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September 20, 2007 · 7:28 pm

The Adventure diaries: Part 2 – Masawajo

We awoke to a cold, misty morning on Mattagami River. I squeezed some toothpaste onto my brush and took a glass of cold well water outside to brush my teeth. The others started emerging from their tents and trailers to the cabin after Leonard put on a pot of coffee. The air was thick with anticipation.

“I’m not sure if I should go,” muttered Gordon, a flicker of self-doubt in his eyes. He’s 76 and the ‘mountain’ we were about to climb (all 450 metres of it) hadn’t been scaled in the last 50 years. We would have to boat in and break trail over unknown terrain to get to the top.

But a cuppa boosted Gord’s resilence. We loaded up our packs with water, sandwiches and granola Alice’s luxurious contribution of smoked salmon, organic crackers, goat’s cheese and pesto. Leonard threw his machette in the boat, and each Miller girl took their own axe or hatchet to slice through the thick bush.

Leonard’s partner, Linda, waved us off with a final ”You’s are insane,” and “I’ll be waitin’ right here,” and we launched!

We killed the motor on the boats, paddling along narrow stretches of the river to get as close to the base of the mountain.

“Portage!” hollered Sue with glee when the lead boat hit a beaver dam. If portage can be defined as lugging a motor boat across a tiny beaver dam – then we completed three – hardcore no?

When we could go no further we hopped out of the boats carefully treading the dank muskeg to solid ground. Over the next two hours Leonard led us in a slinking line up Masawajo.

We walked on the floor of an ancient birch forest, among jack pines and climbed up steep, craggy bits – those damn axes in hand.

Gord – or Jajo – his Ojibway name – was third to get to the top. “Imagine Dad, we’ll be telling your great grandchildren tales of how you made climbed this mountain at 76 – wearing old running shoes with no tread!” said Laurie.

We all felt good. Leonard took a cigarette from his case and lit it, a hint of a smile. I snapped pictures of the vista. Alice lay spread eagle, eyes closed – soaking up the journey.

She was the most serious about the spiritual side of our quest. She’s been studying with Angaangaq or Uncle, a renowned eskimo healer from Greenland.

Before lunch we lit a fire and Alice led a smudging and tobacco ceremony. With a long length of smoking dried sage she came to each of us. I took the smoke in with my hands, moving it over my whole body in a ritual to cleanse out the bad spirits or negativity – and make room for the good stuff.

The first time I discovered smudging I was in a circle of over 500 teenagers at a youth conference at an Ottawa university. The healer came round and smudged each one of us. I thought of my grandmother who passed away the year before, and for who I felt I hadn’t really mourned. When it was my turn I began to bawl. I was embarrased and shocked. But I never forgot the power of that ritual – and have wanted to explore Native spirituality ever since.

Alice lit a tobacco pipe and passed it round. We gave thanks to the ancestors. Leonard sprinkled tobacco on the fire and we left scraps of our meal for them.

Back at the camp we were flushed with our accomplishments. But part of me was dissapointed. Where was my moment of Great Spiritual Enlightenment on Masawajo?

Then I looked around at my newfound, long lost relatives. Leonard was beaming – he was proud to have followed in his grandfather’s footsteps. Gord was aching but grinned when I handed him a cold beer. Laurie, Sue and Alice were engaged in various states of yoga posture – willing their muscles to bounce back. Ian cracked another joke.

And I realized this was the first step – chipping away at my ignorance by listening to Anishinaabe stories, sharing bannock and making new friends.

The Adventure diaries – Part 1: the road to Gogama

‘OK I’m just coming down Bay, I’ll be there in a few minutes!’ Laurie shouted into my cell. I’d never met her before but already she’d told me she wasn’t good with directions and neither was I. Boy was our eight hour drive to Northern Ontario going to be fun.

Twenty minutes later she arrived and I said hello to my second cousin for the first time. As we sloppily manouvered our way out of Toronto, I quickly learned we had a lot in common: she was bright, bubbly and brutally honest. We chatted non stop for the next eight hours.

I’d invited myself along on The Adventure – an outing with my great uncle and his three daughters to the spiritual haunts of our Ojibway ancestors. The Millers recruited Leonard Neveau, former chief and all round popular guy at Mattagami Reserve, to take us to a sacred peak – Masawajo (Eagle Mountain ), to view pictograms that saved the Ojibway from a Mohawk invasion and to an ancient burial ground. I was most excited about Masawajo. Leonard told us that Ojibway men, including his grandfather, used to go up there with only a partridge to eat and nothing to drink for seven days – seeking visions and spiritual connection.

I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But already, on the road to Gogama I learned more about my Ojibway ancestry than in all my thirty years. James Miller - our great, great grandfather - and factor for the Hudson’s Bay company, founded a fur trade post on Mattagami lake in the mid 19th century. He married an Ojibway woman named Hannah Neveau and that’s about all I knew.

But my great uncle and cousins had been mining for knowledge about their history for years and Laurie’s stories added personality to the past.

A local shop owner remembered Ojibway children coming into his store to buy candy. James would give them pennies to buy treats while he charmed their mothers. An early widower – Hannah died in her 40s – and the great white man on the reserve, he rarely wanted for female company.

Laurie stuck a CD in the car stereo. ‘Oh yes, I remember, at Christmas he (James) used to make a batch of homemade beer,’ a warm, scratchy voice said. It was a distant cousin and the last of the Millers to be born at the old Mattagami fur trading post. ‘We had a big party. First all of the men, then all of the women, and the children even, came into the big house for a glass of beer and a tea biscuit.’

Laurie laughed and stopped the CD. ’Hear that? Tea biscuit? More like bannock I think!’

The mixed ancestry of that generation and the next one (that of my grandmother) was often denied.

But luckily for me I was with the Millers. Of Cree and Ojibway descent they were just granted their First Nations status and they’ve openly embraced their ‘Nish’ side.

We rolled into my uncle’s cottage as dusk settled over Minisinakwa Lake. Floating in its cold waters the next morning after a jog through town – I smiled. I was bathing in the watery highway of my ancestors – their ice rink, laundry mat and watering hole for centuries.

I’ve looked for adventure in far flung places – in Japan and England, Saigon, Mumbai, Helsinki and Bali… But little did I know that one of life’s greatest adventures was awaiting me here: in the tall pines, winding rivers and sandy white roads of Mattagami.