Through a thousand miles of winter — with a message
It was a bright, cold day in March and the Peace Tower clock was striking thirteen.
It was March 25, 2013 and the Parliament buildings looked as imposing as Orwell’s Ministry of Truth ever did in that fevered, prophetic imagination of his.
Later, when the indigenous peoples who thronged there to greet young people who had walked 1,600 kilometres in the dead of winter from Hudson Bay, that impression would be reinforced.
There would be a banner reading “Keep Your Word”. Fluttering in the keen east wind, it looked fragile against the Parliament buildings behind it. On this day, they didn’t look like the seat of Canadian democracy. They looked like an architectural stop sign.
Perhaps it was the string of Mounties along the top of the steps, wearing jaunty smiles and Day-Glo lime green surplices over their uniforms, bullhorns at the ready. Or maybe it was the sheer massiveness of the place that intimidates the way big banks do from the moment an inconsequential depositor walks through the door.
More likely, it was the official reception from the government: unless you count the dependable RCMP, there was none.
Prime Minister Harper was in Toronto greeting Chinese panda bears. These, apparently, were the very important bears of diplomacy and came by jet from a country where the Walkers might be shot for what they were doing. An important country.
The people who thought children were more important than even the most important panda bear from the most important country had begun to gather early on Parliament’s grounds. They had made a circle seat of the low stone wall around Confederation Flame.
Some older people had brought folding canvas chairs, knowing the day would prove a test of dubious tendons and joints. Music, steady and strong as a heartbeat, came from speakers located on the parliamentary lawn, still white under the hard-packed spring snow.
The air of surrealism was increased when a non-native man shed his backpack and parka and began a curious karate ballet in the open space between the crowd lining both sides of the walkway to Parliament.
As Karate Man went through his bizarre gyrations, another white man rushed out of the crowd and did a half cartwheel, half hand-stand. Karate Man would not be upstaged. He launched into a speech boasting of his 30-inch waist and well-toned muscles — all at age 66. For that, he thanked the Lord and a healthy diet, before lighting up a cigarette and taking a deep drag.
The crowd laughed and directed their cellphone cameras at his impromptu floor show. He began singing Amazing Grace and some native women tentatively joined in. It was cold and there was nothing to do but wait, so why not sing?
With the banners, drumbeats and acrobats, the moment had an unpredictable feel, like a gathering of proles in 1984. Wasn’t it only the proles who demonstrated those old-fashioned traits — spontaneity and emotion? Wasn’t Big Brother’s approach the tandem of abject submission and organized hate?
Then came the news everyone was waiting for: “Our brothers and sisters are coming!” a man shouted. The coat he was wearing had the words Scarecrow Man hand-written on it. A boy wearing a jacket identifying him as a member of the 2011 Eastman River Canoe Brigade began jumping up and down. The sound of a flute floated through a woman’s voice coming out of the loudspeakers. She was talking about how white man’s laws were only there to satisfy his greed.
As if on cue, the stars of the show arrived. The Walkers came into sight moving east along Wellington under white banners. It was the moment when kids went up on shoulders and serious jostling for position began in the crowd. A booming voice issued a sharp command: “Clear the stairs”.
This was not a native voice. No one listened and no one moved. The spirit of the Nishiyuu was now officially in charge and would remain in charge for the rest of the day.
There were some days when their touques froze on their heads like helmets, others when they were up to their knees in slush. Two hundred and seventy people joined them along the way.
The crowd opened up the centre naturally, and the Walkers were suddenly there, at arm’s length, accommodated and admired, enjoying the close quarters. Many were astonishingly young. The original seven who left Hudson Bay in -54 degree temperatures were wearing white parkas with sashes emblazoned with the words “Journey of the Nishiyuu.” There were some days when their touques froze on their heads like helmets, others when they were up to their knees in slush. Two hundred and seventy people joined them along the way.
As Chief Gilbert Whiteduck welcomed the guests of honour in Cree, the master of ceremonies explained that it is difficult to translate what he is saying into English because “our language comes from the heart.” The inference is that ours doesn’t: keep your word.
Drumbeats broke out in the ranks of the Walkers. All eyes suddenly went skyward. As the elder sang, an eagle was spotted flying over the assembly. Like the cloud patterns that will be carefully noted all afternoon, it was taken as a sign. The shrewd political eye of Shawn Atleo took note; he would later reference the magical event in his speech. But before he and Matthew Coon Come and Theresa Spence took to the microphones, and long before Romeo Saganash and Thomas Mulcair spoke, the Walkers commanded the stage.
They offered powerful words. Several took the walk for their “healing”. One spoke of dark flirtations with suicide trumped, now by a newfound sense of importance after taking the journey. All of them mentioned sticking together and resolve; this was not the end of something but the beginning. “I thought I was alone in my grief” a young man said. The trek had shown him that there was a larger agony shared by all.
If there was a miraculous quality to the effect created by the young speakers, it came from what they didn’t say. There was a lot of silence coming from the microphone. Floods of tears were shed on the podium. It was as if the Walkers were displaying the predicament of a whole people rather than talking about it: we are vulnerable but we can go 1,600 kilometres in snowshoes to deliver a message. At their silence, fists shot up in the crowd, and people shouted out encouragement.
One man who was wrapped in a Canadian flag with a mounted warrior superimposed over the maple leaf cried out, “We love you.” Another, from the Chisasibi First Nation in Quebec, hoisted his child on his shoulders so that his wife could take a picture against the backdrop of the stage. A few people pushed through the crowd with water for the Walkers and plates of hot food covered in tinfoil.
The people might show up on TV, I thought, but this spirit never will. Something intangible was happening here. It was not about opposition to more paternalistic legislation from the Senate, sneaky contribution agreements, or the impenetrable thicket of constitutional arguments. This was about a people recognizing themselves on the wrong side of a national faultline and not putting up with it. This was about making a stand.
The political speeches were predictably anti-climactic. Chief Theresa Spence, sporting a bright red hat, got the biggest welcome and delivered two biting messages: the treaties between the Crown and First Nations aren’t going to go away, and that meeting she had asked for from Victoria Island had still not taken place.
All afternoon, the leader of the Opposition, Thomas Mulcair — not someone famous for his patience — had waited without complaint to speak. He had no coat on and was facing directly into that bitter east wind. With aides pushing him to leave, he stayed put, deferring to the decorum of the moment. For how, as the MC rightly asked, could you ask people who had just walked from Hudson Bay to hurry up with their remarks at a ceremony in their honour?
At 4:20, with the wind picking up and the clouds moving in, with babies crying and feet shifting, the batteries died in the on-stage microphone. The MC quipped that these were not Ever-Ready batteries and a young man in the crowd shouted, “No, they’re Harper batteries.”
The Peace Tower clock struck 4:30 before the leader of the Opposition got to his feet. Introduced as the next prime minister of Canada, Mulcair told the crowd that he had asked the government that day why native children get 30 per cent less funding for education than non-aboriginals. Of course they had no answer, he said, and declared he would keep on asking. That was all. Brilliant.
The crowd was already petering out when a strong native voice from the stage closed out the day with a traditional song. Walking away toward the city, you could see the office workers lining up at the Metcalfe and Wellington bus shelter. Although the man’s powerful voice carried to the shelter, most of them were wired up and didn’t hear it.
Which is what it comes down to — whether the ear-bud nation catching the bus to St. Joseph or the Promenades or Bank, going home to dinner to enjoy the remains of the day, will ever hear that voice.
Sometimes, as novelist Jerzy Kosinski said, “being there” is the only way to know.
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