View from the High Level Diner

Look out the window says my Cree friend.

I see the river. I see the trees. I see the sun shining down, he says.

What do you see?

I see the bridge. I see cars. I see buildings across the river.

And I wonder.

Generations ago. What did your ancestors see?

Did they see the river, the trees, the sun shining down?

What did my ancestors see?

Empty spaces, waiting to be filled with their dreams?

And did they know their dreams would crush yours?

What a story

I'm creating a script for my animator.

I had only a general idea when I started. But then he told me it had to be a story. A story with a setting, characters, and a plot.

That made me think differently.

So my script tries to talk about the history of the treaties as stories because they are stories and stories are interesting.

I started with Treaty 8 because it is where I live.

So much material but it was easy to find. I hit pay dirt with the Glenbow archives and a site by none other than Albert Burger who lives right down the road in Faust. He had the entire diary of  Charles Mair, the secretary for the "Half breed Scrip Commission" from 1899 on his site with photos. And more interesting history in the South Peace Historical Society- quite amazingly, written by my own former high school geography teacher and family friend, Gerry Clare.

Treaty Commission gathered at Willow Point, June 21 1899

Now I feel ripped off.

Why didn't I get to learn about Treaty 8? I grew up in Treaty 8 territory. I live in Treaty 8 territory now. Why didn't I know the fur traders of the HBC provided help for the native people and vice versa in early days, or that our government refused to help them in the brutal winters after they bought out the HBC -the year the winter was so cold they resorted to eating their own horses? Even after the fur traders and the missionaries begged the government to help.

Why didn't I know that the government of the day refused to make treaty even when the headmen asked -because they didn't  think any settlers would want to come north? And that it was only after Klondike prospectors began trekking north, and when oil was "discovered" in Athabasca, when 500 indigenous people in Fort St John rose up and blocked the trail after the prospectors stole their horses and shot all the wild game and those same people pushed the prospectors' carts over a 900 foot river bank, only then did the government decide to settle up?

Moostoos, headman and Chief of Sucker Creek Reserve

Why didn't I know about wise Kinooshayoo of what is now Driftpile and his conciliatory brother Moostoos? Or the 19 day journey taken by the treaty commission from Edmonton to Athabasca to Grouard where "trackers" literally pulled the boat up the river and sailed across the lake where I now live so the Commission could make treaty with the indigenous people and Metis?

How "civilized" and honest our First Nations appeared in comparison with those further south? How self possessed and wise and independent they were, according to all accounts? How they pondered over the terms of the treaty with concern for the "long game " and future generations?

I think I would have been proud of that, if I had learned about treaties as a kid. Even though I am not First Nations, the northern people are my people. I like learning about how forward thinking they were.

Why didn't we learn that when I was in school?

Mostly I am excited that we are teaching it now. It's our Canadian story, right or wrong. We all own it. And I hope that between me and my animator we can build something that will speak to our students.

How is it

How is it after all these years of being Canadian it never occurred to me how audacious it was for the French and English to colonize Canada?

Seriously.

How is it?

My ancestors sailed in on their ships. They traded with the people who lived here. They accepted their help so they didn't die of scurvy and exposure and starvation.  And then they said to themselves, this is pretty nice here. We should bring all our friends over.

Or was it more of a gradual thing.  The land seemed sparsely settled. A lot of it not settled at all, not like their overcrowded homelands. Why not expand?  The native people are friendly. They don't mind.

Or what?

What was going through their heads?