I was in Waswanipi and how many can say that?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, what with me being on a book tour for my new novel, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, and maintaining my usual lecture and reading tour schedule.

I never know where I’ll end up. Just the other week I was in central Quebec. I didn’t know what to expect other than people eating that unusual and questionable concoction of french fries, gravy and cheese, called poutine.

Waswanipi. It was not what I expected. What I expected... I’m not sure, but what I found was a very interesting community with nice houses and an amazing adult technical school. Myself and several other people were there for sort of a careers day for some of the adult students taking courses there. As well as me, the administration had flown in from Montreal some token... how shall I put this... non-Native types that obviously needed the work. While I expounded on Being a Native Writer 101, they were there to lecture on various business and management techniques. One woman, if you can believe it, was there to talk about establishing business plans and the evils of procrastination, or as it is sometimes called in places like Waswanipi, Indian time. I’m not sure if she knew what she was getting into.

It might be a moot point. I heard on the news—and this is true–that the earthquake in Haiti was so powerful that it actually slowed down the rotation of the Earth by about 1/1000 of a second. So, all of our watches are off and we’re all going to be late anyway. So what’s the point?

Ironically or coincidentally, my lecture started half an hour late. I rest my case.

We were all special guests in Waswanipi for the day. Normally, there are classes in nursing, computer, woodworking (the smell of freshly cut wood made memories of my school days in wood shop come flooding back, along with my mother’s tragic and unfulfilled dream that I was more handyman than writerman), small engine repair (as opposed to small Injun repairs, I suppose), industrial engine repairs, gun repairs (lots of repairing done up there it seems), and my favorite, culinary skills.

In that amazing building, I observed an excellent kitchen facility, all geared towards teaching Native people to enter the catering and hospitality industry. Two thumbs up to that. However, due to some obscure and bizarre provincial health regulations involving the hygiene and usage of any kitchen used in a teaching manner, any form of wild meat was prohibited from being cooked inside the building. This was Waswanipi, a community well-known for hunting moose, caribou, geese, and a horde of other tasty creatures provided by the Creator. Any and all wild meat had to be cooked outdoors and not on the premises. They can cook anything, but their cultural diet.

So, that night for the official feast for the Adult Education conference we were attending, the catering being done by the students consisted of salmon, shrimp and rosti potatoes. I am sure there is logic buried somewhere in there.

Still on the topic of food, how about this. For lunch we decided to patronize one of the local establishments for the other side of the term, traditional Native cuisine. The special of the day at a nearby restaurant announced a hot hamburg sandwich with macaroni soup. I have travelled to more than 130 Native communities across Canada and the United States, and I think I can safely say I have had hot hamburgers and macaroni soup in at least 129 of them, give or take one or two. Some things about Native culture are, indeed, universal.

And then there was Lucien. He’s a young student who caught a ride with us from Chibougamou to Waswanapi. The man knew anything and everything about movies. The guy was a reference library, and related everything we were talking about to movies. But at one point it got a little ridiculous when I was lecturing, and commented that I was involved in the production of my first comedy during the famous summer of 1990.

“And what else happened during the summer of 1990?” I asked the audience. Lucien put up his hand and announced proudly “That’s the year Ghost came out!”

I was looking for the Oka/Kahnasatake issue, but different things are important to different people, I guess.

Finally, as I sat in the airport in Chibougamou, waiting to fly to Montreal, I saw a Native woman across the aisle from me, reading a book. It was An Idiot’s Guide to Native American History. What a perfect way to end this trip.

Oh, and by the way, I did see somebody eating poutine, so the stereotype is true.