My July

July 29, 2008
Hello! Boozhoo!

For the past month I’ve been in Kingfisher Lake, Ontario, working at a reading camp in an Aboriginal community with two other counsellors from Southern Ontario. It was an absolutely amazing experience and pretty much indescribable, so naturally, I’m going to try to explain it!

Kingfisher is a community of about 500 people who are of the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, with their native language being Oji-Cree –of which I now know a few words!! It is one of the more financially well-off communities, which became evident with the number of car owners in town! Despite being only a couple kilometres across at most, everyone drove everywhere!! The main buildings in town were the Band Office (like a City Hall), the hotel, the elementary school (the students move away for high school), a mission house, church, nurses’ station, police station, radio station, and a small corner store (literally in the corner of town). Our house, the teacherage, was about a 5 minute walk from Hollywood, which was the main subdivision, so named because of the parties that happen there. This led to a number of jokes about going down “Pot Hole Alley” to buy movies or go to the chip stand “just this side of Hollywood”. The were quite a few houses that acted as chip stands, selling pop, chips, chocolate, ice cream, and slushies. The sugary diet was evident from the number of capped teeth the kids had, but it was also a great way to spend a couple dollars every now and again!

We ran the camp out of the school gym, although for one of the weeks we had to move into a classroom while a Jamboree was taking place in the gym. We had a morning camp for grades 3-5, and an afternoon camp for grades 6+, but couldn’t have any kids younger than grade 3, since English isn’t introduced into the school curriculum until then. It was a pretty normal camp, with games, sports, and crafts, but we also did reading and journaling, which the kids were surprisingly really into! The best activity turned out to be Literacy Bingo, where the campers had a Bingo card with different tasks written in each box. Every time they completed a task (such as reading a book to a counsellor or making a map or postcard) they would get that box ticked off. Completing a line, box, or X got the kids prizes or a night at the counsellors’ house! During the last week we had a cookie-baking night with two campers in our house, and then a movie night the next day. It was a treat for them because they got to come into the house (which is usually off limits), and a treat for us to spend some quality time with them and see some of our most mischievous kids on their best behaviour! We had some special days at camp as well, when one of the band councilors came in to do drumming with the kids one week and took them out canoeing the next. Because I’m female I didn’t get to do the drumming on the males-only drum that he brought in, but it was great to watch and interesting to participate in smudging beforehand. (Smudging is a cleansing ritual where sage, sweet grass, cedar and tobacco are burnt and you waft the smoke toward yourself with a feather – described as cleansing yourself beforehand just like showering!). We also had an elder come in and tell a legend in Oji-Cree, which the campers partially translated for us.

The community had a very small-town feel (naturally), and we had the opportunity to go to a number of events while we were there. We learned how to pluck geese (in Oji-Cree: nikha! Note: plucking wet or bloody feathers is near impossible!), helped at a fish fry, ate at least 40lbs of hamburgers and sausage after canoe and kayak racing on Canada Day, ran a teen dance, went for a day of canoeing and a night of fishing (and caught enough pickerel for a couple nights of dinner!).

The week of the Jamboree was one of the most interesting ones to get to know the community. The Jamboree was being held as a memorial for a family that had three children pass away the previous year. On Wednesday, a vigil was held for the son, who drowned near a rock by the beach. Many people from the community came down for a prayer and a song, and to send votives out onto the water. One of the photos appeared as if there was an angel in it. It was a moving ceremony, and the family seemed to appreciate the support they received in the community. For the next four nights there was a gospel jamboree held, where musicians came in from other communities and some from Kingfisher also played. My teammates and I were introduced to one of the younger musicians, Tim Cofield, who came up from the States (check out his music! www.myspace.com/cofield ). We ended up hanging out with him the second night of the jamboree, staying up past dawn for card playing, night swimming, our nightly poetry reading, and going out to watch the sun rise. Other nights we helped cut up fruits and make sandwiches, and were able to meet a number of the elder women that way.

My Kingfisher memories, both of my teammates/housemates and the community, are hard to describe in anything less than 20000 words. Living with my 2 teammates involved having poetry nights, Friendship Teammate Bonding Nights, games of “Catch Me”, and trips down pot hole alley! Hanging out with kids on our porch led to my learning how to do loon calls (and being teased when I was giddy afterward), everything being “Eww” to the older girls, learning about our 9 year-old campers smoking, doing drugs, and trying homebrew, our door being colourfully and interestingly drawn on (and later washed), and more “Kimama” jokes than can be counted.

All this and more is why I’ll definitely miss Kingfisher, Reserve 212, and the memories made there.

Migwetch, KFL! Thank you.