v v summer

sheer energy

 This past week, I've felt a bit like a baby flinging markers, except that they are love and curiosity instead of art supplies. Wow, is it ever summer!

Here's a view of the school under a big sky and across a field of fireweed and wormwood.

 Last week, I had the interesting opportunity to accompany a pair of archaeologists, as well as members of the Dene Tha' to an archaeological dig. The intent of the project is to assist the Dene Tha' in reclaiming their physical heritage and offering proof to numerous developers that this area had significance to people long before their decision to cultivate it. The photo above is of a stone tool fragment that I found about half a metre below the surface of the soil in a sandy patch of forest. While from what I understand it's difficult to date stone, this is a cool old artefact that's part of a long long tradition.

The project also makes me think about the notions of exhibition, possession, and curation. Western Canada is full of arrowhead collections housed in barns, found by farmers in their fields, and most of us who went to elementary school here can recall seeing indigenous artefacts on trips to museums.  It's interesting that the original purpose of most museums was to document a way of life that was "disappearing", and that most First Nations don't have museums of their own.

What do we do with past?

outdoors at 1 am

This weekend was the Dene Tha' Assembly in Bushe River, one of the other three reserves of the Dene Tha' located close to High Level. It was beautiful. I danced, I ate, I painted a million children's faces. I know have this down to a process where I can turn any eight-year-old into a tiger within 45 seconds. I was hugged by young strangers, welcomed at family camp tables, and nodded at by elders.  I felt like all of Chateh was in one campground hearing the same beautiful drum.

fancy

 The gardens here are great. These are preliminary spoils from thinning the rows.

harvest!

The latest nice thing was saskatoon picking. I went out three times in the last twenty-four hours with the wonderful mother of a visiting nurse. This lady had grown up picking berries, but last night was her first time going for saskatoons in fifteen years. She told me about the teapot her father kept on his trapline, how she missed the quiet of living in the country, how they used to tie berry pails around their waists with a tea towel. Neither of us wanted to stop. We came home with a good ten pounds of berries.

Happy harvests of yr own!

we resist by loving each other

It's Canada Day on Hay Lakes Indian Reserve 209, on Treaty 8 Land, in what is known as Alberta, in what is known as Canada. It is my first time spending July 1st on a reserve.


I am not in High Level, an hour away, where there is a barbecue, parade, and bouncy castle. I didn't have a ride, but I also think there is a reason why Canada Day is mostly a celebration for children.


On the one hand: literal rain on the parade. In the cloudy dark of my living room, I think about Indigenous children in care across Canada, the numbers of incarcerated Indigenous folks, about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Thoughts like a black chain. Water drips from the roof.



There’s not much for me to say about this. Indigenous people across Canada, both as activists and community members, have long fought and spoken for justice. We are a part of this work.



On the other hand: a strong warm feeling. Today is a day I think about millwrights and truckers, and the people who make breakfast cereal. I think about people on sidewalks in their business clothes and the folks who look so tired on the bus. I think of Kalyna County babas and Sikh farmers in Abbotsford. What’s up in Pond Inlet? I want to be your Walt Whitman.



I don’t know what nationalism can do for us, but I admire these people hard. I want to smile at every stranger.



As an immigrant, child of immigrants, I am grateful for this home. I was taken into this country and made safe from violence, corruption, and economic disenfranchisement. Canada worked for me.



These feelings fight, and I hope I can find space for both of them. Reconciliation requires work from all of us, and I don’t think we have the right to celebrate a single thing about Canada until it is true for everybody.



Here and in the city, I am trying to be courageous and to listen. Remember that Canada is not 151 years old, but 13,000. In the words of Chief Lady Bird, artist and badass, “we resist by loving each other”.