#peawanuck

[strikervi]

Sun setting in Peawanuck #adventure #peawanuck #northernontario #sunset #winter #hudsonsbay #nature (at Peawanuck) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvmp_kYAuNU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1v59xg6n9sjj0

[strikervi]

Over the last four days I had the privilege of working in the small (very) northern Ontario town of Peawanuck. Long days were spent at a small medical outpost, but every night we made sure to save some time for exploring (and searching for polar bears). Its easy to see why the Winusk have made this place home. #polarbear #polarbearprovincialpark #peawanuck #northernontario #winter #snow #adventure #medicine #hike #spruce #winsuk #nature #truenorth (at Peawanuck First Nation) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvkj1UpAtuo/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pce6bz1s7x5j

[brandomaclo]

Northern Inspiration

By Brandon MacLeod, Community Journalism Trainer

First, before getting into the well-founded complaints and concerns many have about the price of flying in Northern Ontario, I’d like to share my thoughts on the inspiration I found in Peawanuck and brought back with me to North Spirit Lake.

It was late-August 2016, I began my journey from the beautiful and lush North Spirit Lake to the magnificent and rugged promised land of Peawanuck, Ont. Currently, I teach the Indigenous Reporters Program in North Spirit, and in 2015 I did the same work mentoring new journalists in Peawanuck.

So, I embarked on a ‘working holiday’ returning to Peawanuck, visiting friends, taking part in a wedding, exploring the coast of Hudson Bay, and getting back together with the journalism crew.

It was an amazing time, as one of my best friends and fellow writer and journalist, Pam Chookomoolin, and her family took me into their home, hosting me, feeding me trout, geese, caribou, and some of that delicious tundra tea. Sam Hunter, whose parents have become my adopted Mooshum and Gookum, took me out on the land, taught me many things about life, shared thoughts and stories, and guided me along the seemingly unending shores of Hudson Bay, where I was able to watch and photograph some of the most impressive and majestic animals in the world, polar bears.

Back in Peawanuck, after about a week of celebrating Bobby Chookomolin and Monique Gull’s wedding, it was time to get the journalism crew back together, re-motivated and inspired to share the stories, thoughts, and ideas they had inside.

We met on a Wednesday evening in the log cabin Pam’s partner Johnny built behind their home.

The meeting was small but there was a strong spirit of sharing and an energy that perhaps had been lost a little during the months we spent apart. A huge pot of tea kept making the rounds, keeping us warm as the night fell. We discussed story ideas, of which there were no shortage: food security and prices, mining, fresh produce, hunting, teaching, history. The meeting wasn’t even over yet and Gilbert Chookomoolin had already written a blog post about the absurd prices at the Northern store. We were on a roll, the motivation to write and share stories was palpable.

A few days later we held a second workshop. It started with a free-writing session, the prompting word ‘empowerment’ evoked strong feelings. The discussion on empowerment connected to talks on human rights, before relating the power journalists and storytellers have in protecting human rights and holding people accountable. We were all feeling more than inspired, as we finished the night watching the movie ‘Spotlight’.

I left Peawanuck sad, as I said goodbyes to such great friends and fellow journalists, artists, and storytellers. But as I flew back to my current home of North Spirit I felt a jolt of energy, a smack in the face of inspiration.

We all have it in us. As journalist Glenn Greenwald says, “There are no limits to an individual’s power to change the world.”

While the crew of journalism trainees in North Spirit have already been published, have shown amazing promise, I was now returning with even more to give. Inspired, motivated, and looking deeper at everything they had to offer, at every level. All of it valuable and all of it worthy of the voice they give it.

Since returning, I cannot see a limit to what the creative, interesting, and intelligent group of journalism trainees in North Spirit will accomplish.

And now to get back to what I was about to mention at the beginning of this piece – the absurd and ludicrous pricing of flights across Northern Ontario.

In revealing the price of my round trip flight from North Spirit Lake to Peawanuck, keep in mind, with the help of a friend I used discounts, sale prices and even managed to get the half-price deal on the final leg up to Peawanuck. Yet, with all that in place, the trip still cost over $2,200!

It’s a story that more often needs to be told. Just one leg of the trip, from Timmins to Peawanuck and back costs $2,000 unless you are lucky enough to get it half-price. People in the north are gouged by airlines and left to pay unreasonable ticket prices just to leave their community, for whatever reason. And that’s not to mention the cost of freight.

But with all that said, I’d assure you, money isn’t everything. It’s the people and the beauty of the world around us. And for those I truly do feel lucky.

This was originally published at http://www.jhr.ca/en/2016/09/14/northern-inspiration/

[brandomaclo]

The Beauty Of The North

Author: Brandon MacLeod, JHR trainer

My hometown of Cold Lake, Alberta is literally less than a degree south of my current home in Peawanuck, Ontario. But that minor blip on the map in terms of latitude bears a big difference in terms of my perceptions of each community and their natural beauty.

I used to think, growing up in Cold Lake, that we were in a northern community. It snowed in August every once in a while. It was never warm enough to wear just a Halloween costume to go trick-or-treating: we always had to find a way to fit our costume over our snowsuit. March was never, ever the start of spring. It was cold most of the year and therefore, it seemed to me, that I was a northerner. But it’s pretty clear that Cold Lake is in fact at the east edge of central Alberta. Want to talk northern Alberta? Try Fort Chipewyan or Zama.

Since moving to Peawanuck, less than 20 miles from the coast of Hudson Bay, I have yet to notice a huge difference in terms of weather. We’ve had a very warm summer. Sure, there has already been frost in September. My flight into the community at the end of April was delayed two days because of a blizzard that dropped two feet of snow. And in August I was wearing four layers, including a winter jacket and wool socks, while out fishing and photographing polar bears on the tundra next to the shores of Hudson Bay.

Although the weather in the two communities is similar and the latitude nearly identical, those last two mentions – polar bears and tundra – are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to my vastly different perceptions of Cold Lake at the center of a prairie province surrounded by air force and industry, and Peawanuck as a truly northern community made up almost entirely of natural beauty. Oh and there are literally icebergs just miles from here, floating around Hudson Bay all year long – it’s magnificent.

Cold Lake’s beauty comes in many different forms, with the lake itself being the star of the lineup. It is a small city at the end of Highway 28, offering almost all the services one could ask for from a small city at the end of the line. The wildlife, parks and people of Cold Lake keep life enjoyable and interesting year round, while the region lies in the midst of the beautiful Boreal Forest.

But along with its natural and urban beauty, the Cold Lake region comes dotted with thousands of oil and gas wells and other industrial development, as well as being bordered to the north by a fenced off tract of land 11,700 square kilometres in size, known as the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (a restricted area where military bombing practice takes place and caribou dare not cross).

It was in large part my love of nature and a longing for even more natural beauty that drew me north, specifically to Peawanuck and the coast of Hudson Bay.

Out here the beauty comes to me in breaths of fresh, crisp air. It arrives at sunrise through trees that go on for miles – stopped only by naturally occurring permafrost and a bay of unending horizons. It’s in the clean and clear Winisk River that provides life for so many species up here. It’s in the days of blue skies and the nights of stars and northern lights. It comes to me through the animals and plants I know from before and the ones I have yet to meet. It’s the people, the mere eight roads in town and the one main street. The beauty is everywhere, walking for miles into the bush, smelling the trees, hearing the silence, not coming across anything manmade but the rare new cabin, generational trails, and the occasional old shack.

My intentions are not to comparatively disparage the beauty of my hometown, and I acknowledge the newness, excitement and temporary nature of my stay in Peawanuck could cast a veneer over things that might not always end up beautiful in the longview.

But Peawanuck – my time here, the people, the place, and most of all the nature – has opened my eyes and mind to the true wonders and beauty of the north and I am beyond thankful for that.

This was originally published at http://www.jhr.ca/en/2015/10/16/the-beauty-of-the-north/

[brandomaclo]

The Art Of Not Speaking

Breathing ceases, the slow audit of unfrozen trees …

   10,000 years, forest to man:

Bestowed

   An ability to be unable to freeze

Fearlessness

   permeates the northern breeze.

Squirrels drunk on sap extract screaming truths

   Acceptance, appreciation, breathless still,

   learning to listen as the lone caribou

   Consuming to learn, reflections earn

Bush virtues

As generations undisturbed,

   outsiders undeterred.

Alone, an arrival of self, the spruce fire cracks

   just enough

   to warm hands, soothe spirits, impart northern wealth

November’s the eleventh name to appear

   nearing what’s now known simply as winter

Winisk ice flows freely

   A revolution per year

   Freeze-up alters time

Ask an elder nothing specific

   they’ll tell you what you need to hear

They say the bush, not the forest. Both

   made of trees

   Avoid becoming bewildered.

   Slow down as the spirits,

   the regeneration of leaves,

Balance

   and truth speaks.

A willingness to listen; the art of not speaking,

   filling space, or polluting air

An art far beyond the bush, this place.

A depth deeper than hearing

The appearance of free flowing ice is not real though

   confined by river banks,

   themselves

   they began an upriver flow

The effects of sunsets and a drawn-out solemn stare.

What’s moving, what’s still?

   There is a stillness in the movement,

   an ever-imperceptible movement in being still

Even from upon the Eagle’s ledge, the rocks

   unmoved for centuries

   according to outside assessments

   begin to move

   against the current

   Just slightly less than

Only just enough to let the grey owl know there is a spirit in everything

   perceived through the eyes of acceptance and the gift of listening.

By Brandon MacLeod

[brandomaclo]

The beauty of Peawanuck, Ontario (Sept. 29, 2015)