Xavier Kataquapit

I grew up on the James Bay coast where thinking about what I ate was not something I considered much. The only time anyone I knew thought about food had to do with where to find the cheapest sources of nutrition around. This meant an abundance of natural foods that were mostly centered around wild meat like Niska (goose), Atik (Caribou), Namess (fish), Sheesheep (duck) and Waboose (rabbit). Occasionally in the summer we Cree up the James Bay coast supplemented our diet with wild berries we picked from islands in the Bay.

I am sitting here watching the rain sprinkling down from a grey sky onto the lake. It is a quiet rain. There is very little wind and that adds to the laziness of my morning.
I am nestled in the midst of a vast wilderness and kilometres upon kilometres of pine tree forests. I imagine the rich green forests and all the foliage welcome this rain. The lake will be a little chilly for a few days so my daily swim should be refreshing. That is OK.
I love swimming in northern lakes. The more isolated they are, the more pure and unpolluted.

I noticed in the news recently that there seems to be a move from denial of climate change or global warming. It looks like people are finally waking up to the fact that we humans are contributing to a situation that is causing change in the climate and weather patterns.
Sadly, we have wasted a lot of time and missed a lot of opportunities to do our part to fight global warming. People seem to be coming out of denial now because the changes in weather patterns are just too obvious to ignore.

This week a friend of mine stepped on a nail and had to get a shot for tetanus. It reminded me of the many times I injured myself as a child growing up back home in Attawapiskat. I was always around the family construction business and by the time I was 12, I was driving a half-ton truck around town and operating tractors. You can imagine the close calls I had at that early age but that is what life was like back there in those wild days up north.

These days I am surrounded by nature’s art and Mother Earth is changing the landscape with incredible colours that she takes from her pallet. The fall colour extravaganza is in full swing up north and vivid yellow, orange, red and green fills the forests. Even though we northerners feel a little sad at the waning of summer our spirits are lifted with joyful colour all through the northland.