Thirteenth Blog

Sunrise outside my unit

I have been thinking about writing a blog about many problems residents of Shamattawa First Nations community face ever since the unfolding of events at Attawapiskat First Nations.

Just like most Canadians who have never experienced life in the reserves I was under the impression that the government of Canada took good care of the first nation communities and that the core of the problems laid with mismanagement on parts of the local chiefs and counsels. I must say that even after living here for more than a year I was still under the same false impression that members of the community receive hefty allowances to live a pretty comfortable life. But after a couple of days of research I was shocked to find out how short changed the locals really are, and still cant believe the amount of money they have to survive on in this harsh environment.

A storage in the community, 3:45pm

I talked to some of my local friends and asked them about average income and cost of living in this community. What I have found is astonishing. I am pretty sure many of you, my non-First Nation friends, will feel the same after reading this blog.

Here are some of the facts I manged to gather. I must say that some of the numbers might not be exact since I decided to be very conservative and take the minimum for costs and expenses and maximum numbers for income and government subsidies.


Social Assistance (Welfare cheque):
   
   $371 per adult per month

   $646 per child over the age of 6 per month

   $663 per child under the age of 6 per month

I was told those who are disabled receive a slightly higher rate which I am sure can not be higher by a few percents of the above sum.

Basic Expenses

$100 per month, house maintenance fee

$100 minimum per month, hydro bill (could be much more depending on the number of appliances)

$60 per month, for a land phone line with a Canada wide long distance plan

$80-$120 per month, for satellite TV (if they chose to subscribe)

$1000 per month, for fuel for heating ( Many in the community simply cant afford this fee and cut woods to keep warm!)

I would like to remind you that it gets pretty cold up here with typical low of about -30 for many winter nights. The houses that I have visited are poorly insulated or not insulated at all which can increase the amount of wood needed to keep the place warm. Not to forget the health hazards associated with burning woods in an indoor environment with almost non-existing ventilation.

Class Party

Running Water
There are houses without running water up here as well. Houses that not only don’t have running water but not toilets either so these people have to either head out in the freezing cold or have to use buckets!

Poor Quality of Tap Water
The other major issue is the poor quality of running water in this community. I have been here for more than a year and still can not bring myself to drinking the water. I take water from a spring which is about 3-4km away from the reserve on a pretty rough dirt road which is often inaccessible due to either mud or snow. There is however the option of buying water but that could cost you a lot of money up here. To refill a 20L container we have to pay $9. If you didn’t have a container, it could cost from $17-$20. Bottles of water can cost up to $3 per half a litre.

Class Party

Overcrowded Housing
Due to whatever reason, I wont speculate the supposedly financial rewards of having many children, houses are extremely overcrowded. It is quite normal to have families of more than 8 living in a house with two or three bedrooms.

Cost of Food
In my mind one of the biggest problems many northern communities face is the lack of quality and affordable food. Most reserves have a single blood-sucking food chain that charges an arm and a leg for basic food items at the lowest possible quality. A four-litre jug of milk costs $13.29 with expiry date of no more than 7-8 days. A loaf of cheap white bread costs about $5. There are a few items in the produce department but are too expensive for most locals to afford. Price is only half of the problem. The more sinister issue is the poor quality of the items available up here. There are shelves after shelves of ready made hot dogs and hamburgers, rows upon rows of pops, chips, candies, yet you would have a hard time finding juice and fruits. It is cheaper to buy pop than buying water which forces many to drink pop instead of water. I cant count how many times I have seen kids come to school in the morning having chips and pops as their take away breakfast. As a result more than half of the kids are missing numerous teeth, and unfortunately more chronic health problems are sure to follow.

A family can spend all the monthly money they receive from the government on food that may sustain them for one week only! It is no wonder that there is always a long line up at the town’s nursing station. Which brings me to my next point.

Cost of Health Care
Its true that the health care is free, but there is nowhere near the level of care people receive in other parts of the country. If it did, this place wouldn’t have one of the highest rate of TB in the world. I can understand its hard to bring in resident doctors up here but wouldn’t it be possible to have better incentives to have doctors up here. I can see them being successful with bringing in nurses with good enough incentives and am sure it would work if they used the same level of relative incentives with doctors. I can assure you that the cost of medical evacuation (medi-vac) at $10000 per flight would handsomely pay for a rotating resident doctor. I don’t know the exact number of medi-vacs per month but it is more than 25, as I often hear planes at odd times and most of those are for medi-vacs.

Class party

Government’s Claims
Every time there is a crisis, you hear the officials speaking of the enormous amount of money allocated to these communities. I would like to argue that very little of that money actually goes to the locals. If it is for health care, it is going to drug companies and airlines taking care of the problems that would have been easier to prevent. It would make much more sense to improve the quality of life than using urgent treatment of problems that keep coming back.

If money is allocated for infrastructure, it always goes to outside firms with little oversight to the quality of their work. If things break the locals are always the first to blame. It is much easier this way, since there was no real government inspection of these projects. 

The government might as well hand the money to the outside firms, since most of it goes directly to them any ways. I have just learned that the grocery chain charges locals a fee for cashing their social service cheque in order for them to spend it at that very same grocery store!


I feel like I can go on and on and on, but I am sure you are aware of many of the issues I have mentioned above. I do however want you to crunch these numbers I have mentioned and see whether it was possible to survive on the allocated money. To me it is heart breaking to see the true owners of this country suffer so much in a country so well developed and so rich in natural resources which belonged to them in the first place!

In memory of my best friend in the north

December 7th. will always be noted as a sad day for me as I lost my best friend in Shamattawa, the black dog. It made it even harder to accept since we were together merely 15 minutes before he was hit and killed by the school bus.

The long outings on the weekends and short walk after work were becoming much more fun with him around. Unlike other dogs he had this understanding of the surroundings. He knew when to lead and when to follow. When we were out in the woods, he was the only dog that would stay close. By doing so he would not scare off the pray, while at the same time protect me from unwanted attention. When walking in town, he would not run after neighborhood dogs and would respect their territory. And once in a while when were being chased by a pack of dogs on the other side of the town, he was the only dog that didn't escape and stuck right by me. Although he was just a year old, he had managed to assert his leadership in the area that dogs who were much older and heavier than him would not dare to venture in our neighborhood. He didn't need to fight, just getting close to an unwelcome dog was enough to deliver the message. I only saw him fight once with a much larger dog, and as soon as he established the superiority he let the dog a way out without hurting it. He had this silent and humble take on being the top dog in the area.

You will be terribly missed.

Eleventh Blog

Completely frozen section of the river

The weekend was very cold and windy, by far the coldest two days of this term. Saturday we had a blizzard and Sunday a sunny but extremely cold and windy. We didn't have internet for long periods of the weekend so it was hard to know exactly how cold it was. But I heard that it was roughly about -30 with windchill of about -40. On Saturday I went for an hour of walk with a colleague. It was too windy and I was walking backward for a good portion of the walk. Sunday I decided to head out at noon, supposedly the warmest time of the day. But soon I realized that there was no such a thing as warm for that day. It was crisp sunny and very beautiful though. You could see mist rising from the river and even though it was windy, everything appeared dead still. I had three dogs with me, the big black and still nameless dog, a chocolate brown female dog and a young husky pup. In the beginning it was fun having them around but soon things changed and they started to act very strangely. As soon as we left the village and out into the woods, they dropped behind me; soon they were nervously trailing me by more than two hundred meters or so. I started bribing them in order to calm them down and to calm myself down as well! There were wolf tracks everywhere and the dogs would examine each track and nervously look in all directions! The big black dog was the closest to me but even he kept looking back towards the town more frequently now. I knew the dogs could sense or perhaps see something but decided to move forward any ways, especially as I had one of the locals open the door and jokingly ask me to get her a ptarmigan or two!

Still nameless!

Soon I noticed a wolf is coming right at us on the road. I have learned that dogs and wolves trust their nose more than their eyes, and this wolf was coming right at us sniffing the ground without even lifting its head to see us down the road. I started to shout out loud and waving my arms to get his attention. Sure enough it worked and it went flying and disappeared in the woods to our right. I stopped and looked around to see if there were any more around. The dogs by now had made up their mind and were running back towards the town. I had to call them and practically beg them with treats to stop them from leaving me. I thought for a couple of minutes whether to continue or head back to town. I walked back by about five hundred meters, but then suddenly changed my mind and decided to continue with the excursion. By now I was about two kilometers away from the village. The dogs were a bit calmer but they stopped following me after a few minutes and zoomed at a point on a gravel mount on the left. I called them but they wouldn't follow and kept looking at that same spot. I went back and saw a magnificent grey wolf standing on the mount looking at us. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time, its hard to explain how you feel seeing a wolf in a classic pose about a hundred meters away. I shouted and threw my arms up in a threatening manner, but he didn't move at all and just stood there sideways looking at us. I knew there had to be others, since they tend to move apart from each other. But this time I didn't want to look for the rest of the pack and decided to head back quickly and as calmly as I could. As soon as I turned around the dogs were running back and soon two had disappeared. I only had the black dog with the help of treats to head back to town. I was hoping to take a picture of the wolf, but it was too cold and later on when I tried taking a shot of the almost frozen river, there was a message on the screen telling me the battery temperature is either too low or too high! So it wouldn't have worked any ways!

Its strange how different it is when you see one compared to seeing their tracks. I had seen their tracks all over the places I had ventured to, some as far away as ten kilometer from the town, but seeing them in person no matter how close it was to the town sent shivers down my spine. I am not sure whether I head out alone, well at least not without a real gun!

Work has been pretty good and if things move the way they have been for the past couple of weeks, we should be able to finish off the chapters we are working on before the break. Grade ten math, and grade nine science students are doing pretty good, my only worry is with the two grade nine math classes I have. It is hard to get them do any work and the few motivated students are coming to class looking more and more tired and sleepy in the morning. The problem is that we are working on the most fun section of the curriculum, drawing symmetric shapes, and finding area of 3-d objects. If they are not excited about this, I don't know how I can get them to do algebra once we get back from the break!

Last week we started an indoor soccer, Futsal team with scheduled practices on Tuesday and Friday nights. The response has been overwhelming and I am thrilled to take part in something that I truly love that they enjoy as well. On the first night we had about 30 kids and the next session twenty of the serious ones showed up. We start the session with some running, then stretching, drills and end it with a game. If things go as they are now, we will have a pretty good team capable of competing with any school in the province.
 

Tenth Blog

Ice floating on God's River

This is my second try at posting this, the Tenth Blog. I wrote it last weekend but lost all of it at the end due to loss of connection.

I cant believe it is almost the end of November and soon I'll be heading home for the break. It seems it was just the other day when I had packed and left for Shamattawa. And I am certain I will be saying the same thing in few weeks time about the holiday!

Last weekend three of us, teachers went for a short outing on the freshly frozen wetlands leading to Ontario. It was nice to see areas and step on the ground that has been out of reach since last April. I cant wait for the river to freeze so we can go north west and explore the other side of God's river. There seem to be much more wildlife on the other side as it is out of reach of humans for long periods. I am pretty sure it will happen before we head for the holidays.

The road East to Ontario

I must say that we are having a relatively mild fall so far. Outside temperature is about -4 which is pretty warm for a late night in late November. The rive is completely frozen to the East and it wont be long it stops flowing completely for the next 4-5 months. Fishing is sadly out of the question, well at least comfortable fishing that is. The open sections of the river has ice formed on either sides by about 20 meters or so which makes it impossible to cast. The only option would be to wait for it to completely freeze, then attempt ice-fishing. I have limited my free day-light time, roughly 5-6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays, to walking in the woods and looking for Ruffed grouse and Willow ptarmigans. It has been slim picking but not bad nonetheless. I should have had two more of those today if it wasn't for my useless dogs chasing and scaring them away. Not only they didn't spot the birds first, which was supposed to be their natural talent, they came running back to me as soon as seeing me crouch to shoot. After the mishap I decided to get rid of them; easier said than done. I went back to the main road in hope of getting a ride further up the road just to lose the dogs. Fifteen minutes later I got lucky and jumped on the back of a pick up truck. Dogs followed us for a couple of hundred meters but as we sped up they gave up. Mission accomplished. The look on their faces was priceless!

River starting to freeze from the East

I jumped off the truck and ventured in one of the side trails. Right away I noticed a few rabbit snares and looking closely I saw a dead rabbit in one of them. Its sad to see animals suffer a dreadful death like that. I wish people shot them rather than snaring and trapping. Further up the trail I noticed that I was following a very large wolf's path on the trail. It was obvious that it was ahead of me by an hour the most. I guess they have learned of the snares and check those spots regularly. Right away I regretted not having the dogs along! Although there were quite a few fresh tracks of birds all around, I was more concentrating on spotting the wolf than looking for birds. Unfortunately there weren't any large tree for me to climb either, so I had to be extra vigilant. It took me about 20 minutes to round that side-trail and was very relieved to be back on the main road where there were plenty of large trees to climb in case of an emergency.

Dead snared rabbit

On the way back I walked through the garbage dump, landfill, and noticed a few dogs feeding. Its nice to see they have a last or only option for food!

Trying to get the dogs in the picture

As for work, days are moving along smoothly and I am happy to have the core group of serious students still intact. My only issue is to wrap up the respective sections and chapters before the festivities begin. I know as soon as the holiday spirit kicks in it will kick out the learning spirit. So I better be ahead of the curve by finishing what we are doing now and start something relatively different after the break.

Ninth Blog

Sheldon and Okka in the beginning of the hike

Brothers starting the fire

Today was Aboriginal Veterans Day, start of our 4-day long weekend. As there isn't much to do up here for the long break, I decided to head out into the woods again with Sheldon and Wallace. We ventured out the same way as we did last weekend in hope of better seeing whats out there. With roughly about 30cm of fresh snow it would be very easy to read the stories that were unfolded the previous night/day.

Wallace leading the way, Okka pondering.

Today it was Okka that followed us for the journey. He is a puppy of about 4-5 months and very energetic. Although today's outing might have been a bit too much for him. We walked about 6 hours in total but due to deep snow it felt much longer and harder than last week's 7-hour hike. Surprisingly enough we didn't see as much as we would have hoped for. We saw numerous tracks of rabbits, foxes, wolves an caribous but none in sight! However it felt great walking on fresh and undisturbed snow, enjoying the stillness of the surroundings and breathing the cold crisp unpolluted air.

Sheldon by the & tree!

A successful fire out of wet branches

As for trophies, we only managed shooting two grouse. From now on I have to do a better job of hunting, as fishing season is sadly coming to an abrupt end. There are non-stop slabs of ice floating on the river which makes casting very difficult. Worse yet the river has started to freeze from both sides and there is already about 10-15 feet of ice formed on the banks. Even if I do mange to hook a fish it will be almost impossible to bring it to shore, as it will be pulled under the ice. I plan to head out tomorrow and see if I can break the ice in a thin section and reel the line in through a narrow channel.

Okka & I

Okka resting at lunch time

The extra long weekend also provides me with a welcomed opportunity to finish off and organize the mid-term report cards that are due sometime next week. I am glad the spreadsheet template I created last year is compatible with Mac's Number software; all I have to do is to change the names of students and the number of assignments, tests. Everything else will work just fine.

Wallace and Okka, towards the end of the hike

My unit

And the dog everybody seems to love!

Eighth Blog

Sunset, most sunsets are spectacularly purple

Weather for th past few days has been fantastic, daytime high of 4, 5 and 6! I remember last year this time giant slabs of ice were floating in the river. It is supposed to get a bit cooler for the next week, and we might have just enjoyed our last plus temperature for the remainder of the year. Fishing has been pretty good, as everyone is catching lots of Northern Pikes. Yesterday after work I went for an hour of fishing with a couple of friends and ended up catching 15 relatively large Pikes in under an hour's time.

 Muskeg

     
  

This morning I ventured out with a couple of my local friends, Sheldon and his baby brother Wallace. They guided me in trails and areas that I would never have dared to explore on my own. It was a glorious day and I had to shed gloves, hat and the sweater in the first hour of the hike. I was under the impression that we were going for a maximum of 2-3 hour-hike. But it turned into a 7-hour hunting adventure. Luckily for me Sheldon came well prepared and had more than enough food, water, snacks and even instant coffee/hot chocolate for all of us. I owe him big! We stopped by the river and built a little fire to heat up the food and have hot drink.                                                                           

 Lunch

Wallace and his trophies

Sheldon & Wallace

Wallace & I

We managed to shoot three rabbits and two grouse. By we I mean the 17-year-old Wallace. He spotted and shot them all. It is almost impossible to see rabbit let alone shooting them but it was amazing how he managed the impossible. There are lots of rabbits up here, but they are nocturnal and rarely move during the day. Most people snare them, since it is very difficult to spot them during the day.

Sheldon leading the way

My new nameless buddy!

Seventh Blog

One of my fishing spots under a full moon

I feel somewhat refreshed after spending a few days in Winnipeg. Not that I really liked it there, but just being able to see and do more than what I can up here. Surprisingly enough I couldn't wait to get out of there, as it was neither Vancouver nor Shamattawa! The problem was that there wasnt much to do in Winnipeg. There is only one or two streets where you can find non-franchised cafes and restaurants. One thing that I have to admit is that people in Winnipeg are by far the friendliest I have encountered in Canada. I am not sure where Vancouver stands in a nationwide survey, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ranked somewhere near the bottom.

Same fishing spot after a few days of snow and rain

The workshops were quite informative and I am sure that they come handy me once I start teaching the relative clusters. The work has been just pretty uneventful, nothing out of the ordinary. Kids are excited about the Halloween. They were asking me whether they could start coloring or decorating the class. I refused and promised they would be able to do it tomorrow, Friday. I am planning to start Friday's classes with an Edgar Allen Poe story, The Mask of the Red Death. As for the festivities, I hear that the Halloween committee will turn the gym into a haunted house to scare the hell out of every visitor!

Town's dysfunctional ice rink

After school outings are getting shorter and shorter and by the time clock returns to its standard time I wont be able to venture out at all. I managed to get a couple of runs and fishing trips over the past few days. There is a buzz in town regarding the number of spotted caribous nearby. I plan to head out tomorrow afternoon with a local friend in hope of seeing a herd of the beasts. Today I managed to catch a small Northern Pike. I would normally let a fish of that size go but this time I kept it as I was eager to try my sushi making skill. I had bought some sushi rice, seaweed wraps, Soy sauce and Wasabi while in Winnipeg. And tonight I finally had sushi, as fresh as you can get! I caught the fish around 5:30 and it was nicely rolled in a nice sushi by 8:00pm. I thought the whole experience was a success except for the strength of Wasabi! It was so strong that I had to run around the room in order to relieve the burning feeling in my mouth and nose. I'll be so careful next time I am trying anything for the first time!
      

Town's convenience store