Today I'm thinking too much about Land. Mainly the land I'm living on at the moment. There's something about living in this country that makes you think about Land. A lot. Ownership of land. Rights to land. Land claims. History of the land. Destruction of land. And so on. I recently watched a movie called Black Robe, it wasn't a particularly good story but the landscapes were beautiful and so truly North American. I see images like the ones in that movie and I think wow this place must've been absolutely amazing to see before the Europeans came and built roads through it, started clear cutting the forests. I went to see Niagara Falls a few summers ago and yes, it is still impressive the way it is but I can't even begin to imagine the sort of experience you would have stumbling across it in the wilderness, seeing the falls before half the water was diverted for hydro, without the scum of human development surrounding them.
I don't know the land nearly as well as I feel I should. I'm a descendant of Europeans. Many of them came here because they were too poor to live in Europe anymore, they came because there was land. Lots of land and if they could survive the winters, make the land work for them then they could have a better life here. Others came because of famine or they had no choice, like my great-grandfather who was brought over as a home child. The same rules for the immigrants of today, they come more out of necessity than for any other reason. We're a mish mash of people, none of whom have a solid connection with the land. There are no fables passed down through our ancestors about the land we stand on, we have no tales that our so grounded in the forests and rivers, nothing that makes us feel them breathe - not really.
I remember in my Canadian lit class we were talking once about the wilderness in Canadian literature - a topic which crops up quite often. Our professor, a massive Canadian lit enthusiast, asked us if we, those of us who'd grown up here, felt a connection with the land. Most of us said we did - we could site camping trips we'd taken as children, hikes we'd gone on, or little portaging trips in high school - we knew the land that surrounded us. But, I'd argue, not enough to really understand it. Sometimes I'd say, I feel just as out of place in it as my European ancestors must've.
Its those stories that are missing. We haven't been here long enough to have the land pass into legend. But there are those who have. I'm not Native and I don't understand a Native sentiment, but I can see how, if you're ancestors have occupied the land for longer than can be counted, if the stories of your people have been passed on from generation to generation and they are all rooted in the land you stand on - you might understand and feel a connection to it stronger than your 5th generation Canadian. We read the story of the turtle in school and others from other nations. I never really appreciated them. I'd been brought up too Christian to understand, but it feels like that religion just doesn't follow here. It's not rooted in these places.
As a kid being home-schooled by my mom I remember sitting at our kitchen table and learning about the native tribes. I remember asking if they could have had a tipi right outside in our backyard. She said they just could have and this fascinated my 7 year old brain. I stared out the window and tried to imagine how it would have looked. But they weren't my ancestors and I knew that even then. I grew up reading English and Irish fairy tales, grounded in a land I never really imagined I'd get to see. The lands filled with myth and mystery were far away, never here.
I suppose the point of this ramble is that I think I need to learn more about the Natives, especially the ones who inhabited this land, the Odawa and others who lived along the Ottawa River. Its something like trying to get a grasp on the place you inhabit, its the anthropologist in me maybe - we always talk about stories and myth being so important to understanding a people and a place. As a part of this mish mash society, maybe we need to understand it all to get a grasp on who we are now.
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