I do not know the name of the President and CEO or the Founder or the Spokesperson or anyone who would represent the face of TransCanada.
I do know that TransCanada is the name of the company that is building the Keystone pipeline. I know the Keystone pipeline has become the literal line in the earth. The line that cannot be crossed. Not only for Native People but for non-Native people as well. That part is obvious.
What isn't so obvious is what former National Chief Phil Fontaine was thinking when he took on the role of "Native Face of the Keystone Pipeline". In the midst of a resurgent Native rights movement that has networked internationally through the Idle No More campaign, he should not have been surprised with the response he received in Winnipeg.
On January 23, Fontaine was making his first public appearance back home and his first major speech since becoming the Native Face of the Keystone Pipeline. Guess what happened? He was met with protest.
Yes, the images of the former National Chief being shouted down before having a chance to speak at the University of Winnipeg are embarrassing. It's Native people yelling at Native people and the whole thing looks like the climax of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. With the accusations creating feelings of awkwardness and shame but no real damage. "You're as traditional as a tootsie roll," someone screamed out. Yeah, pretty embarrassing.
Nevertheless, I have to commend the people that stood up and took a public stance even though it would be seen as acting against one of their own. They were there because they had been compelled. This is the line in the earth.
We know Fontaine was there because he was getting paid. Winnipeg may be his home turf but the city also has the largest population of Native people in Canada and has hosted many Idle No More actions.
What happened seems predictable in hindsight and when results occur that are not surprising we usually consider the action planned.
Phil should have known. If he didn't know, that's a blemish on his character or his intelligence. People in TransCanada knew, that's why they got Fontaine on the payroll.
Before Fontaine became the Native Face of The Keystone Pipeline he was the most reasonable Native Leader of Our Time. Why deal with pesky or uppity when you can deal with reasonable? The image of the calm softspoken white haired Fontaine being challenged by a group of people with drums and facepaint dovetails into the classic Canadian stereotypes.
One one side the noble Indian and on the other side the pesky savage. It's the grand trope of western society. They never get tired of that one. In the battle for hearts and minds of the mainstream Canadian public; there is no doubt whom the majority will support.
If the line in the earth can be defined by the reasonable Fontaine on one side and the thuggish modern day savage on the other side that perception can only benefit TransCanada.
Why do I get the feeling that somewhere in TransCanada's communications' bunker people are smiling, laughing and high-fiving each other.
I like Phil. He seems to be a good man, but he's on the other side of line in this one and my gut is telling me that he is not just getting paid, he's getting played.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Thursday, January 9, 2014
2013 - the Year in Review
2013 is gone. Poof. Just like that. After all the big empty noise of 2012 what else could be expected. Poor old 2013, the millennium became a teenager and no one cared. It is the saddest birthday since John Hughes' Sixteen Candles. 2012 had long since sucked all the life out of the room. Since whenever. It was supposed to be the end of everything. And it wasn't.
13 came and went and there is little to mention beyond more of the same. Here are some of the more notable headlines.
Patrick Brazeau breaks color barrier.
It has been difficult all these years watching the pigs at the trough fill themselves beyond capacity on the backs of Native Peoples and the Canadian Peoples. It seemed as though there was mass blindness among the populace to the open theft of the nation's coffers by those claiming public service. Yes, there are numerous and nauseating examples of Native people taking advantage on money intended for the under privileged. This year Patrick Brazeau broke through at the highest level and to a historically maximum capacity a with such an undeniable sense of entitlement. It was more than Canadian, it was practically Albertan.
It was a Jackie Robinson moment in the Bizzaro World that is Canadian politics. A Native man feasting without shame on the taxpayer trough who is judged in a trinity of swine that includes both a male and female from the fifth estate. Those held in the highest regard in the media elite, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Duffy. It was amusing in some sad way watching the media elite turn on their own.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Swallows Elsipogtog
As the year progressed, it seemed that the Idle No More movement was going to become nothing more than an armchair, click here do nothing fad. A Konyesque internet blip but only smaller and less ironic in it's failure. And then Elsipogtog happened and we had a real moment for the movement. A centre unto which to coalesce. It was starting to build and the issue brought in voices from all over, it was not just our issue.
The attack by the police on the blockade at Elsipogtog First Nation and resistance by primarily members of the Elsipogtog had created a situation reminiscent of the Oka Crisis at Kanehsatake
over 20 years ago. It had paralyzed the country and mesmerized the world for months and showed the true face behind the smiling Canadian veneer.
It seemed as though everything had lined up as it had during the Oka Crisis but this time there were non-Native people on the front lines and involvement internationally at a historic level. This would be the story that would define Canada in 2013.
Then this unbelievable Chris Farley like apparition emerged like a modern day digital Hindenburg to rise up and burst into an eternal flame and expansion over the entire Canadian landscape. Mayor Rob Ford swallowed up all the media and public attention in this country like a black hole feasting on stars like a morbidly obese kid from the 1970's eating a bowl of Alphabets.
It was such a cartoon like farce that one could picture a Simpsons type scene with a cabal of fat privileged white men gathered together. "We don't need this shit. We can't have soccer moms and Native People supporting the same issues. We can have the old ladies at Timmies listening guys wearing camouflage. Someone is going to have to take fall."
I know it's just paranoia.
News would come early in 2014 that Canada had prepared a national defense action plan in preparation for Native people rising up in response to Elsipogtog.
The Canadian Holocaust
In the years since the Oka Crisis, the world has largely ignored the ongoing Canadian Holocaust with the ultimate goal of taking the Indian out of the Indian no matter what the United Nations said. The heart breaking news that Canada's academia had conducted starvation experiments of Native children in residential school created no public outcry. No one is demanding justice for this unspeakable horror. Satisfied silence descends.
I asked who is Canada's Mengele? Hoping that I could offend to acknowledgement but the response makes me wonder if it was less bluff than underplay.
Idle No More - A leadership crisis for a leaderless movement
It has been just over a year and there is little doubt that the highs of 2012 that marked the Idle No More Movement have begun to fade away. Oh, the blush of new romance. The thrill is gone. Once you have it you never want it again. And on and on and on.
I have no idea what happened. I'm not an insider. What I can say in my small assessment of things is that the movement hit a roadblock and it does not know how to move forward. No organic direction emerged. There was I believe a misinterpretation of the value of social media. Clicking like is not a revolution.
What I have seen in my experience and the most painful lessons I have learned was that the people whom you place the highest value may least deserve it. Those that seek power are often those who should not have it. I do not know if this is the case but I do know that there are leaders or spokespeople who are out representing and getting paid. If that's the case it's best to name that person and have them take the responsibility and the blame that go along with the perks. I learned back in the day was that the system will get you in two ways. First they give you nothing and then you give you everything.
The acknowledgement of division becomes division. The denial of division becomes division. The connection is real or it is not. I can hate my brother but he is still my brother. I can deny my father but he is still my father. I can hate my sister but she is still my sister. I can deny my mother but she is still my mother. And on and on and on.
There has to be leadership. Someone must be accountable. The collective must know who their voice is given.
It's the challenge that is placed upon every movement at some point, the internet made it happen faster.
Raise your fist as Billy Jack rides into the Sunset
It's 1972, I am around eight years old and my father has rented both a projector and a film from I have no idea where. He pins a bed sheet onto the living room wall in and he plays the movie Billy Jack for our family and a handful of friends and family. It was the most powerful movie I had ever seen. The Native People are right and these racists are wrong and the HalfBreed Hero kicks ass with bare feet. After the film played to a packed house at the community centre the days in the school yard would be trying to repeat the immortal words and arguing over whether it was going to be a left foot kicking the right ear or the right foot kicking the left ear.
Tom Laughlin passed with little fanfare this year. Despite a creating both independent film and the blockbuster at the same time. He went outside the Hollywood system and made a film that told a truth no one wanted to hear and made more money than anyone thought possible.
Elijah Harper makes the final journey
Elijah Harper, one of the most important figures in modern day Canadian history, passed away on May 17, 2013. It was Harper who killed the Meech Lake Accord. All the machinations and heavy breathing by the Canadian elite to deny reality of the day were unable to change the facts upon the end of day. This one is done and done. There is no need to debate the fact. History is history. Elijah Harper stood up to the Canadian elite and denied their wishes. It was a beautiful thing. One of the great days.
20-14
There was this idea that the end was near, but now it feels unknown.
There are lessons in all of these things, change is beyond our control.
13 came and went and there is little to mention beyond more of the same. Here are some of the more notable headlines.
Patrick Brazeau breaks color barrier.
It has been difficult all these years watching the pigs at the trough fill themselves beyond capacity on the backs of Native Peoples and the Canadian Peoples. It seemed as though there was mass blindness among the populace to the open theft of the nation's coffers by those claiming public service. Yes, there are numerous and nauseating examples of Native people taking advantage on money intended for the under privileged. This year Patrick Brazeau broke through at the highest level and to a historically maximum capacity a with such an undeniable sense of entitlement. It was more than Canadian, it was practically Albertan.
It was a Jackie Robinson moment in the Bizzaro World that is Canadian politics. A Native man feasting without shame on the taxpayer trough who is judged in a trinity of swine that includes both a male and female from the fifth estate. Those held in the highest regard in the media elite, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Duffy. It was amusing in some sad way watching the media elite turn on their own.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Swallows Elsipogtog
As the year progressed, it seemed that the Idle No More movement was going to become nothing more than an armchair, click here do nothing fad. A Konyesque internet blip but only smaller and less ironic in it's failure. And then Elsipogtog happened and we had a real moment for the movement. A centre unto which to coalesce. It was starting to build and the issue brought in voices from all over, it was not just our issue.
The attack by the police on the blockade at Elsipogtog First Nation and resistance by primarily members of the Elsipogtog had created a situation reminiscent of the Oka Crisis at Kanehsatake
over 20 years ago. It had paralyzed the country and mesmerized the world for months and showed the true face behind the smiling Canadian veneer.
It seemed as though everything had lined up as it had during the Oka Crisis but this time there were non-Native people on the front lines and involvement internationally at a historic level. This would be the story that would define Canada in 2013.
Then this unbelievable Chris Farley like apparition emerged like a modern day digital Hindenburg to rise up and burst into an eternal flame and expansion over the entire Canadian landscape. Mayor Rob Ford swallowed up all the media and public attention in this country like a black hole feasting on stars like a morbidly obese kid from the 1970's eating a bowl of Alphabets.
It was such a cartoon like farce that one could picture a Simpsons type scene with a cabal of fat privileged white men gathered together. "We don't need this shit. We can't have soccer moms and Native People supporting the same issues. We can have the old ladies at Timmies listening guys wearing camouflage. Someone is going to have to take fall."
I know it's just paranoia.
News would come early in 2014 that Canada had prepared a national defense action plan in preparation for Native people rising up in response to Elsipogtog.
The Canadian Holocaust
In the years since the Oka Crisis, the world has largely ignored the ongoing Canadian Holocaust with the ultimate goal of taking the Indian out of the Indian no matter what the United Nations said. The heart breaking news that Canada's academia had conducted starvation experiments of Native children in residential school created no public outcry. No one is demanding justice for this unspeakable horror. Satisfied silence descends.
I asked who is Canada's Mengele? Hoping that I could offend to acknowledgement but the response makes me wonder if it was less bluff than underplay.
Idle No More - A leadership crisis for a leaderless movement
It has been just over a year and there is little doubt that the highs of 2012 that marked the Idle No More Movement have begun to fade away. Oh, the blush of new romance. The thrill is gone. Once you have it you never want it again. And on and on and on.
I have no idea what happened. I'm not an insider. What I can say in my small assessment of things is that the movement hit a roadblock and it does not know how to move forward. No organic direction emerged. There was I believe a misinterpretation of the value of social media. Clicking like is not a revolution.
What I have seen in my experience and the most painful lessons I have learned was that the people whom you place the highest value may least deserve it. Those that seek power are often those who should not have it. I do not know if this is the case but I do know that there are leaders or spokespeople who are out representing and getting paid. If that's the case it's best to name that person and have them take the responsibility and the blame that go along with the perks. I learned back in the day was that the system will get you in two ways. First they give you nothing and then you give you everything.
The acknowledgement of division becomes division. The denial of division becomes division. The connection is real or it is not. I can hate my brother but he is still my brother. I can deny my father but he is still my father. I can hate my sister but she is still my sister. I can deny my mother but she is still my mother. And on and on and on.
There has to be leadership. Someone must be accountable. The collective must know who their voice is given.
It's the challenge that is placed upon every movement at some point, the internet made it happen faster.
Raise your fist as Billy Jack rides into the Sunset
It's 1972, I am around eight years old and my father has rented both a projector and a film from I have no idea where. He pins a bed sheet onto the living room wall in and he plays the movie Billy Jack for our family and a handful of friends and family. It was the most powerful movie I had ever seen. The Native People are right and these racists are wrong and the HalfBreed Hero kicks ass with bare feet. After the film played to a packed house at the community centre the days in the school yard would be trying to repeat the immortal words and arguing over whether it was going to be a left foot kicking the right ear or the right foot kicking the left ear.
Tom Laughlin passed with little fanfare this year. Despite a creating both independent film and the blockbuster at the same time. He went outside the Hollywood system and made a film that told a truth no one wanted to hear and made more money than anyone thought possible.
Elijah Harper makes the final journey
Elijah Harper, one of the most important figures in modern day Canadian history, passed away on May 17, 2013. It was Harper who killed the Meech Lake Accord. All the machinations and heavy breathing by the Canadian elite to deny reality of the day were unable to change the facts upon the end of day. This one is done and done. There is no need to debate the fact. History is history. Elijah Harper stood up to the Canadian elite and denied their wishes. It was a beautiful thing. One of the great days.
20-14
There was this idea that the end was near, but now it feels unknown.
There are lessons in all of these things, change is beyond our control.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Tapped (Pt. 4 - Conclusion)
We had lost everything. It was all gone and there was nothing that could be done. Our language, our culture, our ceremonies, our values, our stories, our way of life have all faded into history. Crushed with bureaucracy, lies and willfully racist or willfully blind Canadian public.
I was living in Toronto at the time and I realized that I had not touched the earth for days. I would leave my tiny rented room and I would walk on the sidewalk to the Subway station and head to Queen St. W. I had made myself alien to the earth. A great confusion settled. Sadness. Anger. Madness.
I dreamed I was walking down Queen Street on a glorious day and the street is lively but not too full. I am crying like a lost child. Sobbing. I am overcome by this feeling of hopelessness and I can hide it from the world no longer. I stumble down the street in tears of outrage and no one could care on a glorious day and the street is lively but not too full.
In the next moment, I am walking in a forest almost immediately my burden has been lifted. I come to a large poplar tree and it begins to speak to me. It tells me that nothing has been lost, "We remember everything. Whatever you need to know just come to us and ask."
I am renewed by this dream. The next day on my walk to work. I acknowledge all the trees on the street stopping to offer tobacco at some and hugging others.
I did not know how to take the words of the tree spirit and put them into practice in my life. I did not know how the tree was supposed to teach me the language or long lost cultural practices. All I knew is that I believed the answer to be true and if I were not the one who could crack the code the answer was still there for others. This was enough to carry me forward.
It would be many years later that I would see the tree that spoke to me when I attended my first Sundance.
It was the spring following my fourth and final year as a Sundancer that I had set upon the notion of tapping Maple trees and making Maple Syrup. Despite my dreams and teachings and all the things I had learned over the past two decades and despite my sincere offering at the beginning of the process I cannot escape the realization that I had committed a sin.
I have punctured holes in four Maple trees that were three quarters of a century old and all their sap is bleeding out onto the ground.
This happened because I just start doing things for me and it is all because of me that this is happening and all the focus becomes internal and disrespectful. My ego pushes more forward and I must be right. I cannot be wrong.
I should have taken more time. I should have asked more questions. I should have been more respectful. I shouldn't have drilled so many holes. That was the thing. That was what was wasteful. I should have stopped at one.
***
Over the first four days, I am able to collect enough sap to have my first boil and I fill two large stainless steel pots about three quarters full, maybe 25 liters in total.
I begin the boil at lunch break and stoke the fire after work, maintaining a steady steam but not boiling. I talk to my father in law Fred about my problem with the steel spigots and how most of the sap is being wasted especially now that the weather has hit the pattern for peak production.
I don't tell him this weight I feel; but I don't know if it would have made a difference. He did not grow up in a world where waste was tolerated.
He recalls his grandmother sending him out to collect elderberry vines to make their own spigots. He remembered elderberry being on the property some years ago, but hadn't seen any for a while. He suggested I try Sumac since it had a cork like centre similar to the elderberry vine.
We are blessed to have sumac all around our yard. This is a beautiful plant, it's called a tree but it's more in between. It grows to about 10 feet and it has has long lance shaped leaves that hold bright burgundy seed cones that slash red across the summer green.
This time of year the leaves are gone and the seed cones have dulled to a darker purple but it is easy enough to find. The sumac is always looking for attention.
The sumac like the dandelion grew in my esteem as I tried to remove it from my garden. It's extensive and aggressive roots snake out just inches below the surface and new plants can begin anywhere along the chain.
I had to admit that despite the troubles it caused, it was a hardy as well as beautiful plant and the truth was it would one day take that garden back from me with no bad feelings.
I also knew that the fruit of the sumac, that blood purple cone of seeds, was edible. I had come across this fact in a survival guide I had perused and had put theory to the test soon after. Although slightly bitter and with a fuzzy texture that is nowhere near pleasant; it is not entirely unappetizing. I could imagine with the proper nutritional engineering the taste could become quite acceptable and even delectable.
I once again made my offering of tobacco. I then used a tree snips and cut down one sumac about four feet high and what I guessed to be the proper circumference. I then snip into five inch lengths.
I use a large screw driver and push a hole through each one with relative ease.
I take my hand made spigots to the trees and the one closest to the road. The one that got the first sun of the day and the best sun of the day and wore the hole that had leaked barrels of sap for all the world to see.
I removed the wasteful steel spigot with an easy twist and put it in my pocket. It was obvious that my sumac spigot was too large for the hole, but that was good, you can't cut things bigger.
I started to tap the spigot in. The bark and secondary layers of the sumac peeled back creating an airtight seal. When I hit the right depth, liquid came quickly out of the end of the tube. I hang a pail on the notch carved into the spigot and it collects at an incredible rate. The drip, drip, drip is music. It was the old way. It is a beautiful thing.
That night my wife and I boiled the Maple sap down to maple syrup. We got about two cups. It was divine. Over the next ten days, I was boiling every waking hour and getting about one quart a day. Miraculous. A taste beyond compare.
I research Maple Syrup and am amazed at its superfood qualities with trace nutrients, metals and minerals that are quite beneficial to human beings but can be found together in no other natural source.
As a family we began to drink the sap and there was always a pot of maple sap tea on the fire. There were numerous health benefits associated with the drinking of the sap. It is cleansing and rejuvenating and an absolute boost for a time of year when the winter time blues have threatened to set up permanent residence.
I discover Maple trees growing along our driveway on both sides. Despite the fact that on one side the black walnut trees have choked out everything else and on the other side the swamp has drowned or is drowning all new trees. If we didn't make this driveway, there would be no Maple Trees here. The idea washes over me and it is my belief that the reason these things happen is that the Creator wants us to be happy. It is why medicine is sweet and berries are bright.
My grand children observe this whole process. I show them the marks on the tree where Grandma's Grandma tapped the same tree over 50 years ago. In their memory they will know that their family has always tapped these trees.
The memories of the great grandparents direct the grandfather who passes the traditional knowledge onto grandchildren and connects six generations in a moment.
This was part of the answer.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Tapped Pt 3
When I get close, I can see that the pails are mostly on. That's the best part.
All around the spigots there are stains from wasted sap that has bled out and onto the ground.
A wound spilling out. Wasting away for no purpose. I have done a terrible thing.
I check the pails that remained fast and they do have some collected.
A cup or so in a few and three or four cups in others.
The first one, the one I did with the most care, has a couple of liters.
I reset a couple of pails. I return my collection to the sugar shack.
The stains on the trees are bright as flags of blood in my eyes
I drive past on my way to the radio station.
On the tree nearest the road, the sap is running so heavily it trickles
like the beginning of a mountain stream.
I have done a terrible thing.
***
Lincoln Manning runs Two Eagle Automotive which is next door to The Eagle 107.7 FM - Your First Nation Radio Station.
Lincoln has tapped trees and made his own Maple Syrup in the past. I tell him that I am looking for a plastic spigot of some kind that would be large enough to fit into the holes I bored into the trees. He smiles and steps out from behind his counter and walks to a shelf. He hold up an white spigot. He says that he sold a few for the very same purpose.
Lincoln does a fair business with the farmers, builders, fixers and general do-it-your-selfers from the non-Native communities in the area. They like the location and selection. They love the tax free for all business model.
I buy one that is the closest size I can approximate.
We talk some and when I ask if he thinks it will work, he smiles that smile that wishes you well and you can never tell.
***
After work, I stand at the tree with the white plumbing spigot in my hand. I see myself pushing and twisting and screwing with force this white plastic spigot threaded to dig and scrape into place. Plastic thread cut into hard maple. There is no way that is happening. It'll just make things worse.
Why did I make so many holes? What the hell were you thinking?
You have to be so right, right now.
Look at that. All of those trees. Those old trees.
I don't know if anyone else is seeing that. Nobody is saying anything.
Two weeks of this. Will it start to run faster.
I keep getting some though. I might be ready to boil this time tomorrow.
***
Science has not configured an accepted theory on why sap runs. It has to do with the extremes of temperature in spring in this part of Turtle Island. It has to be below freezing overnight and warm during the day.
The mechanics are agreed upon although there is no why. There are no leafs on the trees. Why does the tree require sugar and nutrients from the earth to be carried from top to bottom? What is it feeding.
Although it is the sugar that our bodies require, it is the minerals and other nutrients that are contained within Maple Syrup make it the true Superfood.
54 beneficial compounds in Maple Syrup
***
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