Innu grandmother finds her 'meshkanu' by walking

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Dr. Jane McGillivray's 10 years working among the Labrador Innu in Sheshatshiu and surrounding region hit a low point last year when she spoke her mind about the health and social problems she saw there. Innu leaders were angry the former doctor at their Mani-Ashini Health Centre criticized the way they governed and that she made her views public. Frustrated at what she saw as a lack of commitment to health by some Innu administrators, McGillivray quit her job. As a physician, she wants to use her skills where she can make a difference, she said.

McGillivray still lives in Northwest River, Labrador. Her opinions haven't changed, but she has made her point and doesn't dwell there. She says it is up to the Innu to decide whether or not their chiefs are part of the problem, as she alleged.

McGillivray now works in a hospital in Happy Valley. When she spoke to Windspeaker in July, she was visiting family in Collingwood, Ont. and assisting her physician father. She is considering doing emergency medicine next year.

As a medical doctor, she has moved on since clashing with Innu Nation President Peter Penashue and Chief Paul Rich of Sheshatshiu over what McGillivray believes is their failure to walk their talk. The Innu leaders, for their part, have said she's not welcome there anymore.

McGillivray still wants to spread healing where she can. That includes honoring a request to deliver the message of an Innu woman whom McGillivray respects very much. It's a message the doctor said few are heeding yet.

Spending time with this woman was one of the doctor's high points in Sheshatshiu and her affection for Elizabeth Penashue (Tshaukuesh) is apparent.

"I love Elizabeth," said McGillivray.

Elizabeth is the 57-year-old grandmother who asked McGillivray to explain to people why she takes a month-long walk every year to Minonipi Lake and her family's spring hunting grounds, 170 miles southwest of Sheshatshiu. This past March was the fourth year Elizabeth invited others to accompany her on her walk.

"Elizabeth talks about growing up in the country, and walking and paddling, living without skidoos and other high technologies, and without all the government handouts," said McGillivray. "She remembers people working hard . . . and taking good care of each other. She believes that the people in her community and indeed, perhaps everywhere, need to reconsider the direction that their lives are taking. We all need to think about what is healthy and good, and what is not. And more than just think about it, we need to act on it."

Elizabeth's action is her walk, and her walk is her path-"meshkanu" in her own language. "She speaks about making a good path for the future, 'a good meshkanu,'" the doctor related.

That path includes relearning old survival skills and passing them on to the young people. It is about choosing a healthy way of life.

"She knows that her meshkanu, as simple as it may seem, is a path that creates a healthy life just simply by choosing to walk along it. It is in the process of walking and living along this path that brings balance and perspective. It heals both the body and the spirit, and is available to everyone who has the courage to begin," said McGillivray.

Elizabeth doesn't wait for funding from her band council or any government. She just goes. A few people help with donations of flour, sugar and tea.

It is a physically demanding walk, on snowshoes, pulling toboggans, living off the food of the country and her own efforts. Elizabeth had to re-acquaint herself with the old ways when she began four years ago, but she told her friend the doctor it gets easier each year.

This year, Elizabeth began her walk with her son Jack, two 10-year-old granddaughters and a three-year-old grandson. Shinipest and Tony Penashue and Philip Rich were the young men who broke their trail and hunted for their meat. McGillivray and a divinity/anthropology student named Erin, from Harvard University, walked with them.

So dd the spirit of Elizabeth's older sister, Mani-Aten Andrew, who tried to make this meshkanu her own before she died. They travelled 10 to 15 miles a day.

Elizabeth wants people to understand, and remember, three things.

"These are her words, paraphrased, as well as I can remember them," the doctor said.

"The land, Nitassinan, is precious just as it is. It is not valuable because it can be flooded, mined, or used as a low-level military flight range. It is not valuable because the trees can be cut down commercially. Cutting down trees hurts the land. She wants people to know that this land is precious because it gives everything they need to live and become healthy again. There are porcupine, beaver, partridge to eat each day. There is beautiful, clean water. There are many trees for setting up the camp and for fire wood. Each day is soaked in breath-taking beauty.

"She wants people to know that they can be healthy and become strong by walking and working. She believes that people will be restored to health both physically (by working and hunting) and spiritually, by knowing that the land is abundant and giving. She wants us to know that we are capable of living with all the challenges that come up each day.

"She also believes that by walking, life is slowed down to a pace in which there is time to notice. To really notice. There is the quality of the time to pay attention to the snow, the trees, the animals, the wind and sunlight. She believes that paying attention to all of these gifts of abundance make people brim full in their hearts with gratitude and respect."

McGillivray felt that in her own heart after just a week of walking in the Mealy Mountains with her friend.

After more than a decade of providing medical services to the Innu, she now questions the value of "institutional healing" with "trained professionals" to deal with the deep hurts of the Innu community and others such as theirs.

"Part of going on the walk with Elizabeth really is in part a exploration of how do you actually make a paradigm shift. How do you stop participating in the healing industry, which in its own way is as consumptive and (as some Aboriginal people have described it to her) another form of colonialization. And I agree with what they're saying. It's another level of trying to fix problems instead of live in a way that you're in harmony with nature and resonating in a healthy way in your own sphere of living and community," she said.

"I, as a doctor, am part of a healing industry too. And I think that all of us as counsellors and different things are more of an industry to fix all this stuff, and I think at some point we become caught in the negative part of all of that and really unable to recognize that sometimes you can't fix (everything) that's happened before. You can only choose in this moment to live your life and the future in the way that is healthy for you and your family right now. And that's kind of where I've come to.

"And that's what I really liked about Elizabeth's walk as well. It wasn't so much about all going out and talking about all the terrible things that have happened and the sadnesses, and going around and around in that, in a way that in fact there is no escape from that. It was about packing up your toboggan and putting one foot ahead of the other foot and walking. And it was about melting the water and saying thank you to the Creator for finding the partridge.

"Elizabeth Penashue is trying to show that there is another, very important healing story to tell. There is another healing path, a good meshkanu to walk. We must all be responsible for nurturing and supporting and encouraging this path, and then learning to walk this path ourselves.

"There are no fancy therapists; no millions of dollars of buildings; no person who is the healer while everyone assumes some lesser, weakened role. . . . I would not be surprised to discover, in some future analysis, that the traditional Innu life is the highest bi-regional technology possible in this land."

Creating healthy communities is about merging these ideals with the beneficial aspects of modern technology, said McGillivray.

"Elizabeth's walk is hard and challenging, but even more, and very importantly, it is full of joy."