Tag: Indigenizing Pilgrimage

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Jellied Salads and Howling Coyotes

jellied salad McCord

I’m writing this from a tent behind the museum in McCord SK, listening to the howling of what sounds like a hundred coyotes. They’re making quite a joyous racket to the south and east of town. Our tents are pitched just behind the old railroad station which is the museum….I had a sponge bath in what must once have been the platform for departing passengers, since this is day three with no running water or electricity close for us. Wondered if someone on that platform could travel in time, what they would think of what they saw, and of this town.

McCord may not have a cafe or more than one main street, but it has palpable community spirit. They took us in and gave us a wonderful potluck supper, and then came out in numbers (50 people) for our presentation on the North West Mounted Police Patrol trail walk. Thelma Poirier, a poet from neighboring Glentworth, talked about how lovely it was to think of this as pilgrimage. Many others loved the slides Hugh showed from the 50s and 60s, people from this area, even one sitting in the audience.

After another day of walking (today only having to cross 4 barbed wire fences and not over 20 like yesterday), we actually got here early today. There was much less walking through waist high hay fields or over bog. Today much of our path was on a lovely dirt road and we had lunch in the lee of an old farmyard’s trees, while the grasshoppers blew around in biblical proportions.

People here, when I ask them on camera, are far too polite to say that they think we’re crazy to be walking. They even brought out the best: jellied salads, potato salad, sweet and sour meatballs, and Saskatoon pie for dessert! And sent us home with our lunch for tomorrow….

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Smudgings and Graveyards

country church

This is day two without electricity so I will keep it short. We’re camped right now beside a graveyard, at a small Greek Orthodox church on the NWMP trail. When he could see us far off, struggling through the heat on the final stretch of our 15 miles or so today, a man at the church rang the bell to call us home. Now it’s dark. The graveyard beside our tents overlooks the vast open prairie. There are little solar lights beside the graves, which is perhaps nice, but a touch freaky for us in the tents.

Today was also the day that we were sent off by two RCMP officers, one in serge, and then smudged at the Lakota First Nation as we walked through. Not only that, but we happened to arrive at lunch and were given a wonderful hot meal by them.

So much to say, but not now. After all those miles, many of them through thigh-high grasses and rough pasture (fell into a badger hole once), it’s time for sleep.

field walking

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Making Medicine Pouches

I love my aunt. She’s always been like a second mother to me. Especially these last years, when my own mother failed, my aunt, as so often, was forced to be the safe harbour in which our family finds shelter.

My aunt is surprising. She stays up late and at 88 years old, still likes to travel. If there are potatoes to dig, she just might go dig them. She’s tough – and still, in the ways that count, old fashioned.

But not old fashioned in many other ways. We did something together tonight that I never thought we would do. We made and tied medicine pouches, with elk leather and sweetgrass from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. The pouches are destined to be used as gifts here in Saskatchewan.

A big part of pilgrimage is learning how to receive the kindness of others. We haven’t even really begun our local Camino – this North West Mounted Police Patrol Trail pilgrimage – and so far there have already been meals, a donated vehicle, and beds to keep us sheltered until we put up our tents.

But part of pilgrimage is also recognizing what gifts we strangers bring with us to these lands we cross, and bringing physical evidence of such gifts with us. That is why I have the sweetgrass and the red string from the Mohawk, for some of the First Nations and Metis people we will meet here. I read recently that even though the Mohawk almost never came this far west, there was a group of them that overwintered, in the 19th century, in the Cypress Hills, where so many other First Nations gathered in the final, collapsing days of the bison hunting economy.

I wonder what those Mohawk saw, and thought. My aunt and I cut the leather and together wrapped up the sweetgrass. It felt like something blessed to be doing this with her, my aunt with whom so often I’ve gone to church and sung hymns as well. Someone with whom I hold this land, this prairie, in common. I held the pouch up to her nose: that smells so good, I said. Doesn’t it. That smell of leather.

She smiled. Or maybe what smells so good, she answered, is the sweetgrass.

Isabelle and the pouches

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From Here to There (and in between)

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It’s only a matter of a few hours, but oh what a difference those few hours can make!

sunset elevator 3 full tree

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Ten Days to the Trek

NWMP sign Chimney Coulee brighter

My North West Mounted Police Trail walk (AKA Sitting Bull Trail Walk, Lakota Trail pilgrimage, Metis Trail pilgrimage) begins very shortly, on July 17th! Our small group of pilgrims will be greeted at Wood Mountain (Lakota) First Nation with a smudging ceremony and a blessing to send us off. As well, there will be a Royal Canadian Mounted Police ceremony to send us off, as we begin our three week walk. If you would like to donate to help create the documentary of the walk, please see https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/walking-the-medicine-line#/story. We have already met our initial goal, but additional funds raised will go toward hiring a sound person and camera-person to make the documentary even better. Thank-you!

govt sign three

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One-third of the way there!

(see the 3-minute video clip here) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/walking-the-medicine-line#/story

With news of a recent tornado in south-west Manitoba, it seems even more important to ensure that we have an emergency vehicle along for our pilgrimage (most nights we’ll be tenting). It will also serve as our cookshack and toilet. We’ve raised $595 on Indiegogo….one third of the way there!

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Every Day a Bit More Real

Pine Cree Park 2014

While I plan conferences and teach pilgrimage classes here in Montreal, my colleague Hugh Henry has been doing the heavy lifting of contacting folks along our planned walking route in Saskatchewan. Some of the on-the-ground details remain to be determined. But the route is set, and those who would like to walk with us for a day, a few days, or longer, are encouraged to contact the SK Historical and Folklore Society, at http://shfs.ca/contact/   for more information and to register their names for the walk.

Today I met with two young film-makers who would like to be part of the project. Some of you may hear from them soon, as they are setting up a crowd-funding site.

In the meantime, here is the tentative itinerary:

NWMP Trail – Walk Schedule

July 17   arrive at Wood Mountain Post Prov. Historic Site  Accommodation: camp at Wood Mountain Regional Park (adjacent to Post – pool, showers, food service)  Activities: tour Wood Mountain Post; Rodeo and Ranch Museum; NWMP cemetery

July 18 trek ‘commissioning’ event in morning at Wood Mountain Post; walk through W. M. First Nation to Orthodox church south of Glentworth  distance: est 13 miles/21 km  Accommodation: tenting at church yard; hotel in Glentworth (food service)  Bike Hwy 18 – 19 mi./29 km to Glentworth

July 19 from church to McCord     distance: est. 12 mi /19 km Accommodation: tenting at campground next to McCord museum (store and service station in town)  Bike Hwy 18 – 8 mi./13 km to McCord

July 20 from McCord to Mankota   distance: est. 11 mi /17.5 km Accommodation: hotel in Mankota. or tenting in town; showersOther events: public presentation about history of NWMP Trail markers; reconsidering the history  Bike Hwy 18 – 11 mi. to Mankota

July 21 from Mankota to Walker farmyard     distance: est. 13 mi / 21 k Accommodation: tenting in Walker farmyard  Bike Hwy 18 – 41mi. to Val Marie

July 22 from Walker farm to farm at corner of Hwy 18, E of Val Marie. distance: est. 14 mi / 22.5 km Accommodation: tenting in farmyard    

 July 23 from farm to Val Marie. distance: est. 9 mi / 14 km  Accommodation: Val Marie hotel / convent / The Crossing, campground in town  

 July 24 rest day in Val Marie Activities – visit Grasslands N.P. interpretive centre; Prairie Wind and Silver Sage; etc. Program in evening – presentations at Prairie Wind & Silver Sage (Museum); campfire sing-along Note: `Sleep under the Stars` event at Grasslands National Park on July 25.

 July 25 from Val Marie to Range 15/16 road.       distance: est. 13 mi /21 km Accommodation: tenting in abandoned farmyard

 July 26 from Range 15/16 road to Jensen family ranch. distance: est. 13 mi /21 km Accommodation: tenting in Jensen Ranch yard

 July 27 from Jensen Ranch along Frenchman; detour to Bible Camp. distance: est. 8 mi / 13 km Accommodation: Riverview Bible Camp on Hwy #37, south of Frenchman (toilets, showers, campfire)

July 28 from Bible Camp to Gronhovd farm. distance: est. 13 mi / 21 k Accommodation: tenting in Gronhovd yard

July 29 Gronhovd farm to Wig farm (?) along Frenchman river. distance: est. 13 mi / 21 kmAccommodation: tenting at farmyard  

July 30 Wig farm (?) to Chimney Coulee. distance: est. 14 mi / 22.5 km Accommodation: tenting at Chimney Coulee  

 July 31 Chimney Coulee to Eastend. distance: est. 3.5 mi / 5 km Accommodation: Cypress Hotel, Riverview Motel, B&Bs, camp at Pine Cree Reg. Park

August 1 Rest day in Eastend SHFS-sponsored field trips and presentations (archaeology, geology, paleontology, local history, etc.). Communal supper (café or catered) Accommodations: hotel, motel, B&B, Park

Aug. 2  from Eastend to Ravenscrag corner, Hwy 13. distance: est. 13 mi /21 km  Accommodation: tenting in Arnal farmyard

Aug. 3  from Ravenscrag corner to farm near Robsart. distance: est. 11 mi /18 km  Accommodation: tenting in farmyard near Robsart

Aug. 4  from Robsart to Cypress Lake. distance: est. 15 mi / 24 km Accommodation: tenting at Cypress Lake (no facilities)

Aug. 5             morning at Lake; Cypress Lake to Brost Ranch distance: est. 6 mi / 9.5 km Accommodation: tenting at Clint Brost ranch.     NWMP patrol station (Cottonwood Coulee ?)

Aug. 6  Brost ranch to Parsonage Ranch. distance: est. 14 mi / 22.5 km Accommodation: tent at Parsonage Ranch

Aug. 7   Parsonage Ranch to Ft. Walsh distance: est. 5 mi / 8 km Event: welcoming celebration

 *Home*

 

Notes

  1. Walkers are responsible for providing all of their personal needs. A support vehicle will follow walkers to carry food, bedding and other supplies. Note the towns passed along the route and the possibility of booking motel or related accommodations. (On your own for this.)
  1. Suggested bike route at beginning of trek is on paved Hwy and parallels the NWMP Trail. There is the opportunity to join walkers during stops at Wood Mountain, McCord, Mankota or Val Marie. Daily travel distances and pace to be determined by individual bikers.
  1. There may be opportunities to trace the Trail on horseback, along dirt roads or through pastures. Details on dates and locations will be determined after landowners have been consulted, and may be affected by weather events.
  1. The daily walk schedule may be affected by weather, so distances and stops are approximate. Also, the number of walkers able to access cultivated fields may be restricted by landowners.

NWMPT map SHFS

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A Stranger to These Parts

Porter arrival Sudbury

‘I can’t believe you almost stole that scarf,’ the woman in the airplane seat across from me says to an older woman who must be her mother. The two chortle. They like each other, clearly. ‘Well, it just got stuck on the end of my purse,’ the mother laughs back. ‘Is it my fault it was hanging there? I didn’t even see it until the alarm went off!’ She turns, maybe just a bit flirtatious with the giddiness of a weekend away in the big city with her daughter. “Look at me – I’m hardly the type!”

The cabin crew dim the lights shortly after our take off to Sudbury. How miraculous it is to hang thousands of feet above a huge city at night. To watch the glow of human achievement stretch away to every horizon in magnificent strings and squares of bright fires. However snide we Montrealers might sometimes be about Toronto, how impressive is this city on the edge of the Great Lake, how vast a plain of light, of movement and life. And how strange to be a descendent of savannah dwellers, not barefoot and on the ground but suit-jacketed and seat-belted and in the air, climbing Jacob’s ladder like the angels he only dreamt about. Listening to the turboprops whistle, eating almonds, watching from this incredible vantage point I realize that, when you think about it at all, this is so new in human history that however banal it might sometimes feel, we are still among the first generations to be privileged to experience it.

The root meaning of ‘pilgrim’ is stranger, or foreigner. Not all strangers are pilgrims, perhaps. But I think all pilgrims must in some way be foreigners. And to hang in the air at night, above a city, watching the lights….? That is foreign indeed.

It is perhaps because I am a stranger that I noticed the man who now sits in the seat three rows back. Nervous hands, rolling his thumbs against his fingers as they checked out his boarding pass, walking awkwardly, so tall his head, even bowed, slid along the ceiling of the cramped cabin. Unusual black pants and boots. Or the woman one row up and to the right, in a business-jacket, like me a bit unkempt, who had a resume out in the lounge, and is now tapping it absent-mindedly with her pen while looking out the window. An academic, almost certainly, on her way to an interview. Or the child, ten or eleven maybe, trying to take up as little space as possible, perhaps on her way to meet a divorced parent with weekend parenting rights. So much life and drama in such a small metal tube. Life at 8,000 feet and climbing.

There is one light in particular that catches my eye with its brightness and unusual movement. It takes me a minute to realize that it is not, like all the others, following one of the lines that demarcate streets and highways. The way it’s crossing the city, it must, like us, be in the air. Another plane, below us? I watch it move sideways to our path. And then, abruptly, it stops. What?

The flight attendant interrupts my reverie. Your drink? she says. But it’s not a question. I realize that she must have memorized the orders of all twenty or so people on the plane, without paper or pad. I take the glass, turn back to the view. The bright light is still there, still immobilized. Did I miss something? Planes don’t just stop, and there’s no dark strip of a runway. A helicopter, maybe? How strange.

‘So, do you live in Sudbury?’ asks the older woman beside me, when we land and it’s time to get off.

‘No,’ I smile back. ‘Just visiting.’

‘Oh, I thought so,’ she says. ‘A stranger to these parts.’

Toronto from the air

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Soon Enough

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The few lights that are on in my apartment this January 1 evening don’t so much illuminate it as provide a counterpoint to the darkness. There are candles here and there, gusts of winter wind at the door. We are at the change of years, a liminal moment, a threshold time. Folks don’t go out much today. Everyone prefers to stay at home with soup, maybe a movie. It’s quiet on my street. My boots, recently repaired, sit at the door. Soon enough, we tell ourselves.

This year will be, I hope, a good year for pilgrimage. I’ve heard from Concordia University that the Vieux Montreal – Kahnawake student walk that’s part of our Department’s summer-term class on Pilgrimage will most likely be accepted for what’s called the “FundOne” initiative. That means that Concordia will advertise our 34-km pilgrimage for crowd funding, to help pay the costs of the students. Old Montreal is so close to the Mohawk territory, and yet so far away. If you’d like to contribute something to help this worthwhile walk, there will be a chance!

Our own conference will take place May 8-9 at Concordia, under the title “Indigenizing Pilgrimage”. This doesn’t mean only Aboriginal and First People’s pilgrimage, although it certainly includes that. It will be about ALL the ways we can, and should, from Sussex to Saskatchewan, connect our intentional, transformative journey to the actual physical places through which we move. Sara and Christine and I managed to get both of the keynote speakers we had dreamt of having – Raymond Aldred, a Treaty Eight Cree and professor in Calgary, and Simon Coleman, a pioneer pilgrimage scholar and professor at the U of T. It will be a great event.

And in July, if all goes well, I will be walking, together with Hugh Henry of the SK History and Folklore Society, and some – how many? – others, 300 km across the southern plains and low hills of Saskatchewan, tracing with our feet the North West Mounted Police Trail. Raymond Aldred has said of the First Nations’ need to recover their past that “when you have no history you have no future.” I am hoping that it is equally true of those of us who are from settler stock, that when we re-visit, re-walk, and remember our past in a new way, particularly by remembering the generations of ill treatment of First Peoples, we might also re-imagine and re-create our future together in new ways as well.

There is another gust of wind at the door. It is winter in Canada/Turtle Island, but that doesn’t keep the pilgrimages from beginning. I’m feeling the itch to walk.