Hidden Ontario (5 page)

Many Ojibwa living on Parry Island in the 1920s still believed that all objects had life, and life was synonymous with power. Just as man's power comes from his intelligence, his soul, so does the power of the animal, the tree, and the stone.

Mr. Pegahmagabow explained, “Long ago the manidos or supernatural powers gathered somewhere and summoned a few Indians through dreams, giving them power to fly through the air to the meeting place ... The Indians [their souls] travelled thither, and the manidos taught them about the supernatural world and the powers they had received from the Great Spirit. Then, they sent the Indians home again.”

The Parry Island Ojibwa found authority for their belief in a world of supernatural beings around them, beings who are part of the natural order of the universe no less than man himself, whom they resemble in the possession of intelligence and emotions. Like man, they too are male or female and in some cases have families of their own. Some are friendly to the Native peoples, others are hostile. According to the museum report of 1929, there are manidos everywhere, or there were until the white man came, for today, the Indians say, most of them have moved away.

According to Jenness, “Occasionally, the Parry Islanders speak of a Maji Manido. Bad Spirit, referring either to some lesser being malevolent to man, most commonly the great serpent or water spirit. Apparently, the chief enemies to man are the water-serpents, which can travel underground and steal away a man's soul. If lightning strikes a tree near a native person's wigwam it is the thunder-manido driving away some water-spirit that is stealing through the ground to attack the man or his family. The leader of all water-serpents is Nzagima.”

One needed to be very careful to protect the soul, Jenness points out. “Until quite recently, and perhaps even now in certain families, adolescent boys and girls were compelled to fast for a period in order to obtain a vision and blessing from some manido,” he noted. “Parents gave their children special warning against a visitation from the great serpent, which might appear to them in the form of a man and offer its aid and blessing. A boy or girl who dreamed they received a visit from a snake should reject its blessing and inform their father, who would bid their return and seek a second visitation, since the evil serpent never repeats its overtures once they have been rejected. If then, a snake appears in another dream the boy or girl may safely accept its blessing. But if he incautiously accepts a blessing from the evil serpent he will deeply rue it afterwards, for sooner or later he and his family will have to feed it with their souls and die.”

John Manatuwaba, a 70-year-old Ojibwa in 1929, recalled a family who fed their souls to the serpent: “A Parry Island couple had three children, two boys who died very young and a child that died at birth. Two years ago the serpent swallowed the man's soul. The woman then confessed that in her girlhood she had accepted a blessing from the evil serpent.”

“I recall the tales about the water-serpent,” stated a First Nations resident of Parry Island today. “It was told to us to keep the kids from going out in deep water. This kept the children safe.

“I have heard that the water-serpent lives in Three Mile Lake and travels underground to Hay Bay. It was told to us that when a south wind blows and the water becomes murky the serpent is moving in the water.”

According to another First Nations resident, a group of young children encountered the water spirit in the 1950s on Parry Island. The creature was snake-like and had legs. It could travel through the forest as well as the water.

One Native elder on the island, when asked about the water spirit, reinforced the belief that the creature is actually a spirit.

There are other spirits that inhabit the district, such as the little people called the Memegwesi. They are friendly manidos, or rather a band or family of manidos. They may play pranks on the people, but never harm them. In the early part of the last century, a Parry Island native on his way to Depot Harbour saw a Memegwesi going down a creek. It had the outline of a man, but only its face was visible, the body being concealed beneath a huge growth of whiskers.

John Manatuwaba, recalled this encounter with the Memegwesi: “At the north end of Parry Sound, in what white men call Split Rock Channel, there is a crag known to the Indians as Memegwesi's Crag. Some natives once set night lines there, but their trout were always stolen.”

At last one of the men sat up all night to watch for the thief. At dawn he saw a stone boat manned by two Memegwesi approaching, one a woman, the other bearded like a monkey. The watcher awakened his companions and they pursued the stone boat, which turned around and called to the Indians, “Now you know who stole your trout. Whenever you want calmer weather give us some tobacco, for this is our home.” The boat and its occupants then entered the crag and disappeared.

Jenness also discovered that there are two kinds of invisible Indians, both closely akin to manidos. “One kind has no name, the other is called bagudzinishinabe or ‘Little Wild Indian.' To see an individual of either kind confers the blessing of attaining old age.”

The bagudzinishinabe are dwarfs that do no harm, Jenness found, but play innumerable pranks on human beings. Though small, no larger in fact than a little child, they are immensely strong. Sometimes they shake the poles of a wigwam, or throw pebbles on its roof; or they steal a knife from a man's side and hide it in his lodge. Often a person will eat and eat and still feel unsatisfied. He wonders how he can eat so much and still be hungry, but the dwarfs, unseen, are stealing the food from his dish.

Occasionally, you hear the reports of their guns, but cannot see either the dwarfs or their tracks. Yet, Francis Pegahmagabow stated that he once saw their tracks, “like those of a tiny baby,” on a muddy road on Parry Island. A few years ago a Native person camping on the island awoke in the morning to discover tiny, child-like tracks alongside her tent.

In 1976, a Rosseau area resident who was studying with Native elders encountered the little people.

“This one day I was in a beechnut forest south of Algonquin Park and I had stopped to eat some nuts,” he said. “Afterwards I sat down in a glade near a babbling brook. I dozed off.

“Suddenly I woke up and caught a glimpse of a creature about 10 feet away. At that moment it ducked behind a tree. Both of us were surprised to see each other. Then another creature appeared in the distance followed by another one to my right. I had never seen such a creature in my life. They were short, approximately two feet tall. Short mousy brown hair covered their entire body. They stood upright on their hind legs. Their front legs were shorter. I recall their long rabbit-like ears that hung straight down their back. I had the feeling their ears could rise up like a rabbit in an alert position. The creature's eyes were set in the front of their face. The eyes were quite expressive. The nose was flat. They had no tail.

“They communicated telepathically, by way of images, leaving you with a solid impression.

“Then they led me over to the creek. They communicated that this was a special place for them. It was here that they would adjust the stones in the stream to create certain tones that would help them raise their consciousness. They told me that the lower the tone, the greater the level of consciousness.

“They communicated to me that they liked tobacco and to bring some the next time. Their favourite food was red squirrel.” This was another tale of the Memegwesi.

In 2009 a radio special with a Cree elder was done on CBC about the Memegwesi. It is truly wonderful that these little-known creatures are being remembered.

These mysterious stories help to introduce the possibilities of seeing our world in a new way, to awaken us to the magic and enchantment lurking in all four directions, to engage our souls.

Here is a tradition, from those same Natives, to ponder. When you meet a person on the road, address them after you have passed them. Your soul and their soul will then continue on their separate ways and only your bodies and shadows will remain to converse. If there should be disagreement between you it will pass away quickly, and your souls will be unaffected.

 

A crude log cabin on the banks of the Moira River near the Bay of Quinte was built by a fur trader named Asa Wallbridge. He is recorded as the first white settler in the area. Natives were known to have camped and hunted in the vicinity prior to his arrival; not far from the river's mouth was a Native burial ground.

Most communities were founded and developed by men, sometimes accompanied by women, but Belleville's beginnings relied on the strength and determination of two pioneer women. Captain George Singleton and Lieutenant Isaac Ferguson were United Empire Loyalists and, incidentally, brothers-in-law, who set up a fur trading post together with their wives in 1794. By 1789 the Singletons had a child. That same year, Singleton died while on route to Kingston for winter staple supplies, and Ferguson died shortly thereafter. The two women, with the child John to care for, carried on at the trading post alone. Fortunately, other settlers were not long in joining them. Captain John Walden Meyers was next and he brought enterprise with him — a gristmill on the Moira River. He added a sawmill, a trading post, and a distillery. Meyers also operated a brick kiln and in 1794 erected, on a hill overlooking the Moira, what is recorded to be the first brick house in Upper Canada.

It was this industrial base that quickly attracted other settlers, and a village soon appeared below the mill at the river's mouth. The settlement became known as Meyers' Creek. In 1816, the village was 48 houses strong, officially surveyed by Samuel G. Wilmot, and a post office was opened. The village was then given the name Belleville. The name came from Lady Arabella (Bella) Gore, wife of the provincial lieutenant-governor Francis Gore, who visited there that same year.

In 1836 Belleville was incorporated as a police village, and Billa Flint, a local businessman, was elected as the first president of the Board of Police. Belleville was a rapidly developing lumber centre and became a town in 1850. Flint had been successful in organizing a temperance society, and as a merchant he was responsible for erecting extensive wharves and storehouses, not to mention Flint's sawmill. Billa Flint, in a letter to the editor of the
Weekly Intelligencer
in 1879, described Belleville as it was in 1829:

“Fifty years ago, I arrived in Belleville on the steamer, Sir James Kent. Fifty years ago, there was not one foot of sidewalk in town, not a drain to carry off the surplus water, and but one bridge, and that a poor one, over the river on Bridge Street. Fifty years ago, there were but two two-storey brick houses and both burned long ago. Fifty years ago, there was one dilapidated schoolhouse with a large mudhole in front all through the rainy season. There were no brick buildings on Front Street, and of the wooden ones only three showed of white and one of yellow paint.”

In 1857 the Belleville Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopalian Church as a centre for higher Christian education, was opened. In 1866 it was named Albert College and became a university, with the full authority to grant degrees, in 1867. The women's school was called Alexander College. In 1884 the College reverted to a secondary school and was finally destroyed by fire in 1917. A new Gothic stone structure replaced it.

Another educational establishment to open in Belleville was the Ontario Business College, established in 1865, attended by students from far and wide. Lieutenant Governor Howland opened a provincial school for deaf children in 1870. Known today as Sir James Whitney School, it has become one of the largest and best institutes of its kind in North America.

On January 1, 1878, the village was incorporated as a city. The population was greater than 11,000, and Alexander Robertson served as the city's first mayor.

Belleville has experienced several floods in the past century during spring breakup.

Archives of Ontario

Belleville experienced the great flood of 1866, the worst one in the city's history. Hundreds of families living on both sides of the river were forced to abandon their homes. The lower section of the city, known as Sawdust Flats, suffered the greatest damage. The water took several days to subside, and the streets of Belleville were covered with debris, ice, and driftwood.

A similar disaster occurred on March 12, 1936, when, once again, the Moira River overflowed. More than 60 acres were submerged and several days of rescue and salvage operations were necessary. Huge chunks of ice littered the streets and inventories were destroyed in the lower levels of businesses on Front Street.

Like many communities who ultimately exhausted their timber resources, Belleville's industry declined in the 1870s. Sawmills and lumber manufacturing plants closed down and it wasn't until the 1920s that new industries moved in. Finally, in the late 1940s, Belleville experienced a post-war economic boom.