and ate bannock enough to feel like the kingdom of carbohydrate peace had descended. This in spite of my categorical opposition to pastry lard.

I have dark secrets

The pow wow was beautiful. If you have been to one before, you will know what it's like, and if you haven't, I recommend you go one day. You will learn a lot and feel very lucky. There are pow wows happening all over Alberta. 

At the Peace River Pow Wow, there were people of all ages dancing, from wee babes to Elders. I have never seen such futuristic beading on regalia, or felt the drums so loud in my body. I saw a young woman with her head held high turn to face me, and realized she was in fact past sixty.  A competition judge led children in a Cree group dance about moose. From the interpretive moves, I think it was about scanning for moose in the muskeg, but there was definitely also some traditional dabbing. 

At every pow wow, there is a grand entry, where all of the dancers enter the arena in a procession. At the head of the group there were flags and heralds of different nations, including the Treaty Eight flag and the maple leaf. The flags were given great respect, and an Elder addressed the group on the importance of traditional languages. Two hundred people danced the floor in a coiling circle; Mounties and chiefs, jiggers and chicken dancers swirling like the party of creation. Everything glittered.

Jay Soule's ultimate take on the format reads "Hey Canada shouldn't 'reconciliation'
mean the return of stolen land and honouring the treaties?: Change my mind"

I'm continuing to learn more and more about First Nations life. Many people have shared thoughts and stories with me here, and I'm lucky to be living in the age of, among many others, Chelsea Vowel and Chief Lady Bird. That being said, culture and history are complex things to study (as can be eloquently discussed by Barthes or Derrida or Foucault), and I cannot endorse the idea that I'll ever be an expert on some monolithic 'Dene life'. 

Truth and reconciliation are important. The treaties are important. First Nations, Metis, and Inuit youth are important. Poplar forests are important. Dogs are important. Saskatoon berries are important. And this is a summer for the important. I hope you feel as inspired as I am to learn about them.

xo Liza