Attawapiskat

Dear Friends,

Sorry about the delay, I find this task daunting... Here goes nothing!

While I am currently sitting in my parents' house surrounded by newspapers, pots of coffee and all the fresh fruits and vegetables my simple little heart desires, that is not how I spent my summer. To be honest I find it quite difficult to think about how to properly write about and convey my time up in Attawapiskat. There just seems to be so much I could write about it, the summer was challenging but easy and also sad but hilarious. At the end of camp I was exhausted and burnt out, but since leaving the north I miss the stray dogs, the expansive skies, the sense of community, the river outside my window and most of all the kids.

Attawapiskat has a population of about 1800 and is located just off the western coast of James Bay. The town is built right on the river bank and hunting, fishing and camping are very important to the people in the community. I got to go camping with my co-workers family and to watch her mother skin a polar bear! (I have a lot of photos if you are curious and not squeamish). There are many large canoes pulled up on the bank, and from what one of the kids told me I believe they are shared between the community, or least between some families. In terms of infrastructure there is a Northern store (which had a Pizza Hut/ KFC take-away counter, and at times even had avocadoes in stock, 6$ avocadoes that is...), a couple candy stores (kids ate SO much candy, and they have so many rotten teeth!), a coffee shop, a few convenience stores, a hospital (sans doctors), a health centre, a social services office, a community hall (for the super popular BINGO), one playground and a high school. Elementary school has been operated out of portables for the last 10 years, but after years of lobbying the government has only just given word that the community will indeed get a new elementary school built (there were no signs of any work getting done this summer).

Camp itself was pretty crazy. As for the 'literacy' aspect of camp... We tried, but it is damn near impossible to make kids read and write (especially the older ones) when they are coming to camp of their own free will and can and do walk out if they don't like the activity. It was more important to us to make kids want to come to camp so that they could benefit from healthy snacks and socialization than to be sure every kid read for 15 minutes a day. It was also challenging when some kids could not read or write at all to do a creative writing project. We did have success reading with the younger kids (especially when my special friend Puppeta McSock read to them) and loaning out books for children to take home. Whenever possible we threw the alphabet or new words into activities. We definitely didn't have the staff to manage the amount of kids who came to camp the first 2 weeks (50 kids in the morning and 30 in the afternoon with 4 of us, sometimes only 3). Teasing and bullying is out of control and the numbers dropped pretty drastically in the middle of the summer. Smaller numbers meant we could give kids more attention and do more cool stuff, but it also means that there are kids who are missing out, often those for whom the teasing was too much to handle. The kids didn't even just tease each other, we were fair game for them as well. Those 'spots' on my face were a constant source of amusement. One of my coworkers was black and it was much worse and more serious for her. We had a tough time trying to teach the kids the irony of them calling her racist names and treating her differently because of her skin colour. The whole situation led to some pretty interesting discussions with some of the older campers, but it was quite a challenge getting through to the kids about racism, and also not something I have ever had to deal with before in my life, neither had my co-worker who had grown up in multicultural neighbourhoods in Montreal and Toronto.

I've worked with kids before, but the behaviour of many of these kids was just wild in comparison. It happened regularly at camp or our events that objects were thrown, food, dominos, markers, rocks, chairs, even once a table (thrown into the ditch, thankfully not at anyone). We had to call NAPS (the local police) twice, once when children were trying to break down the doors to our house and pulling at the broken glass on the windows (we did not have a phone, so we attempted on skype, but did not succeed, after about half an hour of being under siege some older kids came and scared off those attacking our house) and another time because a seven year old camper was throwing a temper tantrum after camp was over, refusing to leave the premises and climbing out onto high ledges threatening to jump off (we had called her family and half an hour later they had still not arrived). Both times we were worried more about the kids, but just didn't know who else in the community we could turn to, as frontier college did not bother to arrange a community liaison for us. I was never greatly worried about my own safety, but heartbroken many times by the behaviour of young kids, it just scared me to think what they would resort to as they grew older and stronger. It was expressed to me by elders and responsible community members that they have a huge problem with parenting (or lack thereof). Many of my campers parents were in their twenties, having children in your teens is quite common, and many children are being raised by extended families. I loved the sense of family and community that exists in Attawapiskat. Twice during my stay they held feasts in which the entire community is invited into the community space to come and eat. It was beautiful to see such sharing and generosity.

Despite all the mayhem I loved those crazy kids. I had the best interactions with them outside of camp. There were always kids knocking at our door. They wanted to go with us to the playground, for a swim, for a walk, to play uno or bananagrams on the porch or simply to hang out and talk. The only evening activity is dodgeball in the gym every night at 6 and children are often allowed to roam the town until late at night. It worked to my advantage that I advertised that kids could come knock on my door at ANY hour if the northern lights were out, and on two occasions they did. The second time we didn't actually have a door to knock on but the windows were open and I could hear "HEATHER HEATHER HEATHER" being yelled from the street. Not only were the lights dancing across the sky but I saw many shooting stars and the sky is so large and beautiful, no light pollution or skyscrapers in the way! We had some issues with housing, and the school board lied to us about having to do work in the house we were living in, and kicked us out when we had 2 weeks left in the community. The priest (who WAS the spitting of Mr. Rogers from the TV show, riding around town in his little cardigan on his bicycle) heard from the band council that we needed housing and offered us to move into the apartment in the church. Unfortunately there was no porch the kids could hang out on, and the outside doors were locked at 10 p.m. It definitely changed the dynamics that kids could no longer come by easily on evenings and weekends, but our camp numbers did go up and perhaps that had something to do with it.

I feel as if there is just too much to talk about, and I don't know if I have said even half of what I wanted to say, but ask me about it in person next time you see me. I will show you our funny camp video and tell you about my favourite kids. As for now I have a wisdom tooth to be extracted tomorrow morning and am spending time in Ottawa in the sun and catching up with friends, then soon it is back to Halifax! At times this summer I was incredibly homesick for Halifax and friends (especially the day I saw Emma's photos on facebook!), right now I must go get dressed and head off on my (mother's) bicycle to visit with Alyza, Erin and Natalie!

Love,

Heather