Trip of a lifetime unites present and past

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A group of teenagers and elders from Black Lake have triumphantly completed a 10-day canoe trip through the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan that was designed to help them preserve their Dene culture.

The trip was planned by band councillor Freddie Throassie as a response to the threat posed by the new Athabasca seasonal road, which is currently under construction.

According to Dan Robillard, band personnel director, the road is seen by many in his home town, only 100 kilometers from the Northwest Territories and 180 kilometers from the nearest highway to the south, as the possible death knell for the way of life his people know and cherish.

"A lot of things will change the elders are saying. The drugs and booze will come in. It'll change the people," said Robillard. "Everything will change when the road comes in. There'll be more people, more tourists."

Robillard said his people also fear trap lines will be disturbed and outside hunters and fishers will come in when the road is completed, further changing the community.

Despite the worries more than 90 per cent of the band voted for construction of the road in a plebiscite two years ago in the belief that the road will bring more good than bad.

But one thing Robillard and Throassie don't want to give up in the exchange is the culture of the band's youth.

"This younger generation, it's right next door to them but they

really haven't learned how to skin [the caribou] or hunt them," Robillard said.

Despite the difficulties of living in the isolated community of

1,500, Robillard said life has improved since his days as a youth to the point where the children of Black Lake are no longer in contact with the land and how to survive on it as their forefathers did. Throassie agrees. "Today's kids have only been taught to watch T.V.," he said.

Throassie's own upbringing taught him how to live off the land in harmony with nature, as was the practice of his forefathers.

"Myself, I've been taught to do that," he said. "When I'm in the bush I have my sense of direction. All the elders believe that. These kids nowadays don't have that anymore."

To help teach the children of the community about their cultural heritage, 10 canoes were purchased in Prince Albert.

At Points North, a group of 12 boys and eight elders began a journey of several hundred kilometres by river, lake and portage to their home community of Black Lake.

Throassie said only three days supply of food was taken with the intention that along the way the elders could teach the youths, aged 15 to 18, about the traditional ways of the Dene people - hunting, fishing and skinning to name a few.

The trip proved to be both challenging and exciting right from the start. After spending the first few days learning how to handle the canoes, the flotilla of paddlers came to their first two sets of rapids.

The second set got the better of one of the canoes and group spent several anxious minutes waiting for one of the boys and one elder to surface and make it to shore.

There they dried off and set about to use their fishing net to replenish their dwindling food supply.

An elder showed the boys how to make floats out of willow trees and weights out of stones. The nets were then set for the night.

Throassie said it was about midnight when a roaring noise could be heard in the camp. He investigated at a hilltop and saw the unmistakable and frightening red glow of a forest fire on the horizon. He says he then saw a rolling ball of fire narrowly avoid the camp by only a few kilometres and be pushed off into another direction by the wind.

A watch was kept for several hours to make sure the fire didn't double back on the camp.

By morning only four fish were netted, and only two were big enough to eat. Throassie cooked the meagre breakfast up for the boys.

It was then that the Creator stepped in, said Throassie.

A two-year old black bear was attracted to the smell of the fish and came to the river bank where the canoes were stored.

"It was a really good bear. A fat bear," he said. "When a bear gives himself up to you it's a good sign."

The bear was shot and the group gave thanks to both the Creator and the spirit of the bear for giving itself up for the group.

The Elders taught the boys how to singe the hide and how to make dried meat from the bear.

"This bear that we killed opened everything up for us," Throassie said. "So that supplied us for a couple of days," Throassie said.

By the seventh day the group was ready to hunt again and Throassie took them to an area he knew to be popular with moose.

"Sure enough there was a moose there. So we shot it and the kids were so happy," Throassie said. "By the time I got there everyone was there and they had the cook pot out."

The Elders showed them how to gut the carcass and prepare the hide with a traditional tool fashioned from a hind leg bone.

"So the kids experienced everything first hand out there."

Throassie now chuckles at the memory of how the boys acted as individuals at the start of the adventure. They had brought their own food and tobacco and would dip into their bags for themselves during the first few days.

But he said at the end of the trip everyone was opening their bags to the group and sharing what they had.

Now that the band has the canoes, Throassie would like to make the trip an annual event.

Throassie said the trip was everything he had hoped it would be for the boys.

"Doing something for yourself makes one feel proud," he said.

"These kids, it shows on their face that they enjoyed themselves. They experienced first hand what our ancestors experienced travelling these routes."