by Xavier Kataquapit
www.underthenorthernsky.com
Hot summer days have finally arrived and we are all enjoying the warm weather. These hot days remind me of growing up in my home community of Attawapiskat on the James Bay coast in the 1980s.
There was never much to do in our home, so our activity was always about running around the neighbourhood to be with our friends and cousins. We had a TV in the house but it only supplied CBC, TVO and a church channel that broadcast either a live church service or non-stop reruns of ‘Ben-Hur’, ‘Moses’ or ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’.
Since there was no entertainment at home, we wandered off into the neighbourhood in search of our cousins. Our relatives were only a few houses away and our play areas were the small gravel parking lots near our homes or the muddy wet muskeg patches that dotted our neighbourhood. When I think of it now, much of our community wasn’t the prettiest or healthiest place for children to play. Active ditches filled with wastewater were everywhere and we all knew how to navigate past every outhouse near our homes.
Our great adventures always started with games we made up ourselves. Usually, we started our play at the very centre of the Kataquapit street, right in the middle of town. Four of my Kataquapit uncles, including Leo, Gabriel, Alex and George, lived on this street and their children lived next to them. There were so many excited children and grandchildren living on this street who didn’t have anything to do at home that it often turned into a huge chaotic organization of kids playing games. We didn’t have any toys or equipment, so our games were creative and turned into events of tag, kick the can, hide and seek and games of ‘war’, which would more commonly be known in the rest of Canada as ‘cowboys and indians’.
It was exciting to roam free across dusty gravel streets, run behind a relative’s house, know where to hide in the tall grass and high weeds and remember to avoid the dirtiest places in between. There were a few cut lawns in the neighbourhood and we played on them until we were directed to disturb the community elsewhere.
Elders and older people kept an eye on our activity and we always knew they were not far away. Elders sat outside their homes to bask in the sunlight and adults roamed around, either doing laundry or moving clean water into their homes or wastewater out of their houses. Whenever an argument broke out in our group or someone cried because they got hurt, there was always someone older nearby to help with the situation or send us home to our parents.
During the hottest part of the day, everyone migrated towards the cooler breeze that blew in from the mighty Attawapiskat River. Elders always lined the shore to keep an eye on the tides as they rose and fell at different times of the day. Often, they sat huddled together around a game of checkers or chess among the tall grass overlooking the water.
We only heard and used Inineemoon, our Cree language, as children. We shouted and teased each other in creative ways and argued with one another, using insults we were careful not to utter near our parents. English was so foreign to us that anyone who tried to speak it was immediately made fun of for trying to.
As children, our parents always warned us never to venture into the water but on the hottest days, we would secretly go down to our underwear and wander into the cold, refreshing river. It was never a secret when we arrived home because mom and dad would immediately see our wet clothes and scold us for not listening to their warnings.
When the weather became overbearing and there seemed to be no relief from the heat, dad would organize everyone for a boat ride onto the great James Bay. My dad, Marius, always maintained a 24-foot freighter canoe and it was more than enough space for all of us. My mom, Susan and the nine of us children would fill the boat with a day’s supply of fresh food, goose, and ingredients for fresh bannock. Mom and dad were always ready for any situation. They knew the land, the water and the weather so well that they never worried about where we were going. If the water on the bay was calm, we headed to Akamiski Island or towards a smaller set of islands in between known as Manwinan (Twin Islands). If the weather changed and James Bay was too rough, dad turned the boat and we headed up the river instead, exploring the many rapids along the way.
These days, when the weather turns hot and muggy, I head out on my BMW motorcycle and ride down the highway. The feeling of sitting in the wind as it cools me off reminds me of moving on the river with my family. It’s a feeling of freedom and peace I will always keep close to my heart.
