Category Archives: 2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

Mi’Kmaq:  Cooperation or Competition

 

As I said earlier, much of eastern Canada was Mi’Kmaq territory when Europeans first made contact.  And as I have already mentioned, the Indigenous people of North America have a deep attachment to the land they occupied. The attachment was so deep it is not an exaggeration to say it was, and is still, a spiritual connection. This is a critical difference between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. A friend of mine said the attachment of Mennonites was the same. I have not noticed such a strong connection, but try to keep an open mind on the issue. I invite people to correct me.

 

According to Quenton Condo, a Mi’Kmaq  member on that CBC Gem series I already blogged about, the treaty of 1752 negotiated by the Mi’Kmaq and the British Crown was by the Mi’Kmaq intended to make sure that no one would interfere with the Mi’Kmaq way of life. The problem is, according to the Mi’Kmaq, that the non-indigenous people were not taught about the treaties in Canada and now react in anger and hate when they learn what it means. This is a failure of the Canadian educational system, he says.

“After all, how much did any of us learn about treaties in school? Frankly, in my case, even in Law School, I learned almost nothing about treaties. Now I know that treaties are very important. They have constitutional significance. And treaties are fundamental to learning about Canada.”

If we know nothing about treaties, we know nothing about Canada!

 My goal on this jaunt across Canada is to learn more about Canada. Therefore I have to learn more about treaties and will blog about them.

Although, that is their [Mi’Kmaq] interpretation, it has the ring of truth as far as I am concerned. Those treaties did not give them the right to hunt. They already had those rights which they inherited from their ancestors. That of course, follows from them being part of the land, which is a fundamental principle to most indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere.

The Innu territory and Naskapi overlapped as well as Inuit and Cree. As one Innu woman said,

“At the time of our ancestors there were no borders. Our ancestors did not use measuring tapes to say, ‘This is yours,’ and ‘this is mine.’ The territory was shared amongst all the nations. And we shared it well.

 

Indigenous people have always been willing to share.  Non-indigenous people were more aggressive. They started out willing to share, but then wanted to take over and impose their will. That is exactly what they did, and ever since Canada has had problems. The Innu woman also said that at one time there were plenty of caribou in their territory. Some said there were so many “it moved the mountain.” That would be a lot of caribou.

An unidentified woman on the CBC show said “Nations were intertwined in all aspect of our lives and in our approaches to sharing. This insured the survivals of our peoples.”

I don’t want to suggest that Indigenous People of the region were perfect. No one and no people are perfect. Not even Mennonites. Yet stories like this show the truth of those who say, people who live in places where survival is very difficult, like the Canadian north, have found that sharing works best for survival. This is what the traditional knowledge of the people of the region tells us. I can’t argue with this. This is a fundamental principle of survival.

As one Anishinabe man, Andrew “Stitch” Manitowabi, said about his people, “As an Anishinabe people we don’t go by boundaries. We use the language of speaking Anishinabe which extends into the United States in the Quebec area and northern Ontario.” This is a very different approach to determining territory.

The Anishinabe, like most Indigenous people used the language of sharing, not the language of boundaries. Non-Indigenous people did not always realize that, resulting, sometimes, in serious misunderstandings between the parties. In this country we still live difficultly with that misunderstanding. It has never gone aay.

Mi’Kmaq learned to cooperate.  Non-indigenous people must also learn.

 

 

Inch Aran Lighthouse, Dalhousie New Brunswick

 

After we left Percé, we travelled south around the Bay of Chaleur and into New Brunswick. We spent the night in the town of Dalhousie. In the morning after breakfast in an unlikely place, a Canadian Legion on the recommendation of someone in our hotel, we found another lighthouse. Again, I could not resist.

 

The Inch Arran Point Front Range Lighthouse in Dalhousie is what is called “square-tapered” and stands 11 metres (36 feet) tall. It was first built in 1870, but replaced in 1972 about a few hundred  metres to the west of where the current version stood. It is found on a flat tidal plain overlooking the famous Baie des Chaleur which played an important role in the history of Canada after settlement by the French.  This land is the most northern part of New Brunswick just south of the Restigouche River.

One of the locals insisting on taking our photograph.

 

Like so many lighthouses, it was built by Canada immediately after Confederation as the government wanted to expand the lighthouse system to improve navigation on Canada’s coasts to facilitate commerce. It was used to guide vessels into Dalhousie harbour.

Members of the Arsenault family kept the light here for sixty-five years, between 1870 and 1935.

According to real lighthouse afficionados, it stands out for its birdcage-style lantern gallery which consists of thin curved metal spars that arch around the lantern. Apparently, this feature is unique among extant lighthouses in Canada and this is the most distinctive character defining elements of this lighthouse.  To me its most important aspect on this day was how it stood out against the marvelous blue sky and water. I particularly loved its reflection in the water.  On the trip so far, I thought it was in the best light of any of the lighthouses I had seen so far on this trip.

The simplicity of the beauty without unnecessary embellishments became the favoured design for Canadian lighthouses.

 

I was also very fond of the small maple tree in the foreground. I think maples are a symbol of the beauty of Canada as are its lighthouses which, by definition, provide light into a dark and dangerous world. That’s what lighthouses do!

 

While admiring the view, we met someone from Manitoba who grew up here. often return to admire it just as I had. We agreed that if you don’t like lighthouses you don’t like life in Canada. According to Heritage Canada,

“the Inch Arran Lighthouse continues to serve regional and local shipping needs and, in clear weather, can be seen from a distance of more than 25 kilometres… [and] has an extremely high landmark value for Dalhousie and is a recognized symbol of the community. Residents have incorporated the lighthouse into their municipal identity and many think highly of the lighthouse’s services to the area.”

 

Gulls can be a pain, but they are undeniably beautiful birds.

We spent an enjoyable hour here on our journey across the country.

 

Religious Snobs

Jacque Cartier and his men were impressed with this rock. Who could blame them? They were not so impressed with the people. That was white supremacist bias.

The Europeans who arrived in North America were also snobbish about religion. As Barbara Huck said in her book, “Europeans had a remarkable intolerance for other religions and a deep conviction that their particular brand of Christianity was the only true faith.” They were also often reluctant to acknowledge the help they had received from the inhabitants. As Huck explained, “

 

“By 1545, the difficult climate and hatred of the Iroquois (prompted by the barbarous treatment of the very people who had more than once saved French lives, convinced the French to end for a time at least—their first foray into the “new world.””

Of course, as we all know they came back. When they came back to eastern Canada, they were a little smarter. They realized the wealth on this continent was not so much in precious minerals but other treasures. As Huck said,

“When they returned, at the beginning of the 17th century, they were driven by the same motives—a search for glory, souls, and gold—but the gold was now recognized to lie not in glittering metal but in soft lustrous fur. By 1600 the trade in fur, particularly beaver fur for felting, by seasonal fishermen was so lucrative that many visited the coastal shores to fish for fur rather than cod and a succession of noble were petitioning the French crown for the right to participate—or better yet, monopolize—the trade in North America.”

 

But I think even Huck missed the real treasure. The real treasure was to be found in the remarkable people of North America, their astounding knowledge and understanding of the natural world around them, and the deep spiritual truths that knowledge triggered. That to my mind, was the real unappreciated treasure of North America. It is still under appreciated to this day.

Snobbery is hard to overcome. Even when it is irrational.

 

Sharing is Caring

Great Blue Heron in Mi’kmaq territory

 

The Mi’kmaq were the original settlers of what we now call the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. They were not exclusive occupiers everywhere but they occupied a large of it. They had their own form of government and each community had their own leader known as Saqamaw (pronounced sah-ha-mahw) which is the Mi’kmaw word for “respected older person” or Elder.  Of course, not all older persons are respected.

 

The Mi’kmaq had their own laws and a comprehensive knowledge of the plants growing around them in their territory. Many of those plants were used to create medicines.  According to Theresa Meuse in her book, L’nu’k the People: Mi’kmaw History, Culture and Heritage, “They lived in communities that revolved around the idea of sharing with one another.” Sharing was fundamental to whom they were. Sharing came naturally to them.

 

They called themselves L’nu’k their word for ‘the people’. I am always amazed at how often a First Nation around North America name themselves “the people”. Meuse said, “When Europeans started coming to North America the Mi’kmaq welcomed them with the greeting, nikmaq, which means “my kin-friends.”  They immediately saw strange people as kin. I find that amazing. Amazing and wonderful.  But these feelings were not always reciprocated.

John Cabot and his crew sailed west from the English port of Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497. He and his men went fishing not far from what the French later called Gaspésie, where we were traveling,  but even closer to the south coast of Newfoundland. Cabot reported codfish so thick in the Grand Banks that the fish could be caught by lowering baskets from the side of the ship. Soon European fishers from England, Spain, and Portugal were flocking to the region for the bounty of fish. The French came soon as well. At first the fishers salted the fish on board their vessels, but in time they set up shore stations to make “dry fish.”  These were lightly salted and sundried. Cod was easy to keep and store and as I know personally, delicious to eat.  As Barbara Huck said in her wonderful book, Exploring the Fur Trade Routes of North America, the fish “soon became Canada’s first major export to the world.”

 

It is likely that trade with locals began soon after that. Probably, the local Beothuk and Mi’kmaq were interested in exchanging things for the European knives. Europeans were good at producing technology. However, Europeans like Jacque Cartier, who came from France were slow to appreciate the smarts of the local people. In 1534 Cartier wrote that the Iroquois he met along the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula “had not anything above the value of five sous, their canoes, and fishing nets excepted.”

 

Yet the Europeans kept coming. Perhaps they wanted to know what was beyond the mouth of the very large river (the St. Lawrence). Perhaps they hoped it would lead to the Pacific Ocean, where they might sail to China, a land of untold riches they had heard about. They probably hoped to find similar wealth in Canada.

Bonaventure Island and Percé Rock National Park

 

 

 

Percé Rock is part of the Bonaventure Island and Percé Rock National Park. The huge block of limestone was formed about 375 million years ago and is currently crumbling at the rate of 300 tons per year.

One can walk out to the rock at low tide on a sand bar. I would have liked that. Sadly, circumstances dictated to us that we only had time for a cursory visit. Visitors are not allowed to climb onto the rock because it is crumbling too much, walking out to it at low tide would have been great or taking one of the many boat trips to it that we could have taken.

What did I miss? The smaller island is called Bonaventure Island. It contains a spectacular colony of northern gannets.  These are magnificent birds. The island is considered one of the largest migratory bird refuges in North America.  Its colony of gannets is one of the most accessible and largest in the world. I was told you can almost walk up to them. It is haunting me that we did not spend an extra day here. Approximately 300,000 seabirds nest on the island, including razor-billed auks, gulls, kittiwakes, murres, and cormorants. My very Bad.  Actually, we had hoped to spend an extra night here but after we had trouble securing accommodation we decided to meander on.

Another sad case of would, coulda, shoulda. The travellers curse. But what  a beautiful place. Canada is truly beautiful.

Percé Rock in Pink

 

We got to Percé at the eastern tip of the St. Lawrence just before dark. You can see a little pink in the rock, reflected from the pink sky in the west.

The Percé Rock (“Le Rocher Percé“) is the most famous feature on Gaspésie. The arch is one of the largest arches in the world over water. Christiane and I saw a similar sized arch in New Zealand on the North Island where our motor boat traversed through the arch in disconcertingly rough waters. Currently, the arch is large enough that a small boat could pass through during low tide.

Percé Rock is a huge sheer rock formation in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula 433 metres (1,421 ft) long, 90 metres (300 ft) wide, and 88 metres (289 ft) high, with an arch 15 metres (49 ft) high on its southern end).

At one time there was a second arch where there now is a gap between the big rock and the smaller obelisk rock on the right? It was there when Jacques Cartier “discovered” it in 1534. He actually reported that there were 3 arches, but there is some doubt about that. Some have claimed there used to be 4 arches, but evidence for that is not strong. The last of the arches in any event collapsed on June 17th, 1845 due to severe erosion, leaving one arch and a separate island.

But if you want to see the arch you’d best go soon. According to scientists, erosion will lead to the destruction of the last arch in about 400 years and in fact the entire rock will vanish in about 16,000 years.

 

La Marte Lighthouse

 

We were disappointed that there was road construction that obstructed access to and views of the La Martre Lighthouse. This was a major disappointment because it is one of the more original lighthouses along the Gaspésie coastline. First, it is painted a bright red along with its nearby buildings and second, it has an unusual octagonal base shape. It is considered one of the more photogenic lighthouses in Quebec but the view was seriously marred today. Sometimes life just sucks.

The lighthouse is fully automated today but is operated non-automated during the day so people ordinarily can see the Fresnel lens rotating in its mercury bath while using its original system of weights and pulleys.

After that we veered inland because we were running out of time and I did not want to travel the roads in the dark. Old men must learn to be humble.

 

 

 

 

Mi’Kmaq:  Cooperation or Competition

 

Mi’kmaq are among the many First Nations that inhabited the Atlantic region in Canada, and inhabited the coastal areas of the Maritime Provinces including Gaspé and most of the land east of the Saint John River. This traditional territory is known as Mi’gma’gi  (Mi’kma’ki).  Mi’kmaq people have occupied their traditional territory, Mi’gma’gi or , since time immemorial (at least 10,000 years) and continue to occupy much of this land including Newfoundland as well as parts of Northern New England as far as Boson.

It would be nice if Canadians and Americans could get rid of their supremacist attitudes. Too often they think they have a monopoly of spiritual and economic insight. If we did that, we could have a true pluralist country, where all types, or races, or cultures were welcomed.  By that I mean a society in which many states, or groups, and principles coexist. For example, including religious pluralists where not one group benefits from claiming it is the fount of all wisdom. That would be a tolerant society. Then we could all benefit from each other’s knowledge and would not feel threatened by it. We would not concern ourselves with delusions of supremacy that we all have. These are delusions which we must learn to avoid.

According to Quenton Condo, speaking on the CBC Gem show, Telling Our Stories,  the treaty of 1752 negotiated by the Mi’Kmaq and the British Crown was according to the Mi’Kmaq intended to make sure that no one would interfere with the Mi’Kmaq way of life. The problem is, according to the Mi’Kmaq, that the non-indigenous people were not taught about the treaties in Canada and now react in anger and hate when they learn what it means. This is a failure of the Canadian educational system, he says.

After all, how much did any of us learn about treaties in school? Frankly, in my case, even in Law School, I learned almost nothing. And treaties are fundamental to learning about Canada. If we know nothing about treaties, we know nothing about Canada!

Although, that is their interpretation, it has the ring of truth as far as I am concerned. Those treaties did not give them the right to hunt. They already had those rights which they inherited from their ancestors. That of course, follows from them being part of the land, which is a fundamental principle to most indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere.

The Innu territory and Naskapi overlapped as well as Inuit and Cree. As one Innu woman said,

“At the time of our ancestors there were no borders. Our ancestors did not use measuring tapes to say, ‘This is yours,’ and ‘this is mine.’ The territory was shared amongst all the nations. And we shared it well.

 

She also said that at one time there were plenty of caribou in their territory. Some said there were so many “it moved the mountain.” That would be a lot of caribou.

An unidentified woman on the CBC show said “Nations were intertwined in all aspect of our lives and in our approaches to sharing. This insured the survivals of our peoples.”

I don’t want to suggest that indigenous people of the region were perfect. No one and no people are perfect. Yet stories like this show the truth of those who say, people who live in places where survival is very difficult, like the Canadian north, have found that sharing works best for survival. This is what the traditional knowledge of the people of the region tells us. I can’t argue with this.

As one Anishinaabe man, Andrew “Stitch” Manitowabi, said about his people, “As an Anishinaabe people we don’t go by boundaries. We use the language of speaking Anishinaabe which extends into the United States in the Quebec area and northern Ontario.” This is a very different approach to determining territory.

The Anishinaabe, like most Indigenous people used the language of sharing, not the language of boundaries.

 

Indigenous People of the East Coast: territory and spirituality

 

 

In and around Rimouski we began our journey into Indigenous territory in eastern Canada. Before the trip to Eastern Canada started, I had been watching a television series on CBC Gem that I found very informative and interesting.  I came to appreciate, as I did not before, and certainly did not appreciate in 1967 when I traveled to Quebec with my buddies, that there are many interesting stories to tell about Indigenous peoples.   And until recently, they were not able to tell those stories themselves. Thanks to this series at least some of those stories have been told.

This film series begins with an admonishment that the stories of the indigenous people who live in eastern Canada, as it is now called, were not told by them but by others. They want us to hear their stories from themselves. Otherwise, we won’t hear the truth. So you will be hearing these stories second hand, from me, but you can go to the series and get the stories straight from them without my interpretation. I do not want to appropriate their stories, but as Niigaan Sinclair, a professor of Indigenous studies, and an Anishinaabe of Manitoba  once told me, I should consider telling my friends what I know because they are unlikely to listen to him or any other indigenous person. So that is what I am doing. But the key point is these are there stories which I have heard.

This series lets them tell those stories so we can understand who they are. And obviously, they wanted to tell their own stories. We should let them do that. We should not stand in their way.

They have been called, savages, Indians, aboriginal, indigenous, First Nations, First Peoples, native Americans, or native Canadians, but as one Innu man said, if you are not sure what to call them, the best thing to do is ask the person you are talking to what is the name of his or her group and he or she can tell you. Use that name.

The various Indigenous Peoples reflected in this CBC documentary are as follows: Innu, Atikamekw, Naskapi, Inuk, Kanien’kehákka, Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik, Anishinaabe, Wendat, Eeyou, and Mi’Kmaq.

The various territories of those people are called: Nadakina (for Abenaki), Mi’Kma’ki (for Mi’Kmaq), Innu (for Nutshimit) Nionwntsïo (for Wendat), Maliseet (for Wolastoqiyik), Nitaskimant (for Atikamekw), Nunavik (for Inuk), (for Kanien’kehákka), Eeyouistchee (for Eeyou), Wiikwemkoong (for the Anishinabe territory). I hope I got these names right.

As one Indigenous person on the series said, here is a fundamental fact:

 

To understand who we are you need to understand our special relationship with the land. It is an intimate and powerful bond that we want to keep alive.

 

As was said by the narrator, “Since the time of our ancestors we have always shared our territories between our different peoples.” That is important too. The Indigenous people were always willing to share. They were never militantly exclusive.

Added to that, the Indigenous people who were interviewed, said, “Our territory is our identity. It is impossible to survive without your territory.” As a rule, Indigenous people have an identity that is tied to the land. The people and the land cannot be severed from each other. I don’t think the rest of us can understand anything about the Indigenous People if we don’t understand this fundamental belief.

 

As Stanley Vollant, an Innu physician eloquently explained,

“My story and that of my nation are written within the territory. They are written with its rivers and the toponomy of its lakes. I am the territory and the territory is me. It is a sacred relationship. For us it’s impossible to be indigenous, Innu, without Nitassinan.”

 

As one indigenous young Wendat man, from Wendake, Brad Gros-Louis.  put it:

“At one time, First Nations people lived solely off of harvests. And the meats for which we hunted and fished. The territory served to feed you and your family. Today, for me, being indigenous means being a champion of nature, speaking in the name of animals, speaking in the name of the forest, being a guardian of the sacred, of the territory. What makes a good hunt, is that the moose you kill, the moose that you harvest, you will care for it as if it is your baby. Its meat is the priority. We use every part of the animal. When I go hunting and harvest an animal, I take the time to thank it, I take the time to treat it with respect, to do things properly. Everything around us is alive. Everything around us deserves respect.”

 

As Joséphine Bacon, an elegant Innu woman, from Pessamit said

“When I say Assi in Innu, I see the earth, but if I envision “Nutshimit” I see a lot mor than that. I see everything: the forest, the lakes, the rivers, moss, lichens, the horizon, and the animals that feed me. We do not own the land because Nutshimit takes care of us. It is where our identity lies, where our soul lies.”

 

I have heard others, like Chief Seattle say, “we do not own the land, the land owns us.”

 

Charles Api Bellefleur an Innu from Unamen-shipu said this:

 “the forest ensures our well-being. Look at how beautiful it is [he was standing in Innu territory]. It feels good to be here. I know the name of every tree, birch, aspen, white spruce. I know the legends of this land, the stories which have enfolded here, this is where I feel alive. Its where I still live today.”

 

 

As Matthew Mukash, Eeyou (Cree) from Whapmagoostui, said,

“Every valley, every part of the winding river has a name Every mountain, every hill, every hill has a name here, and those names are for reminding us how our ancestors survived so that we can have life today. The land tells the story of your ancestors.”

 

The connection between the land an ancestors is also considered sacred.

Gaspé Peninsula

 

The  Gaspé Peninsula, or Gaspésie, in French is peninsula along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Chaleur Bay, on the south side of the Peninsula separates it from New Brunswick. I don’t know exactly where it starts and ends. The name Gaspé comes from the Mi’kmaq word gespe’g, meaning “end”, referring to the end of the land.

Originally, this was the land of the Mi’kmaq people.  Actually, much of the land we travelled through in eastern Canada—commonly called the Maritimes—was in their territory.  And that is important but too often forgotten by Canadians. Jacques Cartier arrived in Gaspe in 1534 and many people think—wrongly of course—that this is when Canada started. This is a very large area, bigger than Belgium for example. Approximately 140,000 people live there. About 1/10th as many as Manitoba.

Though I don’t know exactly where it began, for me it began after leaving Rimouski and the “people” leaving the St. Lawrence River, looking out for land. This marked the beginning of the Gaspésie for us. It is one of the most interesting areas of Canada in my opinion. It is an area with a great variety of simple, yet elegant homes. They are not ostentatious, but nonetheless beautiful. Simple beauty. Well-tended. These people have heeded the wise words of Bob Dylan, “Don’t go mistaking paradise for that home across the road.”  This area, though I had been there before many years ago, was one of the surprises of the trip.

Canada is full of surprises. And not all of them are bad.

It was a lovely ride beside the St. Lawrence River. Of course, sprinkled along the way were a few lighthouses.  The first one was the Cap Chat Lightouse that was completed in 1909. It is not very tall and unlike the fine sculpturing of the lighthouse at Rimouski, this one was a squat square towers built of reinforced concrete with a circular red lantern It is 133 feet (10 metres) above the sea. It has a revolving Fresnel lens built in France and at the time produced a white flash every 3 seconds that was visible for 17 miles. A new dwelling was built for the lighthouse keeper after the original one burned down in 1923.

I learned that during World War II Cap Chat was a staging area for German U-boats who hoped to intercept coal convoys from Cape Breton Island. Because of stratification in the area of fresh and salt water it was difficult for radar to detect them. It is possible to rent the house for overnight  stays. Wow! Life is good. I have slept in a few lighthouse keepers homes over the years and would have loved to stay, but we got here too early to pack it in. Sadly, we had to move on.