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!