Moose Factory Journal

Italian Dinner last night at the Parish Hall. Pizza, spaghetti & meatballs, and lasagna. And a salad! We all ate heartily. Dr. Boan showed up with a chocolate/zucchini cake and passed it around. I initially refused – claiming, virtuously, that I was trying to keep the cholesterol down. He said this didn’t count. I gobbled down a piece. Tasty!

Elsie, I think, is becoming my minder. She called the rectory before the supper – to be sure I did not forget, or get distracted, or move too slowly. She had called, actually, after I had already left on my way over to the parish hall.

I spent most of yesterday playing with Filemaker Pro. I don’t say that I am ready to put the parish books into a database (if I ever get my hands on the material.) But I am closer to that point.

Heavy frost last night. All the mushrooms that had been growing in the back yard are gone. My coughing and sniffling is almost gone – all over night. I figured the mold was doing it. Folks last night said I had the Moose Factory cough – which a lot of people have – or had.

The frost means that – pretty much – the mosquitoes have packed up and gone home for the winter. People here are talking about the West Nile Virus. It has found its way into Ontario. Up on James Bay (and throughout the North) the bug dimension is different from anything anybody ever experienced in New England. Mosquitoes are a fact of life. There is no way you can get away from them. People are talking about this. They still are less worried than I would expect. Folks on the CBC can’t talk about anything else.

The Fall Goose Hunt starts any day now – for foreigners; natives can hunt any time they like. The Island — more or less — closes down for these few weeks while the Hunt is at its height. Bobby starts his holidays tomorrow. The geese harvested in the fall are reportedly less tasty than those harvested in the spring. But that doesn’t stop the Hunt – or even slow it down. Natives have no limit to their catch. Vermont may make a religion out of the Fall Deer Hunt. Moose Factory just lays in a lot of food. And I suspect the folks out there in the bush have a great deal of fun. The weather this morning was perfect: not a cloud in the sky, crisp, and no wind. That translates into: no bugs, warm days, and good sleeping at night. …And a boatload of food when it’s over.

Email this morning: Apple shipped the computer yesterday. Now I AM counting the days. Moose Factory Cable says it will be October before they can hook up Broadband. I looked at more Civil War by Ken Burns last night.

Irene Carey does the record search for copies of Baptism Certificates. She had run out of forms. But naturally I had already designed one on the laptop. And that’s what we’ll have to use until the kosher forms from the diocese show up. She told me she has Photostats going back to the nineteenth century. Although Hudson Bay Company started in the 17th century, the Diocese of Moosonee did not start until around 1840 – about the time the old church was built.

It isn’t totally religion that gets everyone baptized around here. When a child is baptized here, a record is created. Those records can be critical in establishing identity and genealogy. That is important in registration as a member of the Band and therefore as a First Nation person. Apart from the pride that goes with that, there also are the possible benefits. Band membership is important – and not to be taken for granted. Raymond is the only white (non-native) person – ever – to be included in the Band. Raymond has always treated this as an honorary honor – not as some new legal status. And there are probably provincial or federal laws that prohibit conferring Band status on just anyone.

Vestry last night. Not too many present. Bobby and Ronnie had School Board. One or two others had choir rehearsal. Treasurer was absent. No one knows where we are financially. Much talk about policies and weddings particularly concerning that enormous, marginal group. Hopefully we’ll get some of the toothpaste back into the tube. Weddings will be easy. Funerals will take a lot of patience.

Monday and Tuesday, while coughing and sneezing, I loaded all the marriages recorded in the present book into the computer. Now we have marriages, baptisms, and the beginning of a parish list on disk. Some of the younger people on the Vestry see the potential value of these tools.

Apple has shipped everything but the new computer. I should start getting the stuff in a week or maybe more. One correspondent got a letter from me nine days later than postmarked date.

The DeBeers mine at Attawapiskat may be closed for the winter. The Attawapiskat Band did not renew the license or lease. Evidently the Band wants to arrive at an agreement relative to profit sharing — now. DeBeers insists it is only exploring, working out a feasibility study. They are open to talks relative to profit sharing for what might happen later – but not for what is happening now.

If he were alive today, Glenn Gould would be seventy today. Canada has not forgotten. Ontario can talk of nothing else – at least on CBC. They will do his stuff for most of the day today. What a treat!

A lady from Vancouver called me yesterday, trying to locate records for a great grand father. He had married a Cree. The lady in Vancouver was trying to get a Band number or registration for her grandfather or father. If she could prove that he was Cree, he would be eligible for some benefits. The problem was the records – going back to about 1885. She has a number of avenues: Diocese of Moosonee Archives, Hudson Bay Company Archives, and maybe the local Band Office here at Moose Factory.

From the diocese she did get a baptismal record of her grand father – listing great grandfather and great grandmother as parents. There was confusion about great grandmother’s name: Harriet or Henrietta for first name; Rose for last name. Were they married? I asked: Who was listed first in the baptismal record? Mother or father? She said: father. I suggested that, then, they were married and that Rose was her maiden name. The reason for this is that, evidently, if the couple was not married, the mother’s name was listed first, and the child would take the name of the mother’s family.

There are no people named Rose on the Island connected to St. Thomas’ that I know about. I brought the whole matter to the Vestry; and their reaction was immediate. Rose is a name associated with Attawapiskat, and it is synonymous with Paul-martin (all one name.) Monica, who sits on the Vestry, took notes. I’m hoping she’ll unearth something.

Well, we all survived yesterday. Another person died Friday night in Moosonee. We doubt his family will approach us for a funeral. And, if you have to do funerals, it’s nice to have them behind you. The choir was tattered and tottering. But we were able to celebrate today. Bobby preached – which was good for him, I think, and good for me, I know.

Today I feasted. I had soaked some beans overnight, baked them this morning, and relished them this evening.

More rain last night. Temp was in the fifties today. No real frosts yet. There is a lot of mold in the air, and lots of people are sniffling. I’ll bet it all clears after the first real frost. The humidity was so intense in Church yesterday that the pedal board on the organ collapsed somehow. I’ve got a wicked head cold or allergies or something.

There was supposed to be a Chinese Dinner tonight, as a fund-raiser. Because everyone was running around last week, the dinner has been postponed.

Raymond and I got back from Clericus last night. The train was an hour late – totally normal for the Little Bear. We had heard that there had been a death on the Island, so we knew we were heading back to a busy weekend.

By last night the count was up to two funerals. One this morning and one this afternoon. In addition to that each family has a ‘family service’ – sort of part of a wake. But the family service can be just as long as the funeral. That’s about two hours, at least, from the scheduled starting time. Most funerals start half an hour to an hour late, anyway. The coffin is usually open before the service starts, and the coffin must be closed before the service starts. It can take hours before the family is actually ready to close the coffin – even when they have several hours alone with the deceased before start of the service. Staid New Englanders who are by nature undemonstrative may take a dim view of this. But in this culture grief is right out in the open, and all its manifestations are accepted and supported. There is a powerfully healing quality when family can share their feelings openly in the presence of each other and their friends. I don’t say that my need for control would permit me to really participate in this very much; but I can see its value. The real trick is to make space for spontaneity while at the same time keeping some semblance of law and order in the Sanctuary. The omnipresent hazard is that a Pentecostal (and there are many, though not among the Anglicans) will hijack the service in a sudden (though hardly spontaneous) moment of conviction and will exhort everyone (especially the Anglicans) to instantaneous conversion. I never sit down or relax during the service while strangers or guests are presenting. Makes for sore feet and back at the end of the day, but I’m never more than four feet from anyone who is presenting.

Today I head off to Clericus for a week. The meeting will be somewhere south of Timmins. It’s a once-a-year gig. Everybody has to be there. Transportation issues make it infrequent but important when it happens.

The weather page says that Isabel is headed right for us — eta: Saturday morning or noon. It’s been hot the last few days — even reached 80 several times; this morning it’s a cloudy, humid, 60 (Fahrenheit).

I spent a few hours yesterday talking with a retired university professor — an ethnologist. He was here over the weekend working on genealogical issues — as part of a project for the Moose Cree Band. That means he will need to get into the archives. We have photo copies here; the original documents are down in Sudbury.

He also is involved in some other projects…. Retirement is a wonderful thing. On the East Coast he has been working with something of a network to document the old aboriginal routes on the rivers lost — as well as the rivers about to be lost. My routes were all replicas of the original native routes. That is, I dug around until I found where the old portages were — or should be. Then I took the trip. I told him that my notes and files were still existing — though I haven’t seen them in over 30 years. I have been looking for an archive for that stuff — for years now. I stole/borrowed from EVERYBODY; by the time I quit, I had quite a pile. So, maybe I’ll find a home for that stuff after all. In addition, I gave him some contact names. I had to burrow deep into my files to find the information. But I woke at least one of them up Saturday night. Jon Berger is still a presence in Philadelphia.

Last Friday night a plane went down outside of Beaver Summer, Ontario — north and west of here; just about due north of Lansdowne House on The Attawapiskat. Eight lives were lost. We remembered them and their families yesterday. I don’t know — yet — of any kinship between here and there. But the memory of the James Bay disaster of a few years ago is still fresh. People remember. And they know what’s going on out there.

The Hurricane is coming! The Hurricane is coming! As of 5PM this evening NOAA schedules Isabel’s arrival here at 2 PM, Saturday. Actually the little black line on the weather map shows the track to fall midway between Hannah Bay and Moose Factory Island — the locality of Big Stone Island. The Bishop is due to land at Moosonee Saturday morning. Potluck supper is scheduled for that evening. We’ll do the hurricane in between.

The Anglican Church Women had a bake sale yesterday, starting at about 11 in the morning. I got to the Parish Hall about 11:30. The door to the Hall was locked. I figured I had the date wrong and went back home. Later I found that the front door, which I had tried, is used only in the summer – for the tourists. Now everything is done through the back door. I also learned that the sales usually sell out in less than an hour, anyway. The ladies don’t like sitting around all day. I’m learning….

I also bought the TV, which I can’t afford, but which is nice. Spent most of the night catching up on 9/11 – thanks to WGBH.

Late yesterday afternoon the techie from the Moose Factory Cable Company finally hooked up the house. (Broadband comes later.) I got the basic package. It includes two PBS stations: one is in Detroit; the other is WGBH in Boston. Suddenly I can keep up with Buddy’s antics – and Boston’s Brahmin righteous displeasure. Most entertaining. I know it’s all lost on folks up here, but for me it’s hysterical: Buddy, on TV, in Moose Factory! (For non-Rhode Islanders: Buddy Cianci was Mayor of Providence for years – until just recently he was convicted of racketeering. He has been sentenced to a jail term of five years but doesn’t have to start for a few weeks. In the mean time he has been hired as political consultant for one of the Providence TV stations. Of course, the ratings for that station shot up as soon as Buddy started talking; and Buddy talks. Buddy is wildly popular in Rhode Island, even if Boston doesn’t understand – maybe because Boston doesn’t understand. He is a hero to many of modest means and — rightly or wrongly — has been given most of the credit for the revitalization of Providence. This is not the first time he has been convicted of a crime; he attacked the boy friend of his divorced wife years ago. That only made him more popular.)

Besides weather (always interesting) there are other options. One channel is in French. Several come from different provinces. And there is one with entirely First Nation actors and programming. I’m under pressure now to get a decent TV. (There are some on sale at the Northern Store.)

Monica’s paper is almost ready – and just in time. (She was ill this summer, with a concussion, and had to wrangle an extension.) The article may or may not appear in a journal. But it will get read somewhere. And she has lined up her ducks on the subject of mining. She realizes that the days of the ancestral homeland are numbered. Those who survive will have to move: geographically and culturally. For her, a product of a residential school, it has been a life-long battle. She is one of the strongest, a fact she only is just beginning to appreciate. She can appreciate the battle waging in her home village of Attawapiskat. She understands those who are winning as well as those who are losing.

I talked with a couple last night. They will have their wedding on December 27. The guy is part Mohawk (as well as Cree.) (Previously, when I had claimed that my roots in northern New York State might just have absorbed just a drop of Mohawk blood, Monica had informed me that I was a displaced person and in the wrong place. She also advised me that there was no need to learn Ojibwa; just learn Cree.) Anyway, they’re both bright kids, and both work at G-G’s – the local dry goods entrepreneur.

Baptism this coming Sunday for a family coming in from Winisk – now called Peawanuck. They have relatives here. So we’ll do Baptisms two Sundays in a row.