Farewell to Thee Burnaby

(The Chilliwack Rafting camp grounds)

Well, it is my last night here in the Burnaby Katimahouse on Georgia St. Through all the craziness that happened here, I am very sad to leave. The thought of going back so close to home is a tad scary. Yesterday, amidst the sun and warm weather, we went to the Anthropology Museum and hung out at Rec Beach after. From the beach you can see the mountains on Vancouver Island, and more mountains to the north across the inlet. We watched the tugs pulling huge loads of what looked like pulp across the bay. There is a huge amount of boat activity around Vancouver. We were running around in T-shirts on the beach in March. A few old men were enjoying the sun, laying naked on beds of ferns. A crew of University kids were trying out the water with their skim-boards. A friendly woman with a backpack and a cooler strolled the beach selling hash cookies. We set up a slackline between two dried posts in the sand. At that time I couldn't think of anywhere more beautiful that I would rather be.
I will miss the mountains and all the sites around here. I am not a city person and don't see myself living in a city, but I think I may have to visit every once-in-a-while. Tonight we went out for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. There's nothing like digging into various spicy tidbits with fingers and steamed sourdough flatbread. I also got to go to dim sum with some people from my work. You pick and choose different morsals from carts that come by your table. These dishes are placed on a large rotating lazy-susan in the center of the table. The chinese restaurants I've seen in our area have nothing on this experience.
We have been so terrible at taking pictures this trismester, I've grown to hate wasting time trying to get a good picture instead of just chilling and going with the flow of what's going on. So my apologies, but not too many pictures this time. We went rafting on the Chilliwack river last week. This was the best brithday time I could have wished for. We went with another Katimavik group in Vancouver. We volunteered for a day in order to get a discount and went rafting the next day. We did alot of hard work and the weather was chilly, rainy and snowy, but it was a huge amount of fun. We went into the moss covered forest to split and stack firewould. I have never split such huge pieces of cedar. Once quartered, each piece was barely possible to carry. The river conditions were relatively low, so the rafting was not as intense as it could have been, but it was alot of fun anyhow. The mist was covering most of the mountain view, but we could still see the eagles flying overhead, and the little abandoned cottages hanging halfway over the steep eroding banks. I need to come back out west! Anyhow, there have been alot of nights up until the wee hours of the morning getting stuff done, and I should get some sleep before we begin the stint of tiresome travelling in the next few days. So farewell to you all, and I always love hearing from you. Perhaps I will see some of you soon. Untill then, ta.


(Katimacrew atop Burnaby Mountain, and still looking up).

Hodgepodge of Events in the West

(the dock at Horseshoe Bay)

Hello everyone. I'll try to catch up on the news here. I am sorry for the lack of pictures, I've really died down on taking photos recently. I don't like spending too much time worrying and fiddling with a camera and missing out on just having a good time, so just use your imaginations. I've just come back from my 9-day billet period. I would have loved for it to be much longer. I was living with a wonderful family in East Vancouver; Andy, Jen, and their 7-year-old son Sam. We had a week with beautiful weather and made good use of it. We went for a hike in Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. It was a very joyful day. We stopped for a bite to eat on an outcrop of rocks overlooking the water. We saw a bald eagle in a tree closeby. It called to another eagle on the other side of the rock clearing. Soon 2 more eagles swooped overhead and perched around us. As time went on we must have had about 5 or 6 eagles conversing overhead.



(Moi, Karl et Charles)






(The idiots... and the professional Munju Makers
at the Buddhist Temple on Jackson Av.)


That day was like a little tidbit of what more can be seen outside the city in this beautiful province. I got to skate for the first time this year and hit the puck around a little bit with Sam and Andy. Well now it's back to Katimalife, which feels alot better, it's busy but good. I supose I should fill in on a couple things from before. We went to a performance at the Roundhouse Theatre which was part of the aboriginal festival, The Talking Stick. I wasn't really sure what we were going to see, as things just kind-of happen here. It turns out it was Andrea Menard's Velvet Devil Show. I remember listening to a CD of all the music at home. Here I was watching memories of Paisley in downtown Vancouver.
We also ended up getting to a poetry slam at Cafe Deux Soliel. The place was packed once again. It was awsome to see something so rooted and thriving. The talent was amazing and energizing. I don't know if I told you before about making Munju (a Japanese pastry) at the Buddhist Temple we went to. The process is very meticulous. You measure out a 30 gram ball of sugary sweetened beanpaste. These are rolled expertly in the dough. The whole pastry is then steamed for 15 minutes (exactly). At this point you fan the hot doughy balls until you can place them neetly on a rack were they are sent to the man with a brand, and he burns the emblem of a lily onto each individual munju.
This weekend we had our 48 hours of freetime. This was a wonderful break from group life. A few of us went to see FUSE, an interactive art exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. All-round a very interesting time. There was one room in which some instruments were laying. They were all functional and so I began playing bass. Another man entered and started jamming on drums. People were peering into the window of this small room. The room was relatively sound proof and so little sound exited. What I found out later was that microphones were recording and pumping the music down to the lobby entrance of the Gallery. Everything that was said and played in that room could be heard. I went skiing on Grouse Mountain with a girl, Cecile, from another Katimavik group. The weather and snow was perfect and the view was spectacular. Sorry, no pictures again. I got to visit Julia and Hugo that night and the next morning. It was alot of fun to catch up and talk all about our James Bay experiences. The whole Katimacrew will be heading to the UBC Farm this weekend to get a little tour and a taste of the things going on there.
Today we went on a little bus tour with some people from a seniors activity center in West Vancouver. We went to Horseshoe Bay and back. This was alot of fun and very rewarding for both us and our older buddies. There are hopes that the center may become a new Katimavik work partner. Anyhow, there is always much to talk about but I should really catch-up on some sleep. I love hearing from you all. I shall see many of you soon as our arrival date in Ontario is fast approaching.












(Katimacrew Burnaby)

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year

(Chinese New Year in the city of rain)

Hello everyone. It's been a while, sort-of. Its crazy busy and hard to go over everything and keep in touch. We are having to plan alot of things for this trimester and we are only here for about 2 and 1/2 months. We are trying to get out for a weekend to a woofing farm north of Vancouver in March. I want to get out of the city and really see some mountains. I might go hiking with some guys from another Katimavik group during our 48 hours off. There's alot I'd like to do outside of Katimavik, but right now there is no room outside of Katimavik. There are poetry slams and live music often at a little place called Cafe Deux Soliel. One night I went there but the place was so packed and there were people at the door listening to slam poetry through the mail slot. There are all sorts of stuff going on, it's a tad overwhelming. We manage to go to the odd thing. We went to a service at a Buddhist temple on Jackson, neer Hastings and Main. The sect of Japanese Buddhism is very westernized with no talk of reincarnation, very few rituals (besides the burning of insense and muttering of thanks), and no meditation. It was more like a Christian church service. There was a congregation sitting in pues and listening to the Teacher speak about not getting road rage. There were even english hymns. There was some chanting in Japanese which was really neet. Everyone was extremely welcomeing and imediately offered us tea and organized a discussion afterwords were we could learn more about there beliefs, but in no way impose them.
We went to Chinatown for the Chinese New Year parade and festivities. The parade was alot of fun depite the cold rain. Though there was alot of commercial and political leverage, and an emphasis on the Olympics which is popping up everywhere here. One nice side of the Olympic connection with the days festivities was the music tent supported by a branch of the Olympic committee. The music was unbelievable. There was traditional chinese dancing and drumming, as well as a mix of many other cultures. A percussionist from Uruguay played a solo so incredible, it sounded as though five of the finest drummers were grooving together. Chinatown is an amazing place to see. The shops are really something special. There are pharmacies in which 90% of the items I have never seen before.
Anyhow, there is bread to be made and other things to be organized, and I should try to get over this cold, so I will say farewell for now, and stay in touch.

(totems on Burnaby Mountain right neer Simon Fraser University)

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!