Norther Cedar - Revitalization

April 9, 2010 23h45

I am going to revitalize this blog !!

Potluck Party Feb 19 2008

We will be saying farewell to one of our Ski-with-the-Cree 2008 members at a potluck party to be held this evening. I will bring my camera and share with you the pictures later !!!

Spam disguised as "comment" - word verification

When you see a comment from a complete stranger who asks you to "click here" or go to a certain website, please don't do it. The comment is most likely a spam in disguise. To deter spammers, I have activated the “word verification” step as a safeguard. Your comment will be published after you type in the randomly generated letters shown.

攝影相片 / Ski with the Cree 2008 - Photographs posted Feb 13, 2008 (Reloaded)

攝影相片 Photograph above: "Quote from a satisfied client at Phil's Kitchen: It is amazing how our chef can make such delicious food with so little resources !!!"

攝影相片 Photograph above: "Our leader and one of his followers in the packed dinning room."

攝影相片 Photograph above: "Drilling for oil and gas in the north ? Better check with Phil first !!"

攝影相片 / Ski with the Cree 2008 - Photographs posted Feb 13, 2008 (Reloaded)

攝影相片 Photograph above: The seated supervisor's identity is revealed in this pic ;-)

攝影相片 Photograph above: "Faster, faster !!!"

攝影相片 Photograph above: "Snowmobile - Susie's favourite mode of transportation, aka Martin's Ski-do (sic)" Note: Ski-Doo just like Kleenex is a trade-name. Bombardier originally had called it Ski-Dog but a painter made a mistake and painted Ski-Doo on the first prototype. Ref: Wikipedia

攝影相片 Photograph above: "Home away from home" you dig?
攝影相片 Photograph above: "All ready to go !!" Some of the Ski-with-the-Cree (SWTC) trippers at the Cochrane train station

有關旅遊的消息資料 / Ski with the Cree - Touring Information

For more information about "Ski With the Cree" and other tours in the James Bay / Moosonee / Moose Factory area, please contact:

Clarence Trapper

Tourism Project Officer

Moose Cree Outdoor Discoveries & Adventures
PO Box 190
Moose Factory
Ontario
Canada P0L 1W0

Telephone 705-658-4619 Ext 265

Fax 705-658-4734

Email: clarence.trapper@moosecree.com

Website: http://www.creeadventures.com/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Please also visit the website of Bill Pollock who was the organizer of our "Ski with the Cree 2008" trip.



Bill Pollock

Forester

Tuckamor Trips Inc.
7123 Lac Noir Road
Ste-Agathe-des-Monts
Province of Quebec
Canada J8C 2Z8

Telephone: 819-326-3602

Fax: 819-326-8617

e-mail: bill@tuckamor.ca

Visit our web site at http://www.tuckamor.ca/

Multi-day outdoor adventure trips by canoe, on foot and on skis

探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation (Part 4b)

Conclusion (continued):

YouTube videos:

There are two videos I would like to share with you:

(a) I really enjoy the one entitled "Native American - Sacred Spirit" made by 15-year old Robyn Nakogee of the Moose Cree First Nation. It was nicely made and the song is, well, very spiritual. As I mentioned in my last article, I am really pleased to come across this video made by someone who strongly identifies with her aboriginal heritage.

You may wish to find out more about Robyn at "ladyqweFnation": http://www.youtube.com/user/ladyqweFnation or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2TxSOZ7Aws .




(b) The song "Land of the Cree" in the second video was written and played by Don Charbonneau, a Canadian musician living in Wawa, Ontario. The song was posted by YouTube user "lostguide1" whose site is at: http://www.youtube.com/user/lostguide1. The song was dedicated to all the First Nation people living on the James Bay coast and you could hear it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWK6BAZgM_0



Here are the lyrics as posted on the YouTube site:

Land of the Cree

Freedom had a way of finding me
In this land of the Cree
In the black spruce with the bear and the moose
And people living out on the land
Brings me back to another time
When no shadow crossed this land

The wild geese fly over here
But call no place home
Using well worn celestial paths
They migrate from land to land
And the eagle she flies into my dreams
Bringing tales from grandmother's time

Freedom had a way of finding me
In this land of the Cree
In the black spruce with the bear and the moose
And people living out on the land
Brings me back to another time
When no shadow crossed this land

We are all children on this holy land
And Creator holds us all in his hand
We're all children on this holy hand
And Creator holds us all in his hand
And Creator holds us all in his hand

With this song, I thus conclude my 4-part series "探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation" I hope you enjoy all the materials I have posted on my blog!!!

探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation (Part 4a)

攝影相片 Photograph above: Sunset on the mighty Moose River

攝影相片 Photograph above: A lone skier on his way back to the hunting camp

攝影相片 Photograph above: Looking across the frozen river toward Moose Factory abt 15 kilometres away

攝影相片 Photograph above: Ski tracks and footprints in the snow

攝影相片 Photograph above: A mixture of dark shadows on frozen ice

攝影相片 Photograph above: The team left the skis and poles here, chopped down some trees and had lunch over a roaring fire burning on the frozen river bed

攝影相片 Photograph above: Skiing through the snow-covered evergreen forest of the Moose Factory Indian Reserve

Conclusion:

I would like to conclude this series of articles by posting some more pictures of the beautiful sky, land, lakes and rivers of the Moose Factory Indian Reserve area 駝鹿公廠印地安保留區, as well as two YouTube videos that I found interesting.

Photographs:

I took the pictures around the hunting campground near the intersection of the North French River and the Moose River. (Reference: National Topographic Map System index #42P/2 "Bushy Island, Cochrane District, Ontario"). Even as I am writing this, part of me is still out there wandering in the evergreen forests and on the frozen lakes up north where the Moose Cree people call home.

... to be continued.

探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation (Part 3)

攝影相片 Photograph above: Some like it cold ...

攝影相片 Photograph above: Some like it hot ...

攝影相片 Photograph above: The Ski-with-the-Cree campground

攝影相片 Photograph above: Arriving at the hunting camp after skiing 15 km in minus 30 to 40 degrees C weather on the Moose River.

攝影相片 Photograph above: Supper at the Cree Cultural Interpretive Centre at Moose Factory. The diagram I mentioned in this article is shown on the wall on the right (with the four-colour medicine wheel)

Sustainable Community

In Part 2 of this series, I mentioned Chief Seattle's Prophecy (or unconfirmed reported speech as some historians put it), which some of you might say is too doom-and-gloom and probably very outdated. But don't forget back in 1854, the patriarch of the Duwamish and Suquamish Indians of Puget Sound and a great warrior of his people, was under a lot of pressure from the "white man" to make concessions, sign treaties, and give up aboriginal lands. Such was the situation in what is now metro Seattle in the western United States. How about the Canadian natives and more specifically the Moose Cree First Nation people whom I recently visited? According to my aboriginal friends, things were not that much different in terms of forced assimilation (some called it "internal colonialism" 內部殖民主义). Here is a brief summary of and my thoughts on The History of James Bay Aboriginal People based on the diagram depicted on the wall of the Cree Cultural Interpretive Centre at Moose Factory.

Pre-European Contact Era: The community was sustainable both spiritually and materialistically. The traditional way of life provided a stable societal infrastructure with clear values, harmonious relationships between people; respect for elders, Nature and the Creator; and an abundance of resources from the environment.

Contact Era: To start with, 90% of the population died of imported deceases such as small-pox to which they had no natural immunization. The increasing demand for fur and other resources not only changed the economic independence of the aboriginals, but also exerted tremendous pressure on the natural environment to the extent that some species such as buffalos were hunted to near extinction. The encroachment of Christianity by missionaries who viewed aboriginals as savages also accelerated the erosion of the social, economic and ecological sustainability of the aboriginal community.

Post-contact Era: Industrialization and the loss of lands with or without treaties had resulted in poverty and deplorable social and economic conditions across the land. Loss of traditional values, culture, languages and way of life had eroded the spirit of the people. Family break-down, drugs, alcohol and other social problems had surfaced as symptoms (but not the original causes) of an unsustainable community. The government responded by implementing, among other things, the Residential School Program that aimed at forced assimilation of aboriginal children into the western society/culture. Currently, the government has agreed to negotiate/compensate the aboriginals for the abuses and suffering of those lost years. However, it seems that there is still a great deal of mistrust on the part of the aboriginals in dealing with governments and big resource industry.

The Future: The challenge facing the people is whether they can renew and revitalize the community and make it sustainable again. Healing is an important first step after years of hurt, abuses and neglect. To rebuild, the people will need to re-establish the three pillars of sustainable development.

(a) Social: The challenge is to re-introduce traditions, values and relationships to a whole new generation of young aboriginals who are bombarded by market-driven commercials and popular western culture. I do notice, however, that there are quite a number of users on Blogger, YouTube, and other internet media, who strongly identify with their aboriginal heritage and are taking advantage of what technology has to offer. On the down-side, one cannot rely on technology to deal with social problems. It would appear that education and raising awareness is the long-term solution to a lot of the deep-rooted social issues.

(b) Economic: A sustainable community will need a sustainable economy to provide the revenue it needs to survive and rejuvenate. My understanding is that the current Indian Act印地安法 does provide aboriginals with certain rights to harvest local resources as part of their traditional way of life, but at the same time it also confines the people to reserves which are usually far away from major economic centres. The promotion of eco-tourism is one way of bringing revenues to the community and is indeed the focus of several reports by the government (references: http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/fednor-fednor.nsf/en/fn00776e.html; http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/fednor-fednor.nsf/en/h_fn01621e.html). I believe that economic prosperity is a necessary although not sufficient condition for a sustainable community. It has been shown in the past that wind-fall from big resource development projects has caused more harm than good to aboriginal communities. To become sustainable, the community will also need to have in place the right environment, or winning conditions/factors, in order to succeed.

(c) Other Factors: In addition to (a) and (b) above, there are other factors that will also significantly determine the sustainability of a community. These may include (not in any order of importance): Resolution of long-standing legal issues (e.g. land claims, Residential School compensations, etc.); self-governance issue/model (with other jurisdictions and internally); municipal infrastructure (schools and teachers; roads and transportation, drinking/waste water, health/hospital and security, financial infrastructure, ...); geo-political power (links to other aboriginal players and political decision-makers); capacity building (knowledge and know-how of community leaders and workers); and other winning conditions or factors.

Having discussed the three main pillars of a sustainable community, I would suggest that the overarching driver still remains to be the determination of the people and their will to safe-guard their heritage and traditions in a world that is becoming more homogenized because of globalized trade and informatics technologies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: A special thanks to Clarence and Phil for helping me better understand The History of James Bay Aboriginal People during the Ski-with-the-Cree trip 2008. Please note I take responsibility for the opinions expressed in this article. If you find any mistakes or would like to make corrections, please submit them to me as comments.

... to be continued.

探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation (Part 2)

While I have been to many parts of Canada either on business or for pleasure, this was actually the first time I visited and stayed overnight in a First Nation community. Having worked with several aboriginal colleagues and spent several years on the Employment Equity (EE) file, I do have a basic understanding of the challenges facing aboriginal and other EE-designated employees at the workplace, but not enough to be an expert on the subject matter of sustainable community. So what is sustainability? Perhaps the following unconfirmed speech from Chief Seattle (178?-1866), reportedly recorded by pioneer Dr. Henry Smith, on the occasion of an 1854 visit to Seattle of Isaac Stevens (1818-1862), Governor and Commissioner of Indian Affairs of Washington Territory, will help illustrate the point:

(Reference: http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1427)

Chief Seattle's Speech

"Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion on our fathers for centuries untold, and which, to us, looks eternal, may change. Today it is fair, tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never set. What Seattle says, the great chief, Washington … can rely upon, with as much certainty as our pale-face brothers can rely upon the return of the seasons.

"The son [a reference to Terr. Gov. Stevens] of the White Chief says his father sends us greetings of friendship and good will. This is kind, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return, because his people are many. They are like the grass that covers the vast prairies, while my people are few, and resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain.

"The great, and I presume also good, white chief sends us word that he wants to buy our lands but is willing to allow us to reserve enough to live on comfortably. This indeed appears generous, for the red man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, for we are no longer in need of a great country.

There Was A Time

"When our people covered the whole land, as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor. But that time has long since passed away with the greatness of tribes now almost forgotten. I will not mourn over our untimely decay, nor reproach my pale-face brothers for hastening it, for we, too, may have been somewhat to blame.

"When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, their hearts, also, are disfigured and turn black, and then their cruelty is relentless and knows no bounds, and our old men are not able to restrain them.

"But let us hope that hostilities between the red-man and his pale-face brothers may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

"True it is, that revenge, with our young braves, is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and old women, who have sons to lose, know better.

"Our great father Washington, for I presume he is now our father, as well as yours, since George [a reference to King George III, i.e., Great Britain] has moved his boundaries to the north; our great and good father, I say, sends us word by his son, who, no doubt, is a great chief among his people, that if we do as he desires, he will protect us. His brave armies will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his great ships of war will fill our harbors so that our ancient enemies far to the northward, the Simsiams [Tsimshian] and Hydas [Haidas], will no longer frighten our women and old men. Then he will be our father and we will be his children.

But Can This Ever Be?

"Your God loves your people and hates mine; he folds his strong arms lovingly around the white man and leads him as a father leads his infant son, but he has forsaken his red children; he makes your people wax strong every day, and soon they will fill the land; while my people are ebbing away like a fast-receding tide, that will never flow again. The white man's God cannot love his red children or he would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we become brothers? How can your father become our father and bring us prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness?

"Your God seems to us to be partial. He came to the white man. We never saw Him; never even heard His voice; He gave the white man laws but He had no word for His red children whose teeming millions filled this vast continent as the stars fill the firmament. No, we are two distinct races and must remain ever so. There is little in common between us. The ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their final resting place is hallowed ground, while you wander away from the tombs of your fathers seemingly without regret.

"Your religion was written on tables of stone by the iron finger of an angry God, lest you might forget it. The red man could never remember nor comprehend it.

"Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors, the dreams of our old men, given them by the Great Spirit, and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

"Your dead cease to love you and the homes of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb. They wander far off beyond the stars, are soon forgotten, and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its winding rivers, its great mountains and its sequestered vales, and they ever yearn in tenderest affection over the lonely hearted living and often return to visit and comfort them.

"Day and night cannot dwell together. The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man, as the changing mists on the mountain side flee before the blazing morning sun.

"However, your proposition seems a just one, and I think my folks will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them, and we will dwell apart and in peace, for the words of the great white chief seem to be the voice of nature speaking to my people out of the thick darkness that is fast gathering around them like a dense fog floating inward from a midnight sea.

"It matters but little where we pass the remainder of our days.

They Are Not Many.

"The Indian's night promises to be dark. No bright star hovers above the horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Some grim Nemesis of our race is on the red man's trail, and wherever he goes he will still hear the sure approaching footsteps of the fell destroyer and prepare to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter. A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of all the mighty hosts that once filled this broad land or that now roam in fragmentary bands through these vast solitudes will remain to weep over the tombs of a people once as powerful and as hopeful as your own.

"But why should we repine? Why should I murmur at the fate of my people? Tribes are made up of individuals and are no better than they. Men come and go like the waves of a sea. A tear, a tamanawus, a dirge, and they are gone from our longing eyes forever. Even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him, as friend to friend, is not exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see.

"We will ponder your proposition, and when we have decided we will tell you. But should we accept it, I here and now make this the first condition: That we will not be denied the privilege, without molestation, of visiting at will the graves of our ancestors and friends. Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hill-side, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe.

Even The Rocks

"That seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun along the silent seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories of past events connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life of our kindred.

"The sable braves, and fond mothers, and glad-hearted maidens, and the little children who lived and rejoiced here, and whose very names are now forgotten, still love these solitudes, and their deep fastnesses at eventide grow shadowy with the presence of dusky spirits. And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless."

Please note: It was assumed by some historians that Chief Seattle's speech was given in the Lushootseed language, retold in the Chinook Indian trade language, and then translated into English. However, some scholars have challenged the authenticity of the speech itself. (Reference: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1985/spring/chief-seattle.html)

.... to be continued.

探訪克裡駝鹿族國 ∕ Visiting the Moose Cree First Nation (Part 1)

Photograph above: Passengers of the Polar Bear Express unloading at the Moosonee train station

Photograph above: A hydro dam along the way

Photograph above: Crossing the mighty Moose River on a high railroad bridge

Photograph above: The Ontario Northland, which operates the Polar Bear Express, has been serving the north for more than 100 years.

Photograph above: This is the locomotive that pulled us 186 miles from Cochrane to Moosonee (long 80.39, lat 51.17) which is located near the southern tip of James Bay (south of Hudson Bay).

Photograph above: The Polar Bear Express at the train station in Cochrane, Ontario

It was in late January 2008 when 16 members of the Ski-with-the-Cree 2008 team stepped off the Polar Bear Express at the Moosonee train station and met up with Philip Sutherland and Clarence Trapper of the Moose Cree First Nation from Moose Factory Island located 15 kilometres south of James Bay in northern Ontario (see Google Map). Since some of my fellow traveler have reported the trip in detail, I shall refrain myself from repeating the same account, but will share with you the pictures I took during the voyage as well as some of my post "expedition" thoughts.

附上我的攝影相片. Here are the photographs.

Northern Cedar: Start Up February 12, 2008 01h20

I will start by posting articles and photos/pictues of my ski trip in late January 2008.