Monday, 30 August 2004
We had nine baptisms yesterday. Families are scrambling to ‘get it done’ before we migrate back to The Little Church. Right now, except for BIG services, we’ll be back on September 12.
The ‘Little Church’ has several names. Sometimes it’s the ‘Way-Down Church’ — for, ‘way down The River…’ Or, the G-G Church — because it’s next to G’G’s Corner & Gift Shoppe. Or, St Thomas’ Chapel — it’s smaller that the Big/Old Church. Or sometimes just, The Old Catholic Church.
Email received at 2 AM this morning reports that the BEAST is MOVING! It shipped yesterday. All Canada now waits. Breathless with expectation. …Actually, not really. Just this little bit of Canada. And I’ve been waiting since June 4. Breathless and expectant.
Canada’s media, if not all of Canada, is focused on the Olympics. Unlike the Americans, the Canadians do not get obsessed. They focus. I get my all political rants from the American media. (I’m trying to figure out how to get The Rev. Al Sharpton to come up here and lead us all in a revival. THAT should get the juices flowing…)
From time to time I get polar bear pictures from friends in the States. Cuddly, Fuzzy little things. The real thing is neither cuddly nor fuzzy — particularly when it wants YOU for its lunch. As it did, the other day, reportedly, just up our western coast. It was preparing to dine on a lady when her husband shot it dead.
When I paddled around here I never thought about Polar Bears. Never knew they came this far south. And maybe they didn’t, so much, in the 1970’s. The locals here, however, cannot believe we didn’t travel — even in the summer — without a gun.
The week following the Memorial Service saw three weddings and three deaths. I’m told these things happen in threes. By 8 August I was a basket case. Fortunately The Bishop made a quick trip to Moosonee for the weekend of 8 August and bailed me out of the wedding I was scheduled for there — compacted between the burial of a newborn and wedding over here.
The Beast, ordered 4 June 2004, has not yet shipped. I am impatient. Apple, in June, indicated a shipping date of ‘4-6 weeks’. July came and went. Then ‘on or before August 20’ was posted. This week I am watching my mail closely. Rumor has it that IBM is the culprit. Reportedly, they cannot make the chips fast enough. I have more or less decided not to post anything new on the website until I get the new machine. Somewhere I read it pushes PhotoShop around 15 times faster than what I have on the desk right now. So the wait should be worth it. When you read this you’ll know I got the machine — and that I got the machine to work.
There are bears milling around in the Hospital Parking Lot. Or so I gather from posters around town. We are being told to be circumspect at night. I’m lucky. I can move around on the Island by car. Most people here don’t have cars. They are expensive, and one really doesn’t need a car — just so long as you’re not in a rush and are smart enough to elude the bears.
Last week Kashechewan had a drowning. Three young men were heading up River in a canoe, I gather. The canoe overturned at the foot of a rapids. Two people survived; one was lost. Many people showed up for the funeral on Saturday in Kashechewan. I had the opportunity to be there for the funeral, but I turned it down; I was worried about the hearth here. …I also wondered about the 1960’s and 1970’s when my generation was inspired by whole families going UP the Albany in their motor canoes. It’s because I heard stories about the loaded canoes going UP Tom Flett Falls that I decided we could go DOWN it — and we did – nicely. But the indigenous culture no longer has those skills — or not like they did.
Moose Factory Island, it turned out, was virtually deserted this last weekend. For one thing, there was the funeral to the north of us. Also, CreeFest has been going on, in Cochrane, to the south of us. That was a big thing. Much singing and dancing. I actually was in Cochrane last week just before the CreeFest — getting the truck inspected for Canada Customs. But I came back here the day it started down there.
Theresa was here yesterday — politiking. She is running for Deputy Chief of the Mushkegowuk Council. (That is the consortium of Bands included in Treaty #9.) She had lost the election at Attawapiskat earlier this year. Somehow people there, in the Village, managed to exclude the out-of-town registered Band members from the voting. A locally more popular person was elected. In my exceptionally humble opinion the only hope of several of these villages lies precisely amongst those who have been able to leave the communities and who are able (and willing) to go back and forth freely. If the villages completely insulate themselves from the rest of the world they and the culture(s) they represent will cease to exist in a generation or so.
Some time after my last posting we got some chilly weather. Around here the temperature went into the low forties. I would not be at all surprised if somewhere out there in the bush — and not all that far north to us — there was a good frost. Then, more recently, we got temperatures in the high eighties. This morning we have a civilized 60 degrees.
Yesterday, the first Sunday of August, was the day for the annual Memorial Service. There were about 500 of us. The Service takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. People are clustered throughout the Cemetery in extended families nearby the graves of their relatives. They spread out in lawn chairs, blankets, umbrellas (if there is threat of rain). They don’t pack a picnic, but there is bottled water, pop, and chips. There always are many of the very young. Several of us were there this year for the first time.
There are lots of the old songs, readings, and prayers. And then there is a procession around the cemetery. Some persons are remembered, specifically, by name. Those certainly include the folks who have died in the last year or so. It’s all very much like All Saints Day — or All Souls Day — elsewhere. In fact we use the Collect from All Souls Day.
One might wonder why we do an All Souls day in the middle of the summer. For one thing, November 1 can be right in the middle of freeze-up. And freeze-up effectively isolates The Island. Families visit with each other especially this particular weekend. It is a long weekend. The first Monday in August is a holiday. In addition to that The Moose Cree Band schedules its Gathering of Our People to end with this (long) weekend. So, of all the times of the year, this weekend may be the one when more families are gathered than on any other weekend of the year.
So, Sunday afternoon is a good time for a solemn Service. We cancel the morning Service on this particular Sunday. There is too much coming and going in preparation leading up to the Memorial Service for anybody to think about anything else. This year we have had good weather for grass. For the last two or three weeks people have been hacking away at the grass. Most years there is a weed whacker at work right into the Processional. Also, this year a couple of very young little girls decided that the flowers at different graves were improperly distributed. That is, there were some graves with no flowers at all. The young citizens decided to fix that — much to the consternation of some older people — who thought the ‘minister’ should do something about it — which is how I heard about the matter. I told everybody to be thankful the youngsters are taking an *active* interest in the place. This has to be one of the very few places in North America where really young people know exactly what is going on, who are active in the care of the place, and who understand it as **their** place.
The Memorial Service is the largest Service of the year. Because it is held outside (weather permitting) we don’t get over crowded in The Old Church. This year there were two drops of rain in the middle of the Service — immediately following my homily. But the weather quickly changed its mind, and we didn’t miss a beat. In fact, the clouds (and breeze) kept the heat and bright sunlight moderated.