I recently helped out at a trauma recovery workshop in Maniwaki, QC facilitated by Dennis Windigo. The Anishinabe (the First People) participating in the program had wisely recognized that a healing and caring hand in the form of the workshop was being extended towards them and they had come to the site to grasp it.
Upon entering the workshop hall I was immediately taken with those beautiful faces of Indigenous women who would add nothing more to a life of purpose than to bring peace, love and honour into their homes via the presence of family members. And I noted too, the handsome Algonquin men walking by, nodding a “kwey” to them with a raised coffee-held hand. As always, the impoverished Anishinabe from any and all isolated reserves of this land bring with them, wherever they go, a shy exterior, and also in tow, their unique wit and charm, staples you might say, which have seen them through much heartache and untold miseries, stretching back to the times of their long-dead ancestors. The Algonquin Anishinabe whose bloodlines are dear to my heart are no different.
I scanned the room to see if any of the workshop participants were known to me. I instantly recognized Tina Fontaine and Colton Boushie. Pretty little Tina, all 72 lbs. of her, and Colton, wearing his ever-present smile that only a friendly, gentle and compassionate man can possibly possess, were among the crowd. Tina and Colton, in the crowd? Indeed they were! I know that Tina and Colton are now being celebrated and feasted in the Great Land of Souls by all their relations, but we have to understand that mirror images of them are still here. Many thousands of Tinas and Coltons still walk our streets, their past traumas dragging behind them like a cross the size of Canada. They call out to us for help but who among us stands to remove the cross from their shoulders? They (Tina and Colton) are living on our reserves and in the country’s cities and towns. I’m sure you’ve seen them. Tina could even be your daughter, Colton could be your son.
If trauma has been brought into the lives of your children, then do something to help them, damn it, before it’s too late! Indigenous young people living with trauma or who have fallen victim to the power of brain-damaging drugs need the help and support of loved ones to assist them in finding that elusive, reassuring light youngsters so desperately need when a merciless, conquering darkness descends into their lives. They need our help – NOW! Too many Tinas and Coltons have already died. We, the mature people of our First Nations communities, have neglected and disrespected the young people around us for far too long. Let us do all we can to assure that the song of life of our youngsters will ring in the valleys and hills of this country long into the winter of their years. Let their song be a long one and also one of great joy.
We need to access our healing and sharing circles again as our people did before colonizers arrived. We need more and more quality time with our children and grandchildren. The lines of communication, between parent and child, regardless of age, must be open 24/7 and must be free of anger or rage. We’ve got a lot of catching up and making up to do but our hearts are big and strong and we’ll do it.
Tina, dead in the springtime of her life. Colton, dead in the early summer of his time. It isn’t fair. It isn’t just. Something good needs to come of it all. Anyone who waits for Canada’s justice system or a police service or politicians to lay the medicine which would remove anguish and hopelessness from the minds of our young people at our feet is in for a big disappointment. As difficult as it might be to believe, the fact is that a great number of Canadians don’t care if true healing ever occurs for the Indigenous Peoples of this land. The emotional and spiritual health of our young people is “OUR” responsibility. The wounds inflicted onto the hearts of our homeland’s Tinas and Coltons by Canada’s steel-toed boots are wounds only a loving mom, dad, grandma or granddad can bring healing to.
If we fail our young people yet again, then we will surely find ourselves someday on a raft of shame, bouncing aimlessly on a rough and turbulent sea made of the tears of Indigenous Peoples, those of the past, of the present and of the future. We cannot allow this to happen.
Keep the Circle Strong,
South Wind (Albert Dumont)
Over 20 years ago, Phil Jenkins wrote An Acre of Time. He extensively researched the history of the Lebreton Flats in Ottawa, near Akikodjiwan (Chaudière). Below is a quote from the book regarding the continued presence of the Anishinabe/Algonquin people in the National Capital region. This originally appeared as a comment on January 15th on my blog post, Algonquin Land. It is posted here with Jenkins’ permission.
South Wind
Excerpt from “An Acre of Time”
Because of a petition Constant made to the British department of Indian Affairs in the February of 1830, when he was 44, we know where those hunting grounds were. In the document Constant says,
“That after several years the hunt has more and more diminished with the destruction and the distancing of the beaver and of game. The only means of subsistence of the supplicant whose hunting grounds, situated to the South of the Ottawa at the top of the Rideau, are almost all ruined by the incursions that were made and the numerous settlements that now run along them.”
The expanse of Constant’s family territory can only be guessed at, but the average Algonquin grounds was 100 square miles, or an area ten miles by ten. The “incursions” that Constant mentioned in his petition were the first stirrings of settlement, stirrings that would divide, sub-divide and eventually become Bytown, then Ottawa, the capital city of the British invasion. Constant and his family were to be replaced, in six generations, by half a million people.
Within a couple of months of his petition, Constant got a form letter. It was a fancy-looking document dressed up as a certificate, flourishes and filigreed edges, designed to impress the receiver. It came from Sir James Kempt who was, as it said at the top of the paper, “Captain General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the provinces of Lower and Upper Canada,” as well as of other glories. Sir James wanted Constant to know that he was “reposing especial trust and confidence in your courage and good conduct, and in your zealous and faithful attachment to His Britannic Majesty King George.”
Four years after Constant, together with a Nippissing chief, went to visit James Hughes, an Indian Affairs agent in Montreal. Hughes later reported the meeting to his employers, giving his take on what the two chiefs had on their minds. An edited version of his letter reads,
“Old Constant Pinaisais [French spelling] was here a few days ago. He brought a map made a few years past. These lands on the borders of the Ottawa are now almost all settled.
They however have marked out a lot above the Grand Calumet Portage some distance above the last settlements. They would wish to have a township or a seignorie given to them there, before these lands are granted.
It is on the south side [of the river]. There is an island before it which they would also like to have, to make hay thereon and place their cattle in summer. They say they have no encouragement to work on pieces of land that are in manner only lent to them, whereas were they masters of a certain tract that they could call their own, they would be happy and industrious. They would have it in their power to make better hunts – find more deer and catch plenty of fish.
The history of the British theft of the Algonquin way of living is right there in those few words. No-one goes through life without feeling great change, but Constant Penency found himself pushed over the edge of an era. He was born a free hunter’s son, and by the age of 50 he was asking men born in another world for the right to relinquish any claim on his birthland, and to become a sharecropper and part-time trapper far away from their incursions.