My family and my home community of Attawapiskat takes great joy in celebrating Halloween. The traditions of scary stories, spirits, otherworldly beings and monsters work well with the legends that our parents and Elders taught us. The whole idea of Halloween celebrations being just a holiday for children and to have fun was also something that my parents and many of our Elders thoroughly enjoyed.
I’ve noticed that everyone seems to be in a good mood with high spirits at work lately. Was it because a snowflake showed its crystalline face for the first time this fall, or have we slipped into winter already? Was it perhaps the notion of turning on a furnace for the first time just to feel some warm air blowing around the house? Was it perhaps because the sun and the moon were just spectacular? Whatever the reason, it just felt good.
In the past, the Cree of Eeyou Istchee had no centralized government. Our system of tallymen to define and enforce our traplines was perhaps the only way we had some control over the territory beyond our communities.
As Thanksgiving rolls around, I think that somehow that tradition doesn’t really connect with me. I have a lot to be thankful for, but this holiday celebrates something that just doesn’t jive. Thanks for giving it to you, this means more to me, rather than thanks for you giving me something and we should celebrate that instead.
Law enforcement for Indigenous Peoples has always been a subject that mainstream Canada rarely pays attention to. In fact, many Canadians are not aware of the different ways that justice is applied toward Indigenous members of society.
As the skies below me cloud up and we cruise at a leisurely speed nearly six kilometres above the ground, I think back to the days when conversations couldn’t be heard over the loud drone of the piston engines on the old DeHavilland single engine Otter.
It seems these days that anyone protesting the war in Ukraine or Gaza is challenged with pushback from governments, various security forces and those in power that for some insane reason feel that conflicts, which are killing many thousands of people. are something we should all accept. Politicians, academics and media people are discouraged from questioning these wars. When they do the result can be troubling as they are discredited, branded as unpatriotic and, in some cases, fired from their jobs.
By the time you read this another Truth and Reconciliation Day will have passed. I guess Orange Shirt Day had too many shreds of residential school guilt attached to it to keep that name. So, a Canadian government bureaucrat came up with a solution – make it positive. Better that than commemorating the sadness of an Indigenous person remembering the special orange shirt taken away from her the day she was likewise stolen from her family, home and community by the residential school system.
The Cree word for autumn is Ta-kwa-gun. I don’t know what it is about Ta-kwa-gun, but it seems as I get older every year at the start of fall, I am saddened to hear that some wonderful people I know have departed and others are dealing with illness.
Over three decades ago, I was hunting for partridge and grouse with my old friend Buddy. We decided to try out an area just south of the La Grande 2 airport where all the tamarack trees and caribou moss looked loaded with potential for a good harvest. As we walked around silently, searching treetops and lower branches, we came upon a clearing in the forest. It was a beautiful spot to rest, and we sat on a large boulder just to take a breather and cool down from the sweat we worked up.
