It is a cloudy day. At 8 AM,
Clifford conducts another pipe ceremony overlooking the river. After breakfast,
I do an on-camera interview with Mark and Joe. Amanda declines. Among other
things, Mark talks of an oil slick on the river which came by here a month
earlier. It was obviously reported as there were oil company people out in a
helicopter, he says, and Mark received a visit by boat as well. He was assured
that “it was natural” which he thought to be a ridiculous statement: he had
never in his life seen an oil slick on the water. For several years now he has
not drank the water nor eaten the fish from the river. Official recommendations,
he says, are that one fish meal a month is the maximum recommended.
Mark being interviewed
Joe talks about the effects on fish,
water and wildlife around Ft Mac. He agrees that it is no longer safe to eat
fish from the river. His Dad told him 20 years ago that things would get much
worse, and they have. No one he says took much notice until 2005, and he feels
it is now too late. I agree with him that it will take a long time to return
this area to a healthy condition even if all industry stopped now, but it could
and will get a great deal worse unless it is slowed down very soon. When I tell
him that oil company brochures currently say that there is no significant
impact of the industry on the river, his
response is that “they have to say that to justify their continuing to exploit
the resources, to rape the land”.
Besides the effects on the fish with many fish now having cancerous growths,
he says that there have been reports of
diseased moose. Joe is the first person I have talked to that has
abstained from taking the easy money available by working for the tar sands
industry. “When you grow up in the bush, you learn to live off the land... you
learn to appreciate all this wildlife and all this nature. Why would I want to
work for something that is just going to destroy it all?”
Joe Deranger
Bruce collects money from us to give
to Mark to pay him back for his generosity. In turn, he gives us a couple of bags of berries, which enliven
our meals and snacks for the next two days. By mid-morning, we push off. We
talk a lot about Poplar Point for days after.
Mark and Amanda
Later that morning, we see a barge
coming toward us. A couple of days earlier we had seen Guy Tchacker’s enormous
barge carrying heavy machinery up river. This barge was smaller. I knew it had
to be Raymond Ladouceur. I had spoken to Ray over the phone several times and
we had agreed that he would take us down from Ft Chip on Friday. He stops and
we chat and confirm our rendezvous and the price ($50 per person, dogs
excepted, and $100 per canoe with gear). He also gives us clear directions on
our map to a small channel which branches off the Embarras Channel and which
would lead us to Ft Chip via Mamawi Lake. We had been planning to take the
Embarras Channel, the second biggest channel of the Athabasca River through the
Athabasca delta- the delta we were now entering- all the way to Lake Athabasca.
Ray’s proposed alternate route would mean that we could avoid a crossing of the
west end of Lake Athabasca.On a lake that big
(Canada’s eighth largest), there is never any guarantee of calm conditions and
the crossing could delay us. This was good news. Embarras is French for
“awkward situation.” I presume that this is because in the past, the channel often
had a lot of logs blocking it after spring flooding.
It still could but the water level is going down (probably due to oil industry water withdrawals and/or global warming) and this happens less now.
It still could but the water level is going down (probably due to oil industry water withdrawals and/or global warming) and this happens less now.
Raymond's barge
At lunch on another beach, we spot a
pair of muskrat tracks which meander along the water’s edge. I follow them for
about 500 m, trying to understand what they are doing. They are not in a hurry
but clearly have an agenda. They are not
exploring, just traveling- like us.
Lunch break
After setting up camp and eating,
Kevin, Clifford and Kelly build a sweat lodge. I doubted that there would be
time to do this but I was wrong. They build the frame in the traditional way of
arches made of paired willows, tied to together at the leafy ends, with both
butt ends stuck in the sand at opposite sides of the lodge. If there is one
thing these sandbars have a lot of, it is willows. This lodge is made of four
pairs. Afterwards, all of our tarps are
used to cover the frame. Howie decides not to participate pleading
claustrophobia and Brittany, who is menstruating, is not permitted to
participate. She is disappointed and Heather feels that this is not fair. A
long discussion ensues between Heather and the others. Heather points out that
they could have scheduled this around the women’s moon times. Clifford and
Kevin insist that they are doing this when it feels right and that is now. The
taboo against menstruating women in sweats is ancient and is an acknowledgement
of feminine power. Of the eight of us who participate in the four rounds, seven
of us are inside and one is the doorman. I have been at many sweat lodges and
this one is the most cramped, the least dark, and yet one of the most spiritual.
Setting up camp
No comments:
Post a Comment