The Waters of the Chichichiwan
There were twelve of us who set out from base camp in Temagami, ranging in age from 16 to 21. We had all chosen to spend our summer in northern Ontario, braving the icy waters of the Albany River. Our journey began far to the south in Lake Osnaburgh and followed the river northwest until it emptied into the James Bay, a rounded basin sitting on the southern end of the Hudson Bay and fed by the waters of the Arctic Ocean. Along with our two leaders, we were paddling our canoes through this northern wilderness, ending our journey near what Google Maps calls “Indian Reserve No. 67,” just south of the Polar Bear Provincial Park.
I’d always been an outdoorsy kid, but after six summers of canoeing and navigating wilderness and whitewater, this trip was a new challenge: twenty-seven days on trail, bringing only what we could carry, our only connection to the rest of humanity being one emergency satellite phone which could call for a helicopter evacuation that was up to 18 hours away.
Traveling the waters of the Albany, or Chichichiwan in Cree, our canoes were brief splashes of red in a blue scene. We paddled dawn till dusk, through bugs and rain and wind and sun, through the powerful rush of churning whitewater, and around waterfalls. The river carried us swiftly down each curve, reflecting perfectly the cloudless dome of sky above. Separating sky and river was the rocky shore, leading to wild green forests that extended for miles. The powerful sun reflected off the water, glinting on each crest of the waves. The shoreline plants, highlighted in the afternoon light, developed a golden hue, concealing the occasional moose or black bear scavenging for food or getting a drink. Beyond the rocky shore and waving grass, deep in the woods, there were all manner of creatures, from clouds of mosquitoes and black flies, to squirrels and foxes, or even an eagle perched atop a solitary tree, protruding from the mass of the forest. It all came together to form the beautifully rugged northern country so rarely traveled.
Our journey led us down the river towards Fort Albany, Ontario — a small town situated near the banks of the James Bay. The only way in and out of Fort Albany was by small airplane, or on the winter-season road made from packed down snow and ice. But the main way to travel in and out was on the water. Getting there as we did required “putting-in” many miles upstream, and paddling in canoes that could navigate low water, narrows, and rocky bottoms.
At the end of our one thousand-kilometer canoe journey, I found myself in the house of Edmund Metatawabin, former chief of the Cree nation of Fort Albany. Ed was quiet but good-natured. He and his wife Joan had lived off this river their entire lives and knew it as well as any other member of the family. They invited us to join them for dinner.
We cooked and ate our meal together in the community center. On the menu for the evening was Canadian Goose, cranberry sauce, fried potatoes, and salad. We prepared the goose by cutting the head and neck off, removing the legs, and separating the organs, lungs and heart. After we roasted everything, Joan offered me the cooked goose heart, saying it was very healthy. It was savory, rich and chewy. We left the main rib cage, which they call the “boat” because of its shape, intact with all the meat on it. While the goose roasted we basted it with the rendered fat to add flavor. It was delicious.
Later, after we ate, we sat together. Ed shared a few jokes and then quietly began to tell us his story. In his lifetime, Ed endured innumerable injustices. The Cree were discriminated against in Canada in every way possible: housing, education, basic civil rights, and even their innate right to express themselves through their culture.
He told us about the forced conversion of Cree children to Christianity by residential schools. These schools had the sole purpose of alienating Ed from his Cree culture and making him conform to the European culture of the British. This had been going on across Canada for some time, yet people today often fail to realize how recent this was. Ed was born in 1948 — a time when residential schools ruled over reservations such as this one. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996, little more than 20 years ago. When Ed was a kid, his little sister died, and his family was forced to bury her in a Christian cemetery, using a Christian service. He and his family could not send off their beloved daughter using the native traditions that were so important to them. Having so many people still alive who have had to endure the horrors of a place practicing the “kill the Indian, save the child” mentality as Ed did, is a sobering thought for a world claiming to be so far removed from the iniquities of the past. Ed is now allowed to live with his family, speak his language, and participate in his culture along with his children and grandchildren. The world now grants permission for him and his people to be who they are, but they still face a lot of challenges.
In recent years, numerous water diversion projects have left the Albany River with a critically low water volume. In a decision largely made by officials living far from the Albany and the Cree who depend on it, the Canadian government diverted large amounts of water from the river for farms, irrigation, and hydroelectric power in large population centers nearby. Chiefs and elders from First Nation communities along the river repeatedly voiced their concerns, first on what they feared would happen as a result of the water diversion, and then as a call for aid when their concerns became a reality. At points, the river is now ten feet lower than it should be. When traveling down the Albany, the suddenly tall jagged banks and the wide expanses of riverbed rocks stretching out from the shore give a sense of how much water is missing; as water levels of the Albany have been depleted, so has the wildlife that depends on the water for life. The waters that are so essential to his people were taken away by others, without giving Ed and his people any say.
This all leads to the disconcerting truth that even today, indigenous people continue to be discriminated against in ways we as a society often cannot see. Many people, including myself, thought that the injustices facing indigenous communities were a thing of the past, but my experience of this past summer showed me it remains a thing of today. The discrimination and dehumanization of indigenous people continues to be no less potent, only sometimes less apparent.
After we slept in Fort Albany we went to the airport, and loaded our gear onto the two-propeller plane to begin our journey home. As we waited to leave this beautiful wild place, the cold wind drove us all close together and into the one room airport to be sheltered from the wind. As we took off, we looked down on the wild boreal forest below and saw a blue line turning and twisting through it like a snake, marking the route we had just traveled for the past month. As we got higher and higher, the wild lands faded away into a picturesque scene — the vast blue expanse of water and sky interrupted by a brief splash of forest green on each side, eventually converging into nothingness on the horizon.
We had been twenty-seven days on trail, and these were some of the best twenty-seven days of my life. I was amazed at how much you can learn about yourself and your trip-mates when traveling so far from home, in a pristine and wild landscape. I remember how hard the journey could be, pulling our canoes, waking up to freezing temperatures, splashing right into the frigid water, and paddling many miles in any temperature. I remember each time that we plunged into rapids, with water noisily churning around rocky outcroppings jutting out here or there, or each time we loaded our heavy gear onto our shoulders to portage it over slippery rocks. But most of all, I remember the rugged beauty of it all throughout the day and into the night, when the scene faded away from the glinting waters to a serene, resting landscape. While the river rushed on, lost in the dark waters many miles downstream, the intermittent rustling of birds or squirrels in the trees died down and the aurora borealis, cold, yet brilliantly vibrant, moved like waves in the sky, washing each bright star as if it were a pebble in the cosmic ocean above.
Our trip was over, but it stayed with me, and I pondered what it all meant. I had learned so much about the people, the land, the wilderness, and myself. I was awakened to the fact that there are still places in the world where the wrongdoings of past centuries are as alive as ever. The wilds of the world are closer than I expected, and so are the injustices.
