Ch. 2: Thunder Bay
www.frontiercollege.ca
After those two chaotic months I moved onto what I'm doing now, working for Frontier College. I am a counsellor with the Lieutenant Governor's Aboriginal Literacy Camps, where I am helping to implement camp programs on two reserves. My teammates are Lauren McWhinnie, a 20 year old Western student from Sudbury, and Orion Keresztesi, a soon-to-be-21 year old Torontonian who's studying at Dalhousie. We get along really well, and balance each other out nicely.
We had our training in Thunder Bay at Lakehead University. There were many games practiced, stories read, and presentations given during the day, followed by even more buffets (which I somehow managed to eat after all the buffets with Chapman). At night quite a few of us would go out on the town in Thunder Bay, although never too late, since our mornings started around 8am!! On the last night my purse was stolen - so if anyone sees my ID walking around Ontario, please kindly let them know that I'd like it returned! (*Note: Since then, my driver's license has been returned, but haven't heard about anything else!)
Ch. 3: Kingfisher Lake
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=kingfisher+lake+indian+reserve+1+ontario&sll=53.062263,-89.787827&sspn=0.217459,0.580215&ie=UTF8&ll=53.023819,-89.837093&spn=0.027207,0.072527&z=14
We left Thunder Bay via Wasaya airlines - a northern airplane company where we were on a small charter plane that fit about 20 people. Our team was the second of three teams to be dropped off. The flight up was gorgeous, with views of the trees, lakes, and rivers below. When we arrived at our location, Kingfisher, we were picked up by one of the town elders, who we assumed to be our community liaison, Sonny. We asked if that was his name, and he nodded, but we soon found out that he had no idea what was going on, where we were supposed to be dropped off, or even how to speak much English. We communicated with him that we needed to get to Sonny's house, and we were then turned over to him. Sonny is simply amazing - he was a huge help, showing us around town on Monday, and then bringing us to peek in at the Community Center, where a meeting was about to be held, where they were discussing the issue of drug abuse in the community, with the possibility of implementing a community curfew. Orion asked if we could stay, and we were warned that it would be mostly in Ojicree (the language here is a combination of Ojibway and Cree), with only a few words of English. We decided to stay anyway, and despite the fact that the meeting lasted over 4 hours it was definitely worth attending. The highlights were written up in both English and Ojicree, so we were able to read through what was said, and after the meeting we all got chicken! No concrete solutions came from the meeting, although many important issues were raised, and those in attendance seemed glad for the discussion, as it had been a long time since the last meeting had been held.
Following the meeting we went down to a field (as in grassy area, not farm land) behind the school, where we were able to join in on some goose plucking in one of the tipis on the reserve (no, people don't live in tipis, there's just a few large ones around for cooking). Apparently the key is to pull out large feathers one at a time and pluck in small handfuls for the down. Now when it's your turn to pluck geese you'll know! Along with plucking we got some porridge with the drippings from the goose in it - soo good! Somewhere during the day we did some "grocery shopping". The quotation marks are there for a reason. There is very little selection, and everything was $1-$3 more expensive than would be expected. That might not seem like much, but when the normal price of something is only $1-$3, the markup seems huge. Cheese and meat were just out of the question. We decided that any meat we get would have to be given to us.
That was Monday. Tuesday was Canada Day, and we made our way over to the beach for some kayak and canoe races. Lauren and I had a few collisions in our kayak races, and then each joined boats with an elders for the mixed gender canoe races. Orion won all of his races, although none of us qualified for the prizes at the end of the day. We ran some games with the younger kids and played beach volleyball with a soccer ball with some of the older kids. The day ended back at the field by the tipi, where I'm pretty sure each of us ate enough meat to feed a nation for a day. Hamburgers, sausages (called "smokies") and then steak, along with mashed potatoes and corn & peas made sure that we didn't go hungry. Wednesday was full of playing games with kids, postering the town for registration, and planning for camp. While Orion made dinner, Lauren and I baked cookies to use for registration. Just when we thought we were done for the day and might have an early night we were asked to go supervise a floor hockey game in the school gym. Of course, we agreed, and it was a great opportunity to meet some of the older youth!
Today was mostly filled by registration. We set up at 9am, and went until 5pm. Mary Mamakwa, who is always eager to have us help out with things, grabbed Lauren and Kevin (one of the students who will be helping us this summer) to clean the gym floor. Soon after they returned Orion and I were asked to come help with a fish fry. The fish was wonderful, although at one point there was so much smoke that tears were streaming down my face!! It was worth it for the free food!!
Anytime we step outside becomes work time. Despite the fact we don't start camp until Monday, we are like 3 pied pipers, with a trail of children everywhere we go. It's been incredibly fun, but really exhausting. On that note, I think we're going to check out a baseball game, and then supervise floor hockey later on.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Intro and Toronto
As you might be aware, I started sending email updates out, but have since found that I don't actually end up doing this. Instead, I'm starting a blog where I'll post about my adventures in Toronto, Northern Ontario, and England!
These first two posts will just be copies of my first email update, but then new things will be posted! The emails were sent July 3rd, to put that in context!!
Ch. 1: Toronto
Living in the Aparliament - Apartment on Parliament!
After finishing second year at McMaster I moved to Toronto for 2 months, where I was a tour manager with Chapman Cultural Tours. Every week I brought a grade 8 class or two up to Ottawa (usually), where I facilitated their graduation trip. It was tiring, but really fun! However, after that I feel like I can never eat another buffet dinner again - especially not a Chinese buffet. One of the highlights of these trips was that I got to see my brother Eric quite a bit. I think I saw him more in 2 months than I had in the previous 2 years! One of my last weekends I stayed in Ottawa and ran the Relay for Life with his team. It was an amazing night, and the Bytown Boys - made up mostly of reservists that Eric worked with and some of their siblings/significant others - ended up winning the prize for the most laps in total throughout the night, despite some tough competition from a track team. As a team we ran a total of approximately 190 km total from 8pm until 8am, with one person on the track at all times, even when a giant storm broke out and we were the only ones on the track!
When I was actually in Toronto I was working Saturday nights at a club downtown, called Guvernment, and then the following Sunday mornings at an Italian restaurant called Piccolo. Guvernment is only about a half hour walk from my house, so I'd often meet up with some of the girls I work with and walk down with them, so I was staying safe late at night in downtown Toronto! After a few hours of sleep I'd get up for Piccolo - thank goodness it was only about a 2 minute walk around the corner or else I never would have made it on time!!
These first two posts will just be copies of my first email update, but then new things will be posted! The emails were sent July 3rd, to put that in context!!
Ch. 1: Toronto
Living in the Aparliament - Apartment on Parliament!
After finishing second year at McMaster I moved to Toronto for 2 months, where I was a tour manager with Chapman Cultural Tours. Every week I brought a grade 8 class or two up to Ottawa (usually), where I facilitated their graduation trip. It was tiring, but really fun! However, after that I feel like I can never eat another buffet dinner again - especially not a Chinese buffet. One of the highlights of these trips was that I got to see my brother Eric quite a bit. I think I saw him more in 2 months than I had in the previous 2 years! One of my last weekends I stayed in Ottawa and ran the Relay for Life with his team. It was an amazing night, and the Bytown Boys - made up mostly of reservists that Eric worked with and some of their siblings/significant others - ended up winning the prize for the most laps in total throughout the night, despite some tough competition from a track team. As a team we ran a total of approximately 190 km total from 8pm until 8am, with one person on the track at all times, even when a giant storm broke out and we were the only ones on the track!
When I was actually in Toronto I was working Saturday nights at a club downtown, called Guvernment, and then the following Sunday mornings at an Italian restaurant called Piccolo. Guvernment is only about a half hour walk from my house, so I'd often meet up with some of the girls I work with and walk down with them, so I was staying safe late at night in downtown Toronto! After a few hours of sleep I'd get up for Piccolo - thank goodness it was only about a 2 minute walk around the corner or else I never would have made it on time!!
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