Day 55 Moose Factory Friday 12 June 2015
by Chris
What a difference a day makes!
Last night we were working out how to leave Moose Factory. Tonight we wouldn’t have missed the events experienced today for the world.
Our decision after ‘sleeping on it’ was we would just tough it out and use the time to do stuff like this blog, catching up on emails and reading. We were reading a book by Joseph Boyden who had also (incidentally) written an article about Moose Factory.
However at breakfast things started changing:
First by meeting a woman; an elder of the Mushkegowuk tribe or band. In Moose Factory to visit a relative in hospital. The Hospital here services a huge area from Moosenee through the Northern territories in this part of Northern Canada. Built in the 1950s it was here because it was a Sanitorium for those with Tuberculosis – isolated from the world. Now it is the public hospital.
We had a long and wonderful conversation with the only other guest here. She patiently and generously answered our beginner questions and talked about her own life, including being a survivor of the Residential School system here and how she had come to forgiveness.
As we spoke she talked about the residential schools program: the Canadian government took the children away from parents and put them in boarding type schools, forbade them to use their language, and attempted to “civilise” them. Conditions were often life threatening.
Now as an Elder she works on language programs, and as a mediator between first nation peoples and organisations such as mining companies.
Sharing with us how she began to heal herself after being at a residential school. A moving experience for Mel and I to hear. Interestingly she had decided not to attend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings which have been recently finished and had been going for six years.
Her view was that to hear the tales of abuse of others would simply be too painful, for what purpose?
A technique for attending to difficult memories was interesting: imagining putting her memories of those seven years in a bottle -she could look at them from time to time but knew that were now contained and controlled by her.
Her own traumatic childhood experience had made it difficult to hear about other countries such as Africa and their experiences.
The Truth and Reconciliation Committee was not for everybody. Not everyone wants to publicly talk about, or discuss their experiences.
Mel was touched by her view that while others viewed her as wise, she viewed herself as learning from everyone; I am down here (hand movement drawing a line down low) – they are up there (hand movement drawing a line above her) – including younger people.
We learned that ‘Cree’ came from the French “cretian” ?? meaning Christian. That an early missionary with the Cree people developed a Syllabic language which many Cree use.
Next we decided that today we would seek out Moose Factory’s ‘downtown’. There is an area simply called ‘The Complex’ and having wandered around yesterday we were interested to see what it would be really like.
We found a forest track from the hotel which led in the right direction and followed it until we came out at the Emergency services area.
Continuing on we reached TJ’s Gas Bar with its one pump. We then made it to ‘The Complex’. The ‘complex’ consists of a pharmacy,supermarket,a deli and a restaurant and offices -with a central space that can be used for market stalls.
Today one of the uses was to register dogs. 4 women were sitting facing a wall with only 1 person approaching them in the time we were there.
We had lunch at “Gunner’s Grill” and were regaled by the boss Eric Gunner about the government and “why cant we just love one another’.
When we told him where we were from he said ‘I have been hearing that bad things are happening down there” I didn’t pursue what he was specifically referring to but was sad to think that there were a few issues we could pick from.
Mel:
As always I was indecisive about food, Eric described their burgers as made on site and the best in Ontario – maybe Canada. Adding they were the preference of Doctors from the hospital . Who could refuse. They were incredible meaty, non-fatty delights.
Along with lunch came discussion about local, political and first nation issues.
We discovered as always nothing is as straight forward as it seems . Chris said – “but there is a treaty”. The treaty has been interpreted to mean the land but not below or above!!!
We also discovered there were two parts to the island a reserve for the Moose Cree and non reserve = no treaty which is Quebec Cree.
He added when new things come to light – changes are not made to history.
Back to practical stuff – Eric then gave us directions to the tourism and the ferry offices upstairs – our next stop. Tourism office – no luck on getting access to the local museum.
The man at the Ferry office assured us the ferry was no problem timetabled every hour or so. No need to book. Takes about 15minutes.
“We can just turn up?” “Yes ….. Oh but ring us in the morning in case there is a fuel tanker”
Question marks on our faces “ If there is a fuel tanker then walk-ons not allowed”
“We usually know 2 or 3 days ahead but sometimes they just turn up” !!!! Local knowledge is useful once again. This knowledge was added to when we discovered it pulls in further out of town than the little boat taxis which are a short walk to the train.
Chris:
Gunner also showed us Tamarack birds made out of a local tree the Tamarack tree. These used to be made as decoys to hunt geese and now days are used as decorations and room fresheners. They can be put in hot water to revitalise the scent.
Eric explained he was closing early Saturday to cook for an event that evening. He invited us to the Appreciation Dinner he was cooking for to be held the next night for the local police, the’firies’ and the ‘ambos’.
We finished lunch and headed for the supermarket. A man stopped us and asked where we were from. He introduced himself as Joe and explained he had a nephew who had been to Australia and was interested how we had found Moose factory, and what we were doing here.
Whilst we were chatting a young woman came up to us and said “Did I see yesterday around town?” We said probably. She said “I know I am nosey but what are you doing here and where are you from?”
Great chat ensued and it turned out she- Julia- was married to a doctor-Ben-from the hospital and she very kindly asked if we would like to go to dinner. Given our experience last night we could be described as having been over enthusiastic in immediately accepting.
As an aside we checked out the only other major store called GG’s this turned out to have a normal sized steel door in a warehouse size frontage.As someone later described it-it is like Narnia-you enter the wardrobe and it turns into a country !!! The place behind the door was huge and went for miles and had just about everything you could imagine food,clothing,televisions,chain saws,rifles,ammo,fishing rods-unbelievable.
Anyway headed for home and then out to dinner at Julia and Ben’s house.They had invited other people over and we had a great time. Firstly Ben had a Drone which fascinated a few of us.
Another Mel (male) came along. A development guy with many years experience in remote Canadian communities he had recently arrived to solve the problems of the Eco Lodge. I had some tips! And finally Bianca (primary teacher) and Zac (Outdoor education) teachers and involved in the local Cree Gospel Church.
Great dinner and conversation.
As we left we met Sonny a first nations man who did carving.Whilst it is not necessarily a Cree skill he had learnt it from Inuits who had come to the Hospital for treatment.He had some pieces carved from soapstone and they were in big demand from the medical staff.We ordered a bear and he said he would be able to make it by tomorrow.Very loose as to how we would meet up but knew it would work somehow.
Then moved on to a Tipi and met Barb a local woman whom Julia knew. At the end of our night around the fire Barb invited us for Goose roast the following night.
