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William Dumas
An Interview By Billy Granger
William Dumas remembers a time when he, his wife Margaret, and others were at a ceremony by a beautiful lake. They were having coffee in the morning and enjoying the day. “Listen,” someone in the party insisted, and the group fell silent. There was a pause then a moment of realization.
“Birds should have been singing,” Dumas says. “But there was nothing.”
Not far from there, they knew logging companies were operating. Even though they could not hear the machines or see the clearcuts from where they were, the effects were obvious.
“It’s not just the people who get displaced,” William tells me. “The animals, the fish, even the birds. They all get displaced as they lose the resource area they need to survive.” As further evidence to this, he tells me of how people in northern communities on the east side of Lake Winnipeg see birds that would not normally be there. They are also starting to see more deer in northern Manitoba, he says, an unusual site in this part of the country, and evidence that they have been migrating from the south through clearcuts and trails in the forest.
“The delicate balance of the world has been disrupted, and the land has been greatly advanced upon.”
William Dumas, a traditional person and the Director of Education in Fox Lake Cree Nation, can remember seeing his world change as a youth. As a little boy on his family’s trapline, he remembers the great mixture of animals that lived in the forest; caribou, fish, moose, ducks, and geese surrounded him. “It was a time of plenty,” he says.
As land users we have a responsibility to care for the land and to participate in maintaining its balance and helping it heal. But when your objective is to pursue money, you are destined to violate this teaching.”
But around 1957, when William was attending residential school, the caribou that had been a mainstay of his community’s diet mysteriously disappeared from the area for approximately 30 or 35 years. Without the great amounts of meat supplied by the caribou, the community of South Indian Lake was forced to supplement their diets with foods that could be purchased at The Hudson’s Bay store. But as South Indian Lake was without electricity and deep freezers, the store provided mostly canned goods. This dramatic change to the community’s diet included the consumption of many starches and sugars, which in turn ushered in a new threat to the well-being of the people living there.
Diabetes.
It is explained to me that in his wife’s community, there was not even a word for it until recently. By the time his wife Margaret turned 12 years old, the disease exploded throughout their population and the terrible scourge of diabetes was known.
The threat of industry was not far behind. Mining and hydro-electric development was expanding, and multi-national logging companies, such as Tolko, began devouring the forests. These companies maintain their ravenous and relentless pursuit of the Earth’s riches, leaving behind a wake of thankless destruction. As such, many First Nations people have been forced to adapt.
“A lot of people in northern Manitoba have become gardeners,” he tells me. Hunters and fishers like him and his brother are finding other ways of using the land in a way that is nurturing and productive. He tells me that sharing is a part of this and that there is a great feeling you get from sharing something that you have cultivated and harvested, whether it is a jar of pickles from your garden or a moose that you have hunted.
When he tells me of this, I am quickly reminded of my grandmother who passed away only three days prior to this interview. I share with him some stories of watching my grandmother tend to her garden for hours on end and then provide the family with the bounty she had cultivated. She was a Mennonite woman who had grown up on a farm in southern Manitoba, and she too, shared a deep connection to the Earth. She was a keen observer of its cycles and held a deep appreciation and respect for all its splendor.
He is quick to add that a failing of our society is to talk more about our differences than about what we have in common. “If you are close to the Earth, you will understand the teachings of our people,” William says to me. “Regardless of your theological background.”
While there is much to lament regarding the destruction of the Earth and his traditional lands, he shares with me his sympathy for those working for the industries that perpetrate such heinous crimes against the Earth.
“The problem is systemic. I’ve seen those guys working for Hydro up by Gillam. What do they do on the weekends? They go fishing.” He explains to me that working on the land is a way people bring balance into their lives and rationalize their work. He further explains to me that now is the time to get past blame, to understand that we are all caught up in the world we live in, and to determine how best to move forward. He reminds me that people do not usually go out of their way to harm one another, and that most people do not have evil intentions.
The key is to be conservative, he says, to take only what you need. I am told of his hunting methods, making sure that he takes the right animal at the right time. He will not take a breeding bull moose, for instance, but only the lesser bulls as he could not eat all the meat. Nor would he take a cow in the late fall when she already has a calf with her, as it would be the same as taking two at once.
“As land users,” Dumas notes, “we have a responsibility to care for the land and to participate in maintaining its balance and helping it heal. But when your objective is to pursue money, you are destined to violate this teaching.”
At the end of our conversation, William leaves me with a parting lesson.
“No matter what you do to it, the land will heal,” William says. “But, you have to nurture it so the resources come back. The biggest threat comes from not replacing what you’ve taken and not looking after what you’ve destroyed. You have to be very careful as to how to take from the land. You have to make sure the land is healing. It is very powerful, and it will heal. But as people, we have to be very conscious as to how it comes back so that the resources aren’t compromised.”
July 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
With Canada’s economy being so based on our natural resources, we need to make sure we use them wisely or we will pay dearly. Our health needs to come first. That said, a healthy environment to provide safe food and water is more important than money any way you slice it.