Christmas in Chisasibi and Greetings from BC

(sunset on James Bay Christmas Eve)

Well here it is, the day before we leave. I still remember the first day arriving here and now in a flash it's almost over. It's really quite sad to leave this place that has become home, and to head to a city where no one recognizes you. There will be more good times to come though. The Christmas holidays here have been absolutely amazing. Our Christmas day was the warmest Christmas I could have hoped for away from home, despite the cold temperatures. When I opened my little parcel from Paisley, it was like all of home exploded out of it. Everything that meant something, and could be put into a few cubic inches of space was in there. On Christmas day I went for a walk by La Grande. The ice had broken because the water level dropped again. It was creaking and groaning out towards James Bay.
The whole of Christmas week was full of all sorts of community games and activities. We've been to dinners, dances, and games. Charles and I played a couple songs in a music show a few days after Christmas. This was a huge amount of fun. I was afraid I would be nervous and things would not go as planned, (as it always seems to happen when I try to make music in front of people). Instead everything just seemed to flow. People seemed to like it, and after I played a Bob Robb tune someone called out for an encore and so I gave them a song I'd written here about Chisasibi.
Music flows like water through this town. It seems as though everyone plays. We went to a dance the other night. There were two guitarists, a fiddler and a bass player. Throughout the night they continually switched instruments like they were trading hockey cards. The dances are insane. I sat out on a dance and watched the others in the group trying to scramble along with the changing movement. I then looked beside me at the row of other people sitting on the side watching. I just saw a line of upper bodies rocking back-and-forth out of sync in there chairs laughing. It's quite a site to witness someone with dreadlocks being swept around the dance floor to James Bay fiddling. We went to a banquet a couple nights ago were we had turkey, caribou, ham, beaver, arctic char, and too much more. After trying to begin digesting so much meat, more games began. One of the games involved sitting across from an opponent, each person with part of a rabbit jaw-bone in their hand. The object was to hook the front teeth of each jaw and try to break off the other persons rabbit tooth. I was eliminated quite quickly.
The new yearseve we spent here was also quite a spectacle. We went for a walk into town because there was suposed to be an event at the banquet hall. We were on the skidoo trail when 12:00 roled around. It was like a warzone popping out of no where. Fireworks on all sides, and the sound of gunfire. Alot of people just fire their guns in the air. Their were cartridges on the ground and the smell of gunpowder in the air.





(muttering around outside in the snow)






Well I began writing this blog in Chisasibi, and now I'm in Burnaby and far removed from the experience up north so unfortunately I'll let you fill in the blanks. Things are rather foggy here, not figuratively, it's just difficult to see. I'm slowly getting into the groove of life in a city. The mornings have been beautiful here. I get up with the sun rise, and hop on the sky train which plunges into the fog as it goes closer to the Fraser river and the view of the mountains goes away. I'm working at the Burnaby Hospice Society Thrift Store. Unfortunately, almost any non-profit group doing social service has to have a thrift store to survive.
Anyhow, there is much to talk about but not much time. I'll try to update more as I go, but things seem to be alot busier here. Take care everyone, and all the best.










(Anna saying hello to her western trees in Stanley Park)

Bienvenue dans le Nord

(the sun rising over the skidoo trail which is my path to work every morning. No picture can quite get it, but the skies here are really quite awsome)

Christmas is upon us as well as a great many other things that must be done before we head off to Burnaby in a few weeks. I jammed with Gerald Coté the other day, and man oh man was that every fun! We just played music for two hours straight after dinner and it felt so good to make music with someone after a few months of withdrawal. Tomorrow we are going to go see his studio, hopefully we'll get to play around a bit. Now that it's the last week of work we seem to be having a lot of people for dinner. A lot of the white population leaves here for the winter holidays so it will be the last we see of many people.





(my bandaged and thimbled hands after finnishing my sealskin mittins which not only are a godsend in this cold weather, but they sure make me feel cool around town lol)

Tonight we went to the last sewing class of the year with Janie Head. I was done my mitts but I muttered around with trying different things like beading, it was nice just to see some different people. The best part, I'd say, was the walk home. It was about 9:30 in the evening and the wind and snow were incredible. There were points were I couldn't see just because the wind was too strong to open my eyes. I have gotten used to the dogs here, and one white lab guided us home through the snow. It walked about fifteen feet infront and kept looking back to see that we were there. It went right up the front steps to our door until we were safely inside. Some dogs you get to know in the neighbourhood here. There's one shaggy mop which looks like a miniture yak that often follows on walks. The other day I almost hit a dog driving, it was walking/sliding on the icy road with part of a caribou leg in it's jaws. The leg was almost as long as the dog itself.

(two of about four dogs that were fighting on a road near our house. That's the moon rising behind the trailer on my way home from work a few days ago)

The caribou season has started but I have only heard stories. The caribou don't usually come this close to the coast. I hope to see some soon. Chris at work invited me to go hunting with him, I hope everything works out and I get to tag along. Along with the stories of hunting come the storries of the James Bay highway at this time of year. It's very icy and littered with caribou who don't budge for vehicles and often jump out unexpectedly. I have heard of a caribou just running straight over the hood and roof of a car and hopping of the back when the vehicle didn't stop in time.
Today Rachel and I presented our budget and research for the Snoezelen room which is hoped to be built at the MSDC. It was a success so far and the head of Social Services here approved it, so I hope everything will carry through alright. For those of you who don't know, a Snoezelen room is a room in which people with any range of disabilities can use to explore through self-stimulation. There are toys and gadgets with different textures, there are a wide range of lights such as fiber-optics and bubble tubes, etc. It is simply a relaxing room for people to stimulate themselves. Our job was to come up with a budget for the necessary items but with the least expensive products. Snoezelen is making a fortune by selling items with their name on it for huge amounts of money when the principle of the room is basic and the products necessary don't really have to be that expensive.

(the stop sign at the end of Chris's street in syllabics. The Cree word for stop is pronounced chipchee)

Well I should probably pull myself away from this computer, even though I'm starting to enjoy this a little bit. Here's a link to Gerald Coté's website for the school. It's just a beginning but it might give you a bit of a look at what he's trying to do.

http://pecct.org

I also recommend that you listen to Jorane. She's a french singer who does extremely neat stuff with cello and crazy sounds. I think you'd like it Mom. Youtube isn't working for us right now so I can't give you the link, but check out Bobby McFerrin and Jorane live at the Montreal Jazz Festival. I still can't pronounce Merry Christmas in Cree so I'll give you seasons greatings in English.
Ta for now everyone and enjoy the winter weather.

Africa in Chisasibi

(Gerald Coté and a Dogon dancer in a small village.)

Hello Everyone. Well, I'd say winter truelly has begun. It's -20 degrees celcius at the moment and the snow keeps coming. I tried my new mitts and they are just the trick. I took my hands out to adjust the volume on my discman while walking to work on the skidoo path and after a couple seconds it was beginning to get painful so I put them back into that oasis of sealskin warmth. The CD I was listening to was, ironically, an artist from Mali named Boubacar Traore. I have been listening to alot of West-African music lately. Anna and I went to see Fodé this weekend before he left for Mali. When we got there he was on the phone making his last preperations before leaving. Anna and I removed our whitened layers of clothing and sat down on the couch with a cup a Chinese gunpowder green tea that Fodé had made. He showed us a couple short documentaries. One was of the life and traditions of a small isolated town in Mali, much like the one Fodé himself grew-up in. The other was a documentation of the guitarist, Boubacar Traore, and his trip through Mali and Dogon villages explaining the huge importance between his music and traditions. At one point he visited his friend, the famous Ali Farka Toure, at a stage when he was very sick. The recordings of their improvisation together was the last before Farka Toure died. It just so happens that I saw Ali Farka Toure's son Vieux Farka Toure at the Ottawa folk fest this summer. Ali Farka Toure forbade his son to play because the life of a musician was so hard, but Vieux took his father's records and a guitar and learned what he could in secret, and I'm sure glad he did.


(Janie Head teaching Garret how to brade the yarn for the mitten strings. It's quite a trick and none of us figured it out so Janie had to make them all for us.)







After the movies we talked alot about travel and music and some West African culture. I felt a thousand times wiser walking out into the snow in the evening after half a day of conversation (in French I might add). It seems many of the non-native inhabitants of Chisasibi have done some very interesting travels and there is always so much to learn. The new occupational therapist in town, Frederick, came to give us one of our workshops and he told us alot about his work in Senegal. He was doing the same sort of occupational therapy, but also completely different. He worked with the few resources available to come up with devices and methods to improve the lives of people with dissabilities. Everything from prosthetics to cutting boards for women without hands so they can still cook outside on the ground. He explained how lots of parts were scrounged from perfectly good equipment that was left in a heep in the back of hospitals. So many charities send machines and equipment that may not be relevent or compatible with the needs of the village and so they end-up rusting in a pile. Watch out were those charity fund-raising dollars are going!
Another link to Africa in Chisasibi is the school's music teacher, Gerald Coté. Gerald is an anthropologist and musicologist and a damned interesting guy to talk to. A few years back he travelled with a couple other teachers and a group of kids from the school to West Africa. The NFB made a short documentary on their trip. We watched this on the weekend. It was so neet to see because we know the teachers, a couple of the kids, and we've really grown to know Chisasibi, so it really felt personal. The kids went to very remote villages and witnessed the music and traditions of a culture so different from theirs, but in a way, very similar. When they saw the sacrifice of a goat, the boys commented, «Well it's pretty much the same way we skin our animals».
Outside the dreams of exotic Africa there is a different exotic in the air, the snow is caked to the sides of buildings and the sun sets before I head home from work. I'm really looking forward to the winter holidays. We went to a staff christmas party at the school the other night. After the turkey, caribou stew, bannick, and most of the white people went home, the games began. Popping balloons with parteners, pin the nose on the snowman, Chinese gift exchange. This was funny! Present after present was opened, until one woman said «I can smell it!» before she unwrapped it. It turned out to be a pair of moose-hide slippers. Everyone seems to have a pair here, and everyone seems to be able to make them, yet still it was the top present that everyone was steeling. The smell really is nice. There are more of these festivities all through the holidays along with dancing, (which we attempted but were pretty bad at). I was invited to play at a talent show after Christmas. I may very well be playing with a couple guys who used to jam with Bob Robb back on Fort George, what a thing that would be! Anyhow, I have been staying up too late these days so I should really head to bead early. I wish you all the best and stay in contact. It's always nice to hear from you all.








(Charles and two girls who play neer our house. This photo was taken in November so the snow is not nearly what it is now.)

Winter Wonderland

(An eager little girl gives us a break from holding the katimavik flag in the Santa Claus parade on Saturday)

Well finally it's beginning to look alot like Christmas. It started to truelly be winter here the night Marjo told the group she was going to leave Katimavik. Another one bites the dust. It took me completely by surprise. Marjo never complained, she adapted to everything that was thrown at her and she seemed to enjoy herself, but I supose it just isn't for her. All her family has tried to persuade her to stay but now she's going. The deciding point, I think was that her friend was in a car accident and now is in a coma. It seems there are alot of outside forces pulling at our group. Kalleena is back in New Brunswick right now because her Grandmother was quite ill and as it turned out she passed away during Kalleena's stay.

(Marjo being carried in a workshop on wilderness survival and rescue. Rachelle's mother, Annie, is sertified in search-and-rescue and is a former student of Gino Ferri. She gave a little intro crash course when she came here in October.)

We were planning to go back to Sylvain's camp this weekend but we are now unable to because of circumstances better not discussed here. Once again we'll spend a weekend dans la maison. I will probably go and see Fodé before he leaves for Mali next week. I have gotten much further with my mittens, I find it hugely fun to sew and they are going to be awsome. Everyone has big mittens with the strings here. Some even have commercial ones with names of hockey teams on them. I used to think that little things like miniture mitts and dreamcatchers people hang on rearview mirrors were really chinsey but I've developed a respect for them. There is an actual purpose to these crafts: no one in years past would actually make a fullsized pair of snowshoes, the work is incredible and difficult. A small craft has the purpose to be a practice piece before making a functional item. I have attached a picture of Josey Cox's first pair of fullsized snowshoes at Sylvain's camp. The traditional Cree snowshoe is pointed at both ends and painted red on the tips. The wood is tammarack. On the edges at the tips are small fuzzy balls. I always thought they were just decoration but it turns out they act as silencers by preventing that smacking sound in the snow for hunting.

(Josey Cox's snow shoes. You can see the soft fur at the tips for silencing. The colour of the fur is an indication of the family you belong to­­.)

The little girl you see holding the flag in the top photo is French but like most white children here she understands Cree. The most bizarre thing is to see the children of the two African families here speaking Cree. Dispite the huge changes that have happened, there are still little things that carry through from ages past that don't have to clash with popular culture. Even at the daycares the babies are rapped tightly like a mummy and are put to sleep with the sound of a traditional shaker. A few times I have seen mothers use the traditional parkas with an enormous hood to hold their babies, it is quite practical. Another thing I've noticed (that has nothing to do with Cree culture) is that no one seems to have snowblowers. I was so used to snow blowers and thought anyone with money who lives were there is snow would have a snow blower. Instead, there are plenty of plastic Christmas trees to go around. A couple hundred dollars a piece, I still say walking out the back door into a never-ending spruce forest is were we'll find our tree. Speaking of winter, I should go clean the front room with all the boots as I am house manager this week, and I have to call the landlord about a leaking air-exchanger. These houses are prefab, and they were trucked up from Montreal. I can't say that they are built to last at all.

Anyway, I'll say goodbye now and e-mail/call whenever you want. Enjoy the snow!

Music in Chisasibi

(Mois dans le bois. Un petit lac à côté du camp de Sylvain)





Salut tout le monde. The remainder of our time here is quickly diminishing and there is alot to be done. As for things that happened, well here goes. This past week we went to see a little music happening at the Michuap (the big town center structure). It turned out to be a Cree Arts and Culture week but we only cought the tail end of it. There were a couple solo performers and then other people got up to play with the house band. One of these people was the famous (at least here) Roger House. Bob Robb has told me about

him and they played alot of music together back when Bob was on Fort George. The whole event was alot of fun and as I predicted, thepeople here know music. There's alot of country music kicking around. It may be the only place were I'll see a young man with baggy iner-city gangster clothes and a hat cocked to the side clapping and whistling when someone starts to play old-time country and gospel.

(The LG2 Resevoir on the left,

spruce woods on the lower ground on the right)

The one artist that really struck me was a young fiddler. Fiddling is a big part of James Bay culture, ever since encounters with Scottish sailors back in the late eighteen hundreds. At work, the elders often watch video documentation of a dance competition in Wamindji back in the 90's. Needless to say the fiddling is rather redundant but it's got quite a charm. The dancing is also interesting to watch. It's sort-of a fast country/square dancing deal. The big competitions don't happen as much I don't think but the fiddles and dancing come out at weddings and big celebrations. There was a famous fiddler from Fort George by the name of Ray Spencer. His two borthers attend the center were I'm placed for work. Ray Spencer is something of a local hero here. It sort-of conected the dots for me when I saw this young man with a tuque, hoody, and baggy pants get up there and bust a mean old fiddle just like those who came before him. Music is in their blood here.

I have been playing quite a bit of guitar lately but now it seems rediculous why I havn't played with people. I've decided in the last few weeks that I'm here that I must get out there with my guitar. To begin with I've started making little shakers and a rainstick with recycled material with the participants at the MSDC. They seem to be enjoying them and next week I'll bring my guitar and try to make some music.

The music teacher at the school here, Gerald Cote, is an extremely interesting musician and anthropologist. He is putting in an effort to help kids at the school with music, but it's not cut-and-dry. He is helping them play the music they want to play, from Metallica to hip-hop. He is helping a group of kids record some Cree rap that they have come up with. I think Cree is quite a good language for rap. I'll try to get an mp3 file or something to post here if I can.

(Inside the Mitigan on the first night)

My French teacher, Fodé, is very big on West African Music and has lent me a few CD's to borrow. Now that I'm up in the great white north, I'm already dreaming of Mali. Charles, the

dreadlocked metal-head from Québec is beginning to educate me on the scenes of music I never got into. He is in a band himself and always goes to shows and knows alot of local and alternative metal bands in Québec. There really is no limit.

(The typical James Bay canoes waiting for spring at a launch along the Grande River. Just after I took this picture a red-tailed fox whose tracks I had been following came out to look at me, couldn't get a good picture sorry.)

Anyhow, there is much to say but not much time so I will say farewell for now and enjoy the winter months. I hear alot of you seem to be having more winter than us. Hopefully more snow will come soon.

Chisasibi in November

Wadjiya and Salut everyone. I`ve given in and started a blog because it seems easier to communicate with everyone without e-mailing all the time.
Well we just got back from 9 days in the bush south of Radisson. We spent our time with a burly Québecois named Sylvain and his five native employees. He is trying to start a small tourism operation on the camp which is on the Cox family trapline. His plan is basically to have a facility in which people can come and stay in traditional lodging and participate in Cree culture

activities and learning. The camp consists of some small run-down buildings which were former Hydro Québec lodgings.
Not far from these buildings are two Mitigans which are in the process of being finnished. A Mitigan is a traditional Cree winter camp lodging. There are two types which are being built. One is like a small log cabin with canvas and tarps for a roof. The logs on this are cocked with moss on the outside and felt and canvas on the inside. The other is a similar low-lying shape but built of a vertical split log frame covered with moss both on the sides and roof. Each has a stove (half a 40 gallon oil drum and a stovepipe) and will be covered with spruce boughs. We stayed in the first Mitigan for four nights. That's four nights of waking up cold and having to start the fire again which was hard because all the wood was wet.
I spent alot of time just walking in the bush following wolf tracks and watching the magpies. I walked alot at night because the moon was full and with the fresh snow and humidity it was like an erie daylight that was extremely beatiful. There was a pack of wolves nearby. I found were all the tracks converged and then a space were alot of wolves were tramping around and pissing. Almost every night we would hear the wolves howling. Along with the howling was the barking of an old husky names Grisoo. This particular dog has had some bad experiences with wolves and so it hates and fears them greatly.
During the day we worked with the five native employees. Chris is the oldest and most knowledgable. He is the son of Samuel, the Talleyman for the Cox land. Charleton and George are both Cree and about my age. Davy D is an Inuit boy but he speeks Cree and English and understands some French. Tracy is a woman from Churchill Manitoba area but she has been living here for about 15 years. All of them live in nearby camps. We visited Charleton's mother's camp after checking the traps and snares with her.

(this is a picture of Charles Garret and I watching the fire after our hardy meal of rabbit, goose, moose, partridge, and bannick a few weeks ago)

To check the snares we drove around in a slick new suburban. There were two rifles on Annie's knee and two more beside me, a forgotten squirel under the seat and stories in the air. We drove past the LG2 resevoir and Annie told us about La Grande being frozen in September but it is now November and the first wet snowfall is slushing down over the misty water. "We all feel the changing climate," she said, "It's just so different now."
After collecting a snared rabbit and a partridge shot with a .22 out the window of the suburban we headed back to Annie's camp for some tea and bannick. The rafters of her small one-room shack were hanging with stretched skins (fox, wolf, martin, beaver, etc.). The Cree that live in the bush are proud and happy to, and it seems as though those who live in town have an ongoing lust to get outside and hunt. Western culture and gangster rap may have oozed its way in here but it doesn't drown out some traditional mentalities.
Well now I realize there is alot to say but not a whole lot of time. I'll say that this week changed my perspective of the area and people quite a bit and I learned alot. Part of the change was due to many talks with Sylvain about Radisson and Hydro Quebec as well as listening to Gilbert speak about his fight to win as an independant in the upcoming Quebec elections. I wish him the best of luck, and it would be nice to see the native population take an interest and vote so a representative for most of Quebec will not be elected by a mere 40% of the population.
Anyhow, I will say goodby and good luck to you all. My condolances to all who have lost their friend, John Kimpel, this past week. He will always keep my memories of Paisley that much more pleasant and colourful.

(sunset near Chisasibi- sorry no photos yet of our time in the bush camp, they`re coming soon)