Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past (28 page)

I am not through with Canada. I am not a partner in its construction, but neither am I its enemy. Canada has opened the door. Indigenous people are no longer “immigrants” to be disenfranchised, forbidden,
prohibited, outlawed, or precluded from the protective laws of this country. But we are a long way from being participants. I am not eager to be a part of an environmentally offensive society that can preach “Thou shalt not kill” and then make war on people, plants, and animals to protect and advance financial gain. The hypocrisy marring Canada's behaviour toward us is still evident, but it struggles for maturity, and while it struggles for maturity I accord myself a place. This place is still at the bottom, as the last people to be afforded a place at the banquet table where the guests have been partaking for over five hundred years; but still there it is, the chair empty and hoping I will feel inclined to sit in it. The invitation is fraught with difficulties. Although today I must say goodbye, tomorrow I may just buy one of the townhouses slated for completion in 2010. Today I am entitled to dream. Khahtsahlano dreamed of being buried at Snauq. I dream of living there.

We move to the unfinished longhouse at the centre of Granville Island, a ragged group of students and their teacher. I break into song: Chief Dan Georges prayer song. “Goodbye, Snauq,” I boom out in as big a voice as I can muster. The passing crowd jerks to a split-second halt, gives us a bewildered glance, frowns, sidesteps us, and then moves on. The students laugh.

“Indians really will laugh at anything,” I say as the tears stream across my face. The sun shines bright and turns the sky camas blue as we drift toward the Co-op restaurant to eat.

PHOTO CREDIT: CP (SHANEY KOMULAINEN)

O
KA OR, MORE CORRECTLY
, Kanesatake has come to refer to a pivotal time in Canadian Aboriginal history, similar to the events of the occupation at Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973. As has been said so many times before, and seldom better, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Personally, the occurrences at Oka filtered into my consciousness slowly and reluctantly. At that time, the summer of 1990, I was on the Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve, located on beautiful Manitoulin Island. We were in the midst of rehearsing a play I had written, a little comedy called
The Bootlegger Blues
. During the day, we would be struggling to make this little play funny and fabulous, and at night, when we weren't exhausted, we would turn on the news and find out about this bizarre occupation happening a few hundred kilometres to the east of this Georgian Bay community. Many times the necessity of theatre dragged more hours out of us than most jobs, so our following of the news was sporadic at best. But we got the gist of what was happening, and as a result, a cloud of uncertainty hung over our production. On reflection, it may not have been the best time to produce and tour a Native comedy. Or it could have been the best time.

It wasn't until the play had opened and was on the road that I began to fully understand the scope of what was happening and had happened. And from that point, my attention never left the television and radio. As both a former journalist and a constant First Nations individual, I was captivated by this standoff, proud of my Aboriginal brothers taking a stand, but understandably fearful of what could happen with so many fingers on triggers.

For five or seven years afterwards, questions about Oka were among the two most popular topics I faced when lecturing or speaking. Basically, I could count on “What is your opinion of what happened at Oka?” right behind “What did you think of
Dances with Wolves?”
Events in that once sleepy community polarized the country. And that is why I ended up writing, in
A Blurry Image on the Six O'Clock News
, from the perspective of a divorced White woman. Not my usual messenger of storytelling. But it was that polarization that affected me, and the realization that, in the midst of socio-political upheaval, some emotions remain simple and highly recognizable, regardless of race or cultural background.

History and literature share many friends and many foes. Both can be forgotten, or disregarded, or simply ignored. For some, both are just classes to take in school. But history and literature can show what humans are capable of—the good and the bad. And that's what makes life interesting.

A Blurry Image on the
                             
Six O'Clock News

The batteries on the remote control were dying and that pissed her off the most. It wasn't the fleeting glimpses of her one-time husband amid the crowds of Native people, or the brutal tactics of the Sûreté du Québec, or the seeming ignorance of the media as to the real issues involved. It was the dying electricity of the batteries in the television remote that made her curse the world. This resulted in a three-second wait between channels. She had spent hours sitting in front of the television, trying to spot her ex-husband, a displaced Ojibway in an increasingly bitter Mohawk war. Lisa had been tantalized a few times, a familiar jean jacket two hundred yards across the barriers. His hair, once fashionably short, now seemed to be getting a little on the shaggy side. Further evidence of his conversion to what he called “the cause.”

It had been just over five months since the divorce. Another mixed marriage had bitten the dust. Though, she was positive, through no fault of her own. It wasn't her fault things went the direction they did. He wasn't the man she had married six years earlier. He had … changed. He was no longer the Richard Spencer she had met at university. He had, for all intents and purposes, become his brother, Donnelly. Granted, she
had changed too. Six years of being married to a Native man—Richard always hated the term “First Nations;” it sounded too political and he didn't consider himself a political person—could do that to an urban woman. And she, Lisa Spencer, descended from Irish-Scottish immigrants, always found it ironic that her married name, given to her by her Aboriginal husband, always sounded more English than the name she was born with, Baird.

That was all a long time ago … many moons ago, as Richard would joke. They were younger and the world less angry, or so it seemed. A White girl marrying an Ojibway man … Even in the early ‘80s it still caused members of her family to gossip and wonder. Sure he was a handsome man, potentially successful, once he got out of university, but really, an Indian … “Don't they have a reputation for drinking?” She heard that more than once, more often than not from her Irish relations. She couldn't help thinking there was a little “kettle calling” there. Oddly enough though, Richard, with his fashion sense and cool haircut, could easily have passed for someone of a more Mediterranean or Middle Eastern background. But the cowboy boots always gave him away. And he wasn't much of a drinker. A couple beers occasionally, during hockey or at a party. Her uncles drank way more. Physician heal thyself, she had said to herself.

Lisa found the fact that he was Native, a noble savage, as she once heard him described in a philosophy class, quite exotic. She was in her third year of sociology, planning to head toward social work, when she met him. Richard Spencer. Medium height (though she always liked taller men), lean, comfortable in a crowd though he preferred his own company. He was somewhere in the middle of his MBA when the Fates conspired to join them together, eventually in holy matrimony. And then in divorce court.

Fourteen months of dating, seven months of engagement, and six years of marriage. That was the extent of their life together. No children, no house (they rented), and only a few RRSPs that were split amicably. Now Lisa couldn't get over how ridiculous she felt, eagerly waiting for any
glimpse of her husband, somewhere behind enemy lines. It had been about five months since they had last seen each other, and approximately four months since they had spoken on the phone. He had moved into his brother's house on the reserve.

Yet this was one of the reasons they had broken up. Actually, more specifically, it was because of Richards brother, Donnelly Spencer. Lisa remembered him as having the stereotypical long hair, living perpetually in jeans, and he drummed on that big drum he was so proud of. And he was determined to be the most fluid speaker of Ojibway in the community. In many ways, the exact opposite of Richard. But in other ways, not. Richard was extremely proud of his heritage, though not enough to be annoying, and it eventually rubbed off on Lisa. She found the stories of his childhood on the reserve, the tales told to him over campfires by his grandfather, charming and necessary to the preservation of the culture. She even did her part by buying dream catchers and that ubiquitous headdress made out of safety pins that dangled from practically every car in the village.

But all that had changed. A foreign entity known as a Toyota Corolla had altered the life they knew and shared. The Corolla wasn't theirs. It didn't belong to anybody they knew. They still had never laid eyes on it. It just came out of the darkness one wintry night, like a vengeful spirit, and took the life of Donnelly Spencer, big brother of Richard Spencer, brother-in-law of Lisa Spencer.

Richard took it hard. Almost too hard, which puzzled Lisa. Richard and Donnelly had always been fairly close, no different than a billion other brothers living on this planet. One of Lisa's own sisters had died when she was a teenager, the victim of some unfortunately exotic blood disorder, leaving Lisa with only her memory. Lisa remembered being upset, crying herself to sleep on many a night, but time passed and the memory, while still treasured, lessened until it took on the official title of “fond remembrance.” She also had three other siblings to lean on when necessary, the big family a leftover from their Catholic origins.

Lisa had gotten along with Donnelly, although she always suspected he never fully accepted his sister-in-law into the family. Just somewhere,
behind the warm greetings and Christmas hugs, she always felt there was a hint, a subtle regret that Richard hadn't taken the time to find himself a Native woman to carry on the future of the Ojibway nation. At least the Otter Lake First Nation's portion of it. To be fair, Donnelly was always glad to see her, and she him, for he had a way with a story, and she liked that. The innate sociologist in her, no doubt. His tales of conferences, pow-wows, gatherings, and political meetings were legendary. If there was a way of making a first ministers' meeting on Aboriginal issues interesting and even exciting, Donnelly was the man.

Once, trying to be one of the gang, Lisa accepted an offer to participate in a sweat lodge being held at Donnelly's cabin. She gamely put up with the semi-nudity among strangers—“Just like going to the steam room at the Y,” she told herself. Even the feel of cedar bits between her toes was distracting. In the end, it was the claustrophobia that got to her. Up until this adventure, she had never thought she was claustrophobic. In fact, she preferred small, economical cars. But the closeness of the walls, the sound of people only inches away, the darkness, and of course the stifling heat were more than she could take. Barely twenty minutes into the sweat, she found herself crawling out, embarrassed and naked, for she had left her towel on the floor of the sweat lodge. Richard had tried to placate her, saying he'd never been in a sweat lodge himself, but it did little good. Donnelly had reached out to her and she had failed to hold on.