The Native Post: Birth of a New Image

Today, on Canada Day, in honour of the First Nations people who gave us our namesake, I thought I'd finish up and post a nice little piece I've been working on for a few months now about my trip up to my buddies' reserve in Ontario. So without further ado, I bring you:

A place with a different center of gravity...

Ojibway Tales

Have you seen the Red Wolf?
Where did you run to? Where do you hunt?
And where do you wander, oh White Moose?
You were spotted in our lands not long ago, it's true.

Get your hands on any real tobacco?
Like the real shit? The stuff of healing?
I'd know it if I saw it. Real nice.
Would you? How 'bout you?

These lands have felt the pain, kept their scars.
But we stand tall. Ready to fight.
So far we've lasted longer.
With the Mother here by our side.

Hey, Can You Tell Me Another Story?

(Yes that is alcohol).

Upon arrival at a tropical resort or paradise island decorated with neatly grown palm trees and painted swimming pools you'll probably be greeted with the run-down: a map marked with the top 5 nude beaches in the area, a guide to the best nightlife, or slipped a little pamphlet with a cute little blurb on some historical struggle for independence laced with curious symbols and heroic feats to warm the heart of any aloha-wearing American. Show up at a news conference about the latest wonder drug designed by a company with a name you can't pronounce and the PR coordinator will probably hand you a press release comprised of 20 lines of mind numbing facts about the long-term health benefits of their product and a three paragraph backgrounder on the giant company in question. Go visit your cousin who lives some town or city you've never set foot in before, and once again, before you can hit the parties, coffee shops, quilting circles or whatever it is you like to do with your cousin to kick back, you'll probably be given an informational blurb to outline the facts and figures of the land you've entered, specifics about industries in the area, the politicians in place and how they're mucking things up and a point form description of the schedule your cousin keeps. Because we're all obsessed with facts. Right?

When I headed out with my buddies in Northern Ontario to chill on their reserve it was totally different. I stepped into a landscape that even ethnographers can't pin down, where the knowledge base is derived from a completely different source, and rules are made, enforced and broken a lot differently from what I'm used to. I felt like I had entered a completely different country. And of course, given their status as their own "nation", I realized that I had. Here there were no tourism boards, welcome signs or fact sheets or anything like that. I mean my buddie ran the only local store (and unofficial liquor sales centre... but not really if anyone asks) out of his home, kinda like on Trailer Park Boys (watch it here) how Cory and Trevor start their own convenience mart in a shed; official documentation is pretty scarce -- one guy is getting five grand a year from the government thanks to the accidental incineration of residential school papers years ago, and where you can and can't hunt is pretty damn important but not "officially" sketched out, and you go to your kokum's (grandma's place) if you want to get a sense of who on the reserve and elsewhere you're related to. At first I thought I was missing something. I couldn't quite get my bearings. And then I realized: unlike the place I came from, this isn't a land of facts, figures, dollars and cents. They don't run things that way. This is a land of stories, long, rich and full. And I couldn't help but feel that they'd got it right.

"Those of us raised in a Western tradition tend to approach life history with certain preconceptions about what constitutes a 'adequate' account of a life. The familiar model comes from the written autobiography -- an author's chronological reflections about individual growth and development, often presented as a passage from darkness to light. Yet this form of exposition is relatively recent and began to appear regularly only after the eighteenth century. Since then it has become so well entrenched, so structured by convention, that it has come to seem "natural" to Western readers and a form not requiring explanation."

-- Julie Cruikshank, Vancouver, November 1988 -- From the preface to her book about three native elders from the Yukon called, Life Lived Like a Story


Time

You might look at a place filled with herbs, grasses and weeds dusted helter-skelter, flanked by hanging white orbs all around just ready to spread dandelion seedlings as far as the eye can see, or skinny bushes dousing the air in showers of pollen -- and you might think "savage". You could look at the children running around every which way digging in the mud, or the old man sitting still and staring off into the sunset, eyes glazed, but trailing that beaver down the powerful river -- and you might say "quaint" or "underdeveloped". Or you might spy that kid picking up his rod to spend his day again with the fish -- and consider him "lazy", or a sort of adorable Huckleberry Finn type. But then you wouldn't have watched long enough.

The reserve.

See, you wouldn't have had the pleasure of tasting all the complexities involved. You wouldn't have seen the sustainable business techniques that only now the rest of the mainstream world is experimenting with. You wouldn't have seen how they nurse their peoples from the cradle to the grave, not as a number, pill recipient or test patient, but as a whole complete human being, through all this entails. You wouldn't have seen their historically-rich governance styles that social scientists are having a hard time getting a real sense of. And you might not really know the long-term consequences of what your personal dreams and aspirations might do, even totally by accident, to such a wonderfully storied and emotionally decorated land and collection of people as this. Full of hopeful, frustrated lives. Trying to overcome. Failing. Succeeding. But always persevering. I describe, of course, the aboriginal peoples of Canada. I'm setting their story, a story we are all characters in, on a backdrop of the Canadian reserves.

On Location

Sunsets are just more beautiful out here.

We walked slowly, powerfully, along the gravel road in the fading light, looking out over the ups and downs of the place, as it moved like a tight-knit family -- a neighbourhood full of life. Dusty vehicles, some loaded to the hilt with passengers and ready to make the trek into the city, others just passing across the reserve, moved with pride -- keeping watch. From time to time you'd see the rez cops (the "Treaty Area" has its own police force and just got a huge new multi-million dollar facility that finished construction recently). On the reserve they have limited powers, they can't stop you for speeding for example, since that law doesn't apply here. So they'll harass you until you pass back onto Canada's legal road network.

Young children crawled all over the place like ants -- climbing old play structures, kicking soccer balls, or scrambling up volcanic rock formations or across worn grassy spaces. There were just tons of them. It reminded me of the Andean countryside, filled with native South Americans, most of whom live far below the poverty line and have no drinking water. I wasn't the only person to be note the activities of the youngsters. Many observers are surprised at first when they see young children on the reserves without a curfew. Also remember, Third World condition plague so many of the First Nations peoples here. The U.N. has wagged their finger on a number of occasions -- saying the condition of aboriginal people in the country is “the most pressing human rights issue facing Canada”. Many reserves are on a boil-water advisory. Cases of tuberculosis are six times higher than the rest of Canada. Poverty affects 60 per cent of aboriginal children. And as one of my rides up north -- a white middle-aged guy with extensive experience on the reserves installing communication towers on even the most remote fly-in communities -- put it, "I mean, there's no industry on the reserves, eh. And they don't have any real entertainment for the kids out there, either. There's literally nothing for them to do."

Greg works at the store here, bums smokes, and passes time with his dog. When the guys from the reserve pick up their checks -- well that's the busy day, when everyone buys gas, snacks and groceries.

Nowadays Canadian aboriginal youth, feeling shut out from mainstream Canadian society, left largely without an image they feel represents them in the media, are going American gangster. Ghettoized, impoverished and dealing with racism, it's a shoe that fits. I've never seen kids smoking pot as much as I saw out there. Drug dealing is huge on reserves, as the pimp-dealer image becomes the new model for success among adolescents. "Crunk" is in the popular vocabulary. This is a place where you have to be concerned about your friend sniffing. And as one of my buddies put it: on the reserve scaling back drug consumption in order to be a good influence on the younger kids means only weed, shrooms and acid allowed.

Drug use is a common on Canada's reserves.

I looked over first at the forest on my right, that harsh bushland that stretches out seemingly till the end of time. In there, I know, are the plants that are so important to these people. Listen long enough and you'll hear tell stories of trapping foxes, lynx or muskrat or about big deer or moose hunts. To my left is that wide river, banks of granite and mud, shimmering silver. That's where, when they put in the dam, all the ancient graves rose up out of the grounds and floated along down it. That's why so many of the people here got sick. Just one more story I store up for myself. And that other one, you know, about the mercury in the river from the mill that got dumped and never cleaned up -- yes, when I heard that story referenced -- it was given great importance. Because that river is a centerpiece here. And my friends still have to get tested to this day for signs of poisoning.

When kids get bored on the reserve they'll do anything to pass the time, like push old cars into the mercury-contaminated river, which is what you're looking at here.

Keep in mind that way out here time is of little value. I mean, think about it, what's going to change really anyways? Houses aren't going to get fixed, water filtration systems won't be built, and community input meetings won't be held. A white bureaucrat looks at their books and sees band councillors selling their communities out for a couple hundred bucks. Native politicians look at the government and see a bunch of fat-cats treating them like second-class citizens. At the end of the day, as Jean Chrétien found out, as did Bob Nault in his wake, and Phil Fontaine knows all too well -- changing things, for better or for worse, is really fucking hard. And so, in a way, time stands still. Interesting to note, however, a common time marker among the people here is, "when we got our rights" or "when the government started giving us our rights and stuff" ... or with a little more worry and concern... "since the government started taking away our rights". ("The government won't pay my dental expenses anymore", one girl told me). Because it's nice when your identity and what you're entitled to is acknowledged by the powers that be.

This is the place where it's cool to hit on the girl with the stroller (Aboriginal peoples are growing at a blinding pace, and a good portion of the mothers are young ones). Family clanism can wipe out the value of a high school or university education. Nepotism is just that bad. And you might get $200 or so from your band for no specific reason when you head into town on your business trip for "expenses", though there's no real formula or accountability involved in how this gets passed out. And you might lose your job if the wrong person gets elected. But these things are normal. And no one really asks any questions. It's just the way things works.

The Treaty police force just got a new expensive facility recently.

And in this Never-Never-Land -- off the beaten path and forgotten -- life goes on. Poker games are a daily experience. And your mom might head into town to play bingo or hang out with her friends at the casino. You might shoot some pool in town, or just bang out a game up at your reserve in a community centre with a friend. People develop routines. Like my friend always walks half-way across the reserve at a certain time each morning, just to be predictable, so people will know where and when they can get ahold of him. Because there aren't really all that many phones up here. To get someone on the telephone you have to call their cousin's girlfriend's house, or their mom at work, and hopefully they'll get around to getting back to you.

Shooting pool in one of the community buildings on the reserve.

But how do you place a community on a map when their roots stretch out so deep and so wide? With eyes not set on Ottawa (us native people gave them their moniker...but they still won't come through for us on some pretty damn simple things they promised a long fucking time ago), big business and industry (the same song on repeat gets tiring after awhile...we understand you want to rape our lands and enough is never enough -- yah, profit, we get it), and when unlike stateside residents, keeping your gaze on Iraq and remembering the tales of woe from Vietman (a popular American pastime) just doesn't seem quite as important when you're worried about whether the water you need to stay alive day to day is contaminated or not -- aboriginal peoples of Canada are most definitely people with a different centre of gravity.


Success (opportunity) here is: dealing drugs, getting on the rez police force, bootlegging alcohol, or, most importantly, moving your family into positions of power within the band council.

So getting your head around a group of people who are actually a bunch of different people groups -- as different as Afghanis and Pakistanis, with totally different languages, customs and cultures -- is pretty difficult. And at first you might have a hard time understanding where they're all coming from. But then again, that just might be their greatest gift to the rest of us. Like the legacy of valiant aboriginal politician Elijah Harper. Through their efforts, promoting the communities they live and die for, we are left with a reminder that no matter how hateful and racist oppositional forces remain, the party line is not the only line. Ever.

But I guess it was the same for them too. I mean, they didn't really seem to understand where I was coming from either. For them to see a White Guy (me) strolling along the dirt roads of their reserve was certainly a head-turner. It was pretty funny actually. I don't think I've been that much of an attraction in my entire life. We were all laughing pretty hard about it -- how the vans would slow down, and the eyes would dart my way. You just knew my buddies were going to hear about about it later: "Oh there he goes, showing off his reserve again." They mocked the responses of the others in advance.

Land as Life


If you don't ever figure anything else out about native kids, know this: the land they live on is pretty damn important to them. Always has been and it's not going to change any time soon either. It's who they are and what sustains them. It's probably one of the reasons they like country music so much -- a genre based on physical locale resonates pretty strong out here. And a lot of the older guys wear cowboy hats. Among Northeastern Algonquian, for example, the family hunting group is considered the ideal extended family, and hunting territories are as much about ideas and symbolic associations as they are about ecological adaptation or just putting food on the table. Or you'll get a research-filled book about aboriginal culture edited by Bruce Alden Cox and he'll call it Native People Native Lands. Every reserve dwelling I stepped foot inside had a big framed picture of a wolf in at least one place in the house. Aboriginal people lament air quality. "The lake was the reward for the year's hard work," describes Paula Laureen Henderson in her book Lost Angels. And who else do you hear chatting about the shifting habitats of local wildlife as often? Living and breathing as a native is to try to connect with the area you're from and the life forms that pass by. It's like a ghetto kid repping his hood. Or Braveheart defending Scotland. It's just what's up.

But encroaching on aboriginal lands seems to be a popular game these days. The first 3 pages of the April 17th edition of the Wawatay News, a newspaper that bills itself as "Northern Ontario's First Nation Voice since 1974" were totally filled up with the KI vs. Platinex Mining Dispute story, and half of pages 4 and 5 were chalk full of commentary and a letter to the editor, as well. What's happening here is, a junior mining venture, Platinex, wants to get the goods from under the ground -- in an area the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug first nation, known as Big Trout Lake, says is their traditional land use area. Native groups are basically saying, well hey, you've already relegated us to reserves, now at least leave us in peace to enjoy what we do have. But, of course, when the mining's good, the mining's good. And no mineral company would want to just ignore profitable deposits. That just wouldn't make sense.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the boundaries of traditional land use areas -- the swath of land the reserve natives hunt and fish within -- are not easily identified. The debacle is even more of a firecracker because, despite various levels of government urging against it, the judicial branch tossed six First Nations members from Big Trout Lake in jail for their protests. Trying to protect their reserve and traditional land use area by blocking the advances of Platinex is a crime according to the judge. Womens groups are up in arms too because one of the natives jailed was a female band councillor. When I was in the area, it had been over a month they'd been sitting in cells. Protests have been held, hunger strikes have been called, the Liberal MP here is all caught up in it. Leaflets have filtered their way in photocopy format all the way through the streets of Toronto. Once again, shit is hitting the fan.

I talked to a reserve addictions counselor about the debacle over in Big Trout Lake, and it weighed pretty heavy on his mind. Because mining companies were employing a bunch of guys off his reserve, and another company was looking for rights on his homeland -- vying for the minerals under their feet at the price of single digit profit percentage points. Hardly a fair deal in his mind. "I'm not mad about them stealing our lands and everything and putting us on reserves and that. I understand you can't really change what's happened. But the thing is, we've given you so much -- and I don't mean YOU, personally, but you know what I mean -- how come we've given you so much already, and you still want more? Like, when will it be enough." He's thinking a 50-50 profit split would be sweet. But totally unlikely...

A professional chats with a fellow First Nations citizen on National Aboriginal Day.

"And another thing too is," he continued, while driving through the very White Man's economy he was describing, "the way I see it, all the money they give us just goes right back to them anyways. Like it just gets filtered back, eh? We don't really get to keep it, or do anything with it." Because the architects of the reserve system knew what they were doing. Their accountants were good at getting value for their money. They knew right from the beginning. And simple fines for drug use or mere cash hand outs (like the residential school payments) can never conquer structural inequality. Instead, what you see happening is, an isolated people group has been given the power to now consume and promote the "White Man's" world. A way of life based around the commodity.

On paper it's simple enough. Groups compete for resources. It's easier for those with more clout and power to attain more at the expense of others. Someone always has to lose anyways. No big deal, right? It doesn't really hurt anyone unless they let it, right?

And the front page of the aboriginal youth newspaper "Seven" features a guest columnist discussing suicide and how to cope with the loss of your friends. Because in case you're still in some la-la land bubble and haven't heard -- Canada's pretty shitty to people sometimes -- and reserve kids are dropping like flies. Nothing new. Nothing's changed.

Page 3 - "Mother stands by jailed councillor" - James Thom - Wawatay News

"The corners of Sadie McKay's mouth perk up when she talks about her son. He was a born leader and a smart man who'd never been in trouble with the law -- until now. Sadie's son Jack has been sitting in a jail cell for the past month, serving a six-month sentence for contempt of court. And Sadie couldn't be prouder of her son, the deputy chief of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug.

'I'm very proud of the stance my son and the others took in defending our land,' Sadie said through an interpreter. 'I know it's for the people and for the protection of the land.'

KI Chief Donny Morris, Jack McKay, Head Coun. Cecilia Begg, councillors Sam McKay and Darryl Sainnawap and band member Bruce Sakakeep were all jailed for their actions in preventing Platinex Inc., a junior mining company based in southern Ontario, from exploratory drilling on the First Nation's traditional lands. They were sentenced to jail, amid public outcry, March 17, several months after Justice Patrick Smith had OK'd the drilling.
Sadie said she will stand alongside other community members and defend the land, should Platinex attempt to drill."

Read more:

http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Platinex_Inc/KI_Jan_25_2008
http://theproles.blogspot.com/2006/08/canadian-mining-corporations-vs-first.html
http://www.grassrootsnews.mb.ca/article.php?article_id=206

********Update: The KI - 6 are released, charges are dropped, Ontario gets sued, and many know "fundamental changes" are needed...

http://www.wawataynews.ca/archive/all/2008/6/12/KI6-free-after-appeal-68-days-in-jail_13448
http://www.firstperspective.ca/fp_combo_template.php?path=20080605ontario



Sketching the Economics

Just like in Africa, South America and the Caribbean, when the valiant "explorers" from Europe came across land and resources that made their hearts jump and their eyelids shoot right up, in kingdoms and territories that seemed pretty weird and baffling to them, the men that wanted to get their rough hands on the various gems of North America had to figure out some way to dispose of, sidetrack or contain the rightful owners here. So over a period of time and though a series of drunken nights, wartime aid packages, mysterious treaties and brokered deals, the White Men from afar got North America, and the various nations of the vast land got stuck on shitty reserved spaces here and there. Oh ya, and they got a little bit of cash every year too. Five bucks. But that's about it.

Here the "powers that be" carefully track and hand out the annual payment to registered aboriginal -- $5 per year given out in crisps bills. Note the native RCMP officer being paraded around.

So while the colonial adventurers proudly "pioneered" their old stomping grounds, sucking out the juices -- selling beaver pelts and jewelry to England and later on minerals and oil on the world market, First Nations people got a chance to see what it was like to live in drawn up boxes for a payout. The natives groups on the prairies were promised industrial infrastructure. That was forgotten. They were told a reserve system would be the key to promoting economic growth for their communities. But these days natives in Canada still live largely on these reserves -- which have become economically isolated tracts of land. They have little bargaining power to work with at the political or corporate table. Fair trade? Someone got royally fucked, almost literally. But then again, in the "Wild West" of the US of A you could shoot an "Indian" on site.

Urban native kids full of hope and spunk in Northwestern Ontario.

Now, selfish takeovers were a quite popular trend at the time, back with Victoria or Elizabeth and Leopold and the like in control -- they had their ways. It was pretty simple. Turn the people you don't understand into monsters, misuse their labour, shunt them aside or outright slaughter them -- just do whatever it takes to maintain the upper hand. That was years ago. Back in the ages of Empire . But the most disturbing element arises when you map out just how little has changed when it comes to how the western powers and populace reacts aboriginal peoples worldwide. They are used as pawns by North American lobbyists and politicians. Years of government-funded residential school abuse and sexual mistreatment, not to mention wholesale cultural genocide, is washed over by a few political words, some talks, and a cash hand-out. And when an "undocumented" people group is spotted in the Amazon, a prairie newspaper screams on the main front page headline how their tribe is a "Lost" one. Because, don't forget, they're mysterious and different, while we're right and we're "found". As we stand here proud, reciting autobiographies.

Aww. He's digging through the trash. How cute. (How common).

Go to Red River college in Winnipeg and the teachers will sketch out Canadian law for you. They'll tell you about the Treaties and confederation and they'll tell you about land claims. They'll tell you how most natives feel they were screwed like hell -- duped out of what was rightfully theirs and, for many, forced into poverty. You'll hear about the sloth-like pace of land claim discussions and aid-packages.

Native judicial workers live in apartments like these ones and just might be upfront about the racism they see carried out structurally day-to-day through the courts if you talk to them.

But you'll also hear how, no matter what the government claims from one administration to another, they can't change the fact that they fucked up. Much was stolen, and some say eventually they'll have to pay. Either sooner or later. According to the Assembly of First Nations, there is a backlog of 800-1,000 unresolved claims within Canada's own federal specific claims process -- in other words, claims involving Canada's treaty obligations. Estimates of the total value of these unresolved claims range from 2.6 billion dollars to six billion dollars. It takes an average of 13 years to settle a claim under the current system.

Ontario reserve administrators attend land-use committees. Out in Saskatoon lawyers desks are covered with land claim notes and filings. The process moves along. Cogs in the machine push paper. And some have high hopes. Because, at least on paper, the courts can't help but acknowledge, native people are in the right.

Reserve planning documents.

Residential Schools

Canada's Residential Schools cast long shadows... (check the facts from Wikipedia here)

Duck Lake, Saskatchewan

On Wednesday, June 11, 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took to the floor of the House of Commons and apologized for the country's government-instituted residential school system that foisted abuse and racist education on largely unwilling aboriginal students, while depriving them of the nurturing and cultural training that is essential to a complete human upbringing. The next day on the front page the Globe and Mail ran the headline "...We are sorry".

Let's not make another scapegoat of Canada's residential school system please. It might distract us. White Man knows best. Got it. Their way is the right one. The civilized path. Didn't we already know that? Because we can't forget that these mass boarding schools weren't the cause the of problem, but a result of an earlier one. Ignorance. Greed. Deceit. And a hoarding of power. Age old evils. I mean, many of the teachers thought they were doing the right thing at the time -- and still do. Many of the parents of the students were glad to have the children attend classes. Many students loved it. Most current native leaders are where they are today because of the training they received at these institutions.

But let's not foist praise onto Egerton Ryerson's bullshit idea either. For it is true that when we examine the educational system that forcibly took aboriginal children across the country out of their home communities and squelched their religion and culture while trying to design model employees, ahem, subjects of the Crown, a valuable part of Canada was destroyed. The Lost Generation. And they were raped and sexually abused like... well essentially like the little Catholic boys and girls they were forced to become (and Anglican and Baptist etc.)... I mean I really can't think of a more accurate benchmark for the institutional rape stereotype. I don't know how much they could really learn either when death rates climbed as high as 69 per cent at some of the schools.

Imagine if your dad or a bunch of his friends had been abused and mistreated at a boarding school they probably didn't even want to go to, but had no choice. Ya, that's EXACTLY what it was all about. Not even kind of. Exactly. That's why my buddie's dad from Northern Ontario gets a few thousand dollars from the government every year now. So he was able to buy a new truck and stuff. So ya, he has a nice ride, and it's easier for him to do the work he needs to do. But of course, the people in the city he bought the truck from resent that the government basically just bought him a truck and he didn't have to work for it (even though they gave their kid a new snow mobile just for passing Grade 8 and everyone thought that was rad). But I guess we're Even Steven (Harper) now right? We should name a school or something after one of the guys behind implementing this hey?

While on the reserve, prior to the "official apology" I didn't see healing in the eyes of the people, even though they were now getting compensation. They still felt ignored, not given a fair deal. Instead, I saw determination and cynicism. "They're basically paying us to keep quiet about it," on person told me. And then another person told me the same thing. And then someone else did too. I got the point pretty quick.

Hit the Urban Treaty Days in Saskatoon and you'll get free bannock, soup and cake.

And out in Saskatchewan the scars run deep. Residential schools carry a hardcore legacy. One that's hidden from plain sight still. But if you had been with the right group of kids at just the right time on the perfect rowdy evening a little while back, you could have witnessed the landscape that's been handed down. You would have seen history in action at what used to be called "St. Michael’s Indian Residential School". Duck Lake. In a night of revelry and mischief, some kids bust into the old Duck Lake school building, lit their fires, started drinking hard and partying harder, right in the belly of the beast that gobbled up their identity. And when they left, the fires didn't leave with them, but grew and grew instead... Just like the stories that run on and on and on and on and just can't be put out.. The young guy heading to a meeting with his lawyer after robbing two 7-11s had heard the story and seemed to understand the significance. And the generations before... the ones who experienced it... were so fucking proud too. Because in Canada, destruction forms community bonds. Oh what have we done?

And the guy that first told me of that blaze of a party, an assembly line worker whose dad was forced to attend St. Michael's, can't escape the wrath of the place, no matter how hard he tries.

"It's true what they say about us, eh." He said, gobbling up news of Canada's words of apology for the whole residential school system debacle. "Like the whole next generation. How we're all fucked up and turning to gangs and shit." He laughs about it, stares off into the pitter-patter of the rain, savouring his last few moments of freedom, before hitting the work-room floor again for the mind-numbing work.

"There was so much abuse -- physical and sexual and all that shit. Yeah. My dad has a whole lot of horror stories."

He has a hard time trusting what the government says. He says he likes what he reads ("I'm gonna have to tell my dad about this...He'll probably see it on the evening news I guess. It's a pretty big story hey?"), but then again, it's hard for him to believe that anything could change. After all, the government didn't make any commitment to improve the social conditions his friends and family have been left with. Just giving out $2 Billion. And you know the residential school settlement is shitty when an MP from the party in power even mocks the payout (and of course here's the follow-up mandatory comment retraction). Lets put this in perspective -- to make up for a campaign of acknowledged cultural genocide, the natives whose lives were often torn apart and whose kids suffer the ramification -- they're being tossed a chunk of change that's less than the amount spent by Canadians on Christmas gifts each year -- in Alberta.

Yeah they're talking shit out with mediators and all that. And giving out cash. Again. But fixing the day-to-day... well, I guess we'll just have to wait another 100 years for that one. Once again, the government failed to make that commitment. Even Australia managed to get around to that one.

But the spirit of the people is unflinching. Ask anyone at the factory and they'll tell you he's one of the most positive dudes there.

Word on the Street is the Medicine Man's

I spent the day just taking it all in, hanging out, catching up with my buddies, and chatting about and listening to some of their favourite bands -- Out of Options, The Black Maria (their second CD is the best one, I'm told), Casey Baker and a million others. We were supposed to go to a friend's place for fresh fish... but we were a little late and he had eaten them all already. "Hey. Where were you?" The thirty-something man asked from the porch of his trailer-sized house on the hill. "You missed it. We ate all the fish already!" Just giving us a hard time, eh. Serves us right for being late. Oh well. No big deal. Less risk of mercury posioning for me, I thought, trying to cheer myself up for missing what would have been a rad feast. But it didn't seem to be a problem that we missed dinner.

Hardcore "Rock Band" sessions.

We played Rock Band into the evening, ate some munchies and watched the Simpsons. Then we clambered up the hill to jam out in large shed/house type thing where my buddie's bro crashes.

It was late, and the old beer cups were piled up around, with butts and roaches from previous jam sessions deposited inside. A couple guys had guitars strapped on.

"Did you hear about that," the younger brother said. "What the medicine man was saying..." He said it real low and real serious.

See, some crazy shit was about to go down. Just like so many times before, the medicine man was predicting a foreign outside force was about to come in with a good face on, promising the moon. But this White Man was about to come with the desire to take. To decieve. To steal. One more dot in the pattern. Taking from us. Wanting more for themselves. Be on your guard. It just doesn't end.

And I understood why some of the people, older people mostly, were being so cagy around me, making me feel kind of awkward. Making me lose the words I needed to speak to connect with them properly. They all WANTED to trust me so bad. But experience had taught them otherwise. It's kind of weird to "be" the pariah.

Because as mystical and religious as it sounded, the prediction was hardly a longshot. The exact same thing had happened on this very reserve to the very same band council with some contract work, and an exploited loophole within that contract, only weeks before.

My buddie's younger brother cooked up some huge deer ribs (I swear -- they were like the size of my arm) from an animal they had shot earlier in the year. It didn't look glossy or picturesque and I even found a hair in mine (the teenage cook got in shit for not cleaning it well enough... I guess they take pride in their cooking, obviously), but the rugged flesh tasted better than any cow I've ever sunk my teeth into. This was definitely the highlight of my trip up.

Inserted Back In

For me, the return to "daily life" -- modern Canadian society -- was anticlimactic to the max. When I got back it was as if I had never left. On the TV the analysts were droning on again about the politics of oil sands investment and the environmental impact. Their tone is always polite and upbeat. But they always focus on political maneuvering. And they always play the government's game, attacking stories from the sanctioned perspective. Then Hockey Night in Canada comes on.

In a way I felt like I had just stepped out for ice cream and no one really cared to know what flavour of milkshake I had selected at Dairy Queen. Like, they were happy that I enjoyed my milkshake and everything, but they didn't really give a shit. The only thing was, I hadn't gone for ice cream. I had just visited Canada's ground-zero -- the ugly secret we like to sweep under the rug: the sheer untainted beauty -- almost hypnotic, filled up with troubled lives lacking the opportunity they deserve, manmade disaster, and a deluge of backstory I had never before been provided with. I guarantee you, if I was an American who had just come back to town from visiting their ground zero in New York City at the base of the Trade Tower wreckage -- the Average Joe would have thought it was a big deal.

The experts tell me that dealing with a certain amount of post-traumatic stress after visiting a Canadian reserve in all its isolation and dysfunction is totally normal. With communities divided along religious lines (Benny Hinn does a regular sweep to suck cash from the poorest in Bible Pimp fashion), high unemployment rates, racial undercurrents, rampant alcoholism, domestic abuse, and enduring monuments to White Power at every turn (you know, like their family names -- I'm told the embarrassing tale of "...back when the White Men came and gave us names that they could actually understand and pronounce..."), it can be quite a jolt to step into a reserve setting.


But visiting wasn't the hardest part. The thing that was the most difficult for me was not staring down the ugly throat of racism or billowing unaccountable bureaucracy, or attempting to interact with a culture I should but did not really know that well. To be in a place that the average person and the authorities that protect them cannot really understand is one thing. To leave that place and then get this feeling like you've never actually been there -- or if you did, it didn't really matter -- or it was a silly waste of your time -- that's a whole other ballgame. Jarring. But that's what you come up against when you're a White Kid that moves back into White Society after visiting the "savage" native lands. It's how you're made to feel.

I write: "I feel like I've come from a warzone and I need to let it all out. But I can't. I'm having trouble even remembering the experience."

So there I was, surrounded by seamless walls -- painted hues with complex names selected carefully in some corporate hardware store, walking across tiled floors, looking out on stucco exteriors connected by pristine snaking asphalt. And that's when it hit me:

-Everything in aboriginal culture -- and the whole reason visionary chiefs and communities signed onto the reserve system in the first place -- it's all geared towards protecting and cherishing their lands and their way of life. Sky. Earth. WATER.

-Everything in the White Man's world -- every little action and legal piece of fineprint -- is geared towards attaining more security and acquiring more stuff.

In its simplest form you're looking at the difference between loving what you have and the desire to get more. It sounds rank, but we clean it out, and give it names like "growth" and "development" instead. But really, all you're looking at is the passion to increase the bottom line. That is the definition of success in the modern Canadian economy. That's why the government will never be able to understand its First Nations people. How does it make sense for someone to fall in love with the land, or the air, or the WATER??? What a waste of fucking time.

So in essence, we've succeeded by pushing out all the bad thoughts. Shunting them aside. Out of sight out of mind. We're polite. We're friendly. We're Canadian. But we're forgetful.

And now inertia is the tool we use to keep things in place. Which is just fine for those in power. But if the White Majority actually gave a shit (and hell yes some of them do...) they would get ahold of the Indian Act, decide it was time to clean ship at home (you know, before rolling in the mud in Afghanistan, where even many of the people there feel Canadians are wasting their time...), and if they were really serious, they would not let go of that fucking document until something was worked out (And believe me I understand, from watching the process unfold, I'm not talking about something easy). But something BIG needs to happen. Because "fundamental changes" means everything shifts. And that's what I hear people calling for. It really is. It's the only way.

But then again we prefer inertia.

We need to learn from our mistakes. There are patterns you can graph. And history repeats itself. Already experts fear biological warfare is about to be unleashed on "the Lost Tribe of the Amazon". Let's stop playing the politics game, and look at things for what they really are. I for one am tired of all this horse shit. It seems we only know how to tell one story. It's the story about our own progress. I guess that's partly why I love visiting my buddies on their reserve. They just know so much that I don't, and they have so many stories to tell. And maybe that's why it's so hard for me to write my blog. I hate fucking talking about myself. The White Man's story of progress is so played out.

If both cultures continue their cycle of hopelessness, I'm told, nothing will change. There will be no land of the living skies for anyone. My generation has lost hope. And when a generation feels hopeless, they stop listening and dreaming. And when you stop dreaming you stop innovating. (And innovation is the strength of the human spirit.)

The opportunities for First Nation to succeed do exist, however, many are unable to take advantage of them.

I don't give a shit what people think. I had an amazing time up on the reserve -- probably the highlight of my whole hitchhiking adventure so far. It's pretty inspiring to go to a place where friends and family really look out and care for each other. Ya there's some terrible terrible things all pent up there -- the worst in all of Canada -- make no mistake. But it's just fucking awesome to see real people doing real things to overcome the giant obstacles that are thrown in their path.

In the Morning.

While the White World's eyes shift towards the rising economy of China for mega "growth" potential, native minds get stuck at home -- many defeating the odds, but others languishing on reserves, in jail cells or caught up in gangs and prostitution. One well-read chief compares his people to the Chinese, saying First Nations, too, need the same resilience and determination.

Here is another story I soak in on my travels. The pensive man looks across the table at a young white "latte academic" from Edmonton, the lady who's interviewing him. She's come back, hell-bent on not just being another "suit". He searches carefully for the right words to describe what he means and the hope he sees for his people to her attentive ears. He proceeds, and says this:

The only way to conquer the fear of the new global economy is to dream new dreams and forge new partnerships.



(end)



Other links:

-http://www.canadiana.org/citm/themes/aboriginals/aboriginals12_e.html - Here's a really good primer to native rights in Canada (and how little regard Canadian people have had over the course of history for their fellow citizens... not even allowing aboriginals to vote until 1960).
-www.indianz.com - Keep track of what's going on in the U.S. scene. Casinos. Scandal. Judicial.
-www.ayn.ca/forum- Kind of hasn't been updated recently, but if you want to really understand some of the issues these people face day to day, then check out some of the forums. Caution, some of them get pretty ghetto.
-www.afn.ca - This is the Assembly of First Nations' page, a political group that calls itself "the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada".
-ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38819 and from www.ctv.ca/... Read up on Canada refusing the UN's position on how to treat native groups fairly.

Music:
-NOFX "Kill All the White Man"



NOFX "Don't Call Me White"



-Iron Maiden "Run to the Hills"

"That's a fucking awesome song..."