Under a Northern Sky

Tonight is my last night living in Rocky Lane for the summer. I already know I am going to miss being up here a lot. It has been a great privilege to be able to live in Beaver First Nation for these 3 months and I want to thank the people of BFN for their friendship and hospitality and for all of the many things they have taken the time so share with me. I hope that I will return one day.

One of my favourite things about living up here is that the sky is ever changing. The sunsets, the storms, and the smoke from the forest fires create so many beautiful effects. I ended up with a lot of photos of the sky and I thought I would close my blog by sharing some of them with you. Thanks for reading.

Engaging Norther (Northern Lights Edition)

 

Heading North

Greetings from Rocky Lane.

Time has been flying by and a lot has been happening.

Firstly I was invited to do some housesitting for a family who were going away on a holiday. A lot of people in Beaver are taking trips south to go to the cities, the mountains or down to British Columbia. After living in the Firehall for a couple of months it was nice to spend time in a more homely environment. Having access to reliable internet and a laundry definitely felt luxurious.

Our work has been picking up. Part of our project is to look at opportunities related to Beavers agricultural potential. Last week we went on a tour with Nevada who has the important job of working on land and consultation issues. Nevada showed us some of the fields that were being leased by farmers from off reserve. She also showed us some spots for berry picking and we spent a while picking wild raspberries and saskatoons. There were droppings and markings on the trees which showed that bears also knew about the spots.

Beaver Farm Land

This last weekend Nisha, Rachel (a fellow at Chateh), Janelle (Director of Engage North) and I went on a camping trip to the North West Territories. We camped at a site that was in Twin Falls Territorial Park near some really nice waterfalls on Hay River. As we were getting ready for bed around midnight the NWT started to put on a show for us. What started as a slight glimmering movement in the sky turned into a 2.5 hour full sky light show. I have only ever seen Aurora a couple of times (once in Edmonton and once in Dunedin) and we hadn’t expected to see much at this time of year as it doesn’t really get dark enough so it was a really magical experience. It was also helped by the fact we were so far from any major light sources so the only light pollution was the odd passing car.

My attempt to photograph the Aurora (Next time I will find a long exposure app)

The following day we went up to Hay River which currently holds the title for my favourite small community in Canada. Hay river sits at the point where the river meets Great Slave Lake. To say that Great Slave Lake is massive would be an understatement. It is the 8^th largest in the world and for you kiwis following at home it is around 44 times the area of Lake Taupo. We stopped at a little market that was selling Fish and Chips with the fish freshly caught from the lake. There was also a lot of vegetables and crafts for sale. We then went for a swim in lake, there was the odd float plane flying overhead and on the horizon I could see smoke from the forest fires that I mentioned in my last post.

Hay River transportation

Across the river from Hay River township is K’atlodeeche first nation and while we were visiting there was a massive hand games tournament. Hand games have been played for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, and involve a team hiding small objects in their hands and trying to deceive the other team from guessing which hand. Drumming and dancing are used to add to the confusion. This video: (which is not mine) gives a pretty good idea of how the hand games work.   The drumming creates an effect which makes it feel like the building has a pulse and is alive.

Waterfall on Hay River

Back in Beaver this week there have been both water outages and power outages and more smoke from the fires further north. I only have a few more days in Beaver and already know I am going to miss being up here a great deal.

Just add water

Greetings from Rocky Lane!

NWT fires

So the temperature this week has been well over 30 degrees every day. As I write this Northern Alberta is under a humidex warning that the temperature could hit 40 degrees. There is also a severe storm warning issued with the potential for heavy hail and strong winds. Storm warnings bring with them the threat of forest fires (a threat that is made more real by the smoky skies from fires in the North-west territories a few hundred km to the North.

Smoky Skies

All of this naturally makes me think about water. Water in Beaver First Nation is no simple thing. There are no pipes connecting all of the houses on the reserves. Instead all of the water is taken from a local river, run through a water treatment station, and delivered by truck out to every household in the community. Water is also delivered to community buildings such as the School and health centre. I have been told that the water tank for the school holds 16 truckloads of water.

Water Truck

It is one thing to make water deliveries around the community in summer, but I imagine quite another to do water deliveries in mid-winter when it is -30 degrees and the roads are icy. When I asked about winter deliveries, the driver I was talking to just pointed to his ice axe on the side of his truck for breaking the ice to pump the water.

The possibility of water shortages is exacerbated by the possibility of the loss of power. Over the past two months we have had a few power cuts, again thankfully they were short in duration (less than two hours) but there are stories about a 17 hour power cut that occurred last winter. Power cuts of course take out the power for water pumps as well. Add to that the somewhat sporadic cell reception up here and you can see that the issues could easily compound.

Thankfully the community is both well organised in relation to water and good at checking in on one another. My experience up here has certainly made me reconsider how much I take water for granted when I turn on the tap in Calgary.

In addition to work I have been doing a few jobs in the community. I got asked to build a garden at the day care centre, I thought that they meant in existing planters like what I have done at the health centre, but it turned out they wanted me to construct the planter as well.  Thankfully I got help from one of the guys in the community who is an excellent builder (he built the apartment that Nisha and I live in).

Garden Before

Garden After

Aboriginal Day: a model for Matariki?

Greetings from Rocky Lane,

As well as being the longest day, Saturday was also Aboriginal day. Rocky lane held its event on Friday at the school and I was excited to go along. The school has about 160 children from Grades 1 – 12. On Aboriginal day many elders and people from the community came to the school to share their knowledge and tell their stories. The children spent the whole day rotating between classrooms learning skills from the elders. These included things like beadcraft, storytelling, language, dreamcatcher making, traditional games, hunting, trapping, curing meat and traditional use of plants.

Moose and duck meat

Burning Sweetgrass

In addition to the rotation through the classrooms there was a classroom that had been set up as a museum. Apparently it is only like that for two weeks a year and the children from the school usually show visitors around. The artifacts are all related to local history and all of the information about the artifacts is written up by the school students.

 

Beadwork in the Museum Room

Wolf Pelt

There was also a lot of music drumming and dancing. In fact there was so much excitement for round dancing that at one stage there was pretty much a stampede.

I really liked the sharing of knowledge that took place on aboriginal day. The school has a mixture of aboriginal and non-aboriginal children but they were all excited to learn from the elders who were teaching and to get involved in the activities and dancing.

I am not naive enough to expect that the wonderful experience I had at Rocky Lane is repeated everywhere in Canada on Aboriginal day, but nevertheless it was very exciting to be involved, and the excitement in the Rocky Lane students was infectious.

Coming from New Zealand there is not really an occasion that creates these sorts of opportunities for exchanging of knowledge. Waitangi day (our national day) tends to be very political and often quite divisive. I think the closest we have is probably Matariki (Maori New Year). It would be really cool to see Matariki become a bigger event in New Zealand and be used to have a more positive dialog about the dynamic between indigenous and settler cultures.

On Aboriginal day itself I spent some time with Kenzie (an Engage North Fellow in Dene Tha) and some friend of hers who live near me at Rocky Lane. In the evening we went to fireworks in Fort Vermilion. The prospect of fireworks on the longest day was pretty preposterous. The fireworks were set off at 10.30 pm with the sun still above the horizon. After that we went down to the Peace River in Fort Vermilion to watch the sunset. Hopefully the following photos give an idea of how long the days are this far north.

Fireworks (10.30pm)

Peace River (11pm)

Field at Midnight

2.30am (Still not dark)

The Best Touch Rugby Team in Northern Alberta…

Greetings from Rocky Lane,

So much has happened in the last couple of weeks. One thing about being so far north is that people really appreciate the long summer days and the warmth. I think I will break this post into two parts, one more general and one about aboriginal day.

Band Meeting – Everyone was there

Firstly on the work front, we have been moving forward. Nisha and I attended a Band meeting where we introduced ourselves to a lot of the members of the nation. Meeting with the whole band are not that common, and band members really engaged with the discussions even though the meeting lasted over 4 hours on a hot summer day.

One of the challenges with our work has been that the Band Manager was replaced at around the time we started our fellowship. The new manager is just getting started and finding his feet. In the last few days he has asked for my help in getting his office sorted. This has been unbelievably useful as in sorting through his files I have got access to a lot of information on the companies that have been run through Beaver in the past as well as some community planning that has already been done. I am yet to sort through it in detail but I think it will be very useful for both Nisha and I.

The Forks, where the fishing competition took place.

Nisha and I also attended the father’s day celebrations at a nearby river. There was a fishing competition, Barbecue, and sports and games. I got invited to join a team for horseshoes (which I unsurprisingly I did not excel at). I was also asked to call the Bingo which lead to some teasing from a few of the elders (including one who jokingly tried to run me over with her vehicle and then called concerned the next day because she was worried she had injured me!) Apparently my Bingo calling skills will be in high demand throughout the summer.

I also got to share a little bit of Kiwi culture with some of the local kids. There is a program up here called Alberta Future Leaders which is a summer program run by university students to encourage kids in artistic and sporting pursuits and also to attend various camps and youth events. They invited me to come and do a touch rugby program. Because the older kids were getting ready for their end of year exams it was mostly the younger ones who came to try and play. Most of them had never seen rugby played so we did some passing drills to begin with (to get rid of the American football quarterback style passing). It was really neat to see how quickly they picked up the game and were starting to develop all sorts of tactics (though I had to say that putting one person with the ball in the middle of a huddle so they couldn’t be touched and moving down the field was probably not within the rules). Hopefully I will get invited back to do some more sessions later in the summer. As it stands I am pretty sure the Rocky Lane touch rugby team is the best in Northern Alberta.

In wildlife news I finally saw my first Beaver, it was swimming in the river one night while we were playing baseball, I also saw another young bear when I was out for a drive. Apparently there have been bears seen in the last few days in a few spots within a few hundred metres from where I live. It is one thing to generally know that there are bears around, it is another thing to specifically have members of the community tell you where they have seen them and that I should go out walking.  With that in mind I hope I can follow Nisha’s advice.

Advice from Nisha

 

 

Baseball (ok softball), Bingo and Bugs…

Greetings from Rocky Lane!

Over the last week or so we have continued to get more involved in the community and community events.

Firstly I have been  involved in the regular weekly softball game. There weren’t enough people for two full teams so we played a version that resembled non-stop cricket (a reference that will help my New Zealand readers and confuse my Canadian ones). The game alternates between the two communities, last week we played at Childs Lake in a beautiful spot near the river. This week we are playing at the school here in Rocky Lane.

The other big event that we went to last week was lunch and bingo with the elders. While not all of the community elders were there it was nice to meet and talk with about 10 of the elders in the community. Apparently I look like a trustworthy sort of person because I also got asked to call the bingo.

Calling the Bingo

We have also been starting to research some of the business opportunities the community would like us to look at. Nisha has been very patient in teaching me business planning techniques. For Nisha this sort of planning is very obvious and mundane but I appreciate the clarity that having a good business framework gives us in our research and discussions we have with people in the community.

For myself as much as for the community I have been doing some research into the history of Treaty 8 and the treaty claims process in this part of Canada. I will likely write a bit more about this in the future once I have had a chance to develop my thoughts a little further and talk to some of the community members up here.

I have been enjoying the long evenings and doing some weeding in the community gardens behind the community centre. There are some lovely raised beds and I am hoping to get some plants growing over the summer and give some food to the elders later in the summer. The downside of gardening up here in the evenings (or doing pretty much anything outside)  is that you get swarmed by mosquitos. I have tried a few repellents but am still working on finding one that is really effective. Maybe next year Engage North can get an insect repellent company as a sponsor.

Nisha and I have also had a chance to catch up with Kenzie and Rachel who are doing summer projects in Dene Tha First Nation. The four of us are hoping to go out to the Rodeo on Saturday. If you are interested in what the other fellows are getting up to the link to all our blogs is here: http://engagenorth.ualberta.ca/en/FellowshipProgram/FellowsBlogs.aspx

 

Pleasant Surprises

Greetings from Rocky Lane.

We arrived last Tuesday after a largely uneventful drive up from Edmonton (We did see a mother bear with two cubs by the side of the road). It turned out there were some (pleasant) surprises in store for us.

Our home, the Firehall

Firstly our accommodation for the summer, we are living in an apartment which has recently been constructed in the firehall. This means we are attached to a large garage, yes with its very own fire truck. We have been told the fire truck is out of order, but it still has a lot of firefighting equipment attached to it. Sadly there is no pole in this firehall but that is really the only thing that is missing.

 

The Van

Secondly our transport. On arrival we were given the keys to massive 14 seater van. It is certainly not the most efficient vehicle around (and we have been told we will eventually have access to a different one) but it has made getting around up here a lot more manageable.

Thirdly is the people. We have spent a couple of days working at the community centre, which has allowed us to get to know some of the people who are coming and going. We have also been going for walks around the community to get our bearings. I have been teaching Nisha the intricate details of the “Country Wave”. Every person who drives past us while we are walking gives us a friendly wave (only sometimes accompanied by a confused look of “who are those people?”). We are also very grateful to the members of the community who have been working to renovate our accommodation.

Peace River at Fort Vermilion

Finally is the sky, for my kiwi readers, the sky here is simply much bigger than it is in New Zealand. The sky is also constantly changing, I think neither my descriptions, nor my photos can really do it justice, but suffice to say that when I am out and about I always have one eye on the sky. I also have plenty of time to appreciate it, as I am typing this it is 11.15pm and there is still enough light in the sky that I could happily walk around outside without a flashlight.

Fear not dear reader, we are also starting to get to work on the project that brought us up here. We are starting to get ideas of what the projects we will be working on in the community, and we are meeting with community elders for lunch (and Bingo) on Friday.

Training Complete

Bear Safety Training,

Gun Safety Training,

Sub-Zero Camping,

Throat Singing.

Apparently these are the skills required by an Engage North Fellow. For the last week and a half we have been preparing in Edmonton for just over three months living in northern communities. There are seven Engage North fellows this summer. Three are going to Pangnirtung in Nunavut, two are going to Dene Tha first Nation in Northern Alberta, and two of us are going to Rocky Lane in Beaver First Nation.

It was a real honour to be selected for the Engage North fellowship, and I have really enjoyed getting to know the other students in the program. There is a really diverse range of backgrounds including Nutrition, Engineering, Business, Law, Politics, Graphic Design, Geography, Psychology, English and Education.

The project Nisha and I are working with the community on is looking at possible uses for a block of land, and assessing the feasibility of those uses.

I am excited to have the chance to live at Rocky Lane and to be involved in the community there. Living in such a remote area I am also hoping to see a lot of wildlife which I will be listing in the menu to the right of this post.

Tomorrow morning we leave Edmonton to drive 9 hours north. I will regularly be updating my blog over the next few months, and will also provide links to the other fellow’s blogs as they get set up.