Rainbow at Reddick Bight, August 2006
(Bay to the north of Ramah)
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(Bay to the north of Ramah)
On Agattu, July 1996. Empty murre eggs picked-up from below the rookery at Karab Cove. Every afternoon a gang of ravens would fly down from the nests in the mountains to raid the murre nests on the cliff face. They would pierce the eggs with their beaks, eat their fill, and after a half-hour or so fly back to their nests, each and every raven carrying a big blue egg speared through with their beaks.
(Bay to the north of Ramah)
On Agattu, July 1996. Empty murre eggs picked-up from below the rookery at Karab Cove. Every afternoon a gang of ravens would fly down from the nests in the mountains to raid the murre nests on the cliff face. They would pierce the eggs with their beaks, eat their fill, and after a half-hour or so fly back to their nests, each and every raven carrying a big blue egg speared through with their beaks.
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Grand River Trappers
Here is a passage about the old Grand River trappers in Labrador that I am frequently making reference to. It always struck me as an amazing story (and a good reason why not to get a haircut!!!) But just as amazing as surviving the disaster in the rapids is the nonchalance with which Goudie and Michelin pick-up and walk home whereas the rest of us would have been dead from hypothermia!
If the hunting is good they may stay out till after the thaw or they may strike up their traps in April and sledge out on the last of the ice. In either case it is a dangerous business. The old ice is worn by the current underneath as much as it is melted above by the sun, and often it gives no sign of its fragility until it gives way and deposits the unwary traveller in the swift flowing water beneath. Yet the first wild water after the break-up is more dangerous still. Quite suddenly the dams of snow and ice are broken and the river comes bounding down triumphant, sweeping with it tree trunks and pans of ice in an almost continuous rapid from the plateau to the sea. It is admittedly dangerous to navigate such waters especially with a valuable cargo of furs, but the good hunting is over and the trappers must get home quickly or waste their time in the woods. They know the river so well that, theoretically at least, they can get ashore in time and make a portage around the worst places; but sometimes their impatience overcomes their discretion. On one occasion Sam Goudie and John Michelin were racing home after a very long and successful season in the woods. They were both expert canoe men and could steer their way among the white eddies of the worst rapid, so they chose the river where most men would have gone ashore. They came round a corner and, just in front of them, the river swirled under a ledge of still unbroken ice. Goudie, who was kneeling in the bow, managed to jump on to the ice, but John Michelin had forced his legs under the tarpaulin which was lashed above the load and could not move in time. Goudie caught him by his long hair and jerked him to safety as the canoe disappeared beneath them with all their food and two thousand dollars’ worth of furs. They got home without much hardship, but they were poor men until the next season was over. pp.38-39
J. M. Scott
1933. The Land that God Gave Cain: an Account of H.G. Watkin’s Expedition to Labrador, 1928-1929. Chatto and Windus: London.
If the hunting is good they may stay out till after the thaw or they may strike up their traps in April and sledge out on the last of the ice. In either case it is a dangerous business. The old ice is worn by the current underneath as much as it is melted above by the sun, and often it gives no sign of its fragility until it gives way and deposits the unwary traveller in the swift flowing water beneath. Yet the first wild water after the break-up is more dangerous still. Quite suddenly the dams of snow and ice are broken and the river comes bounding down triumphant, sweeping with it tree trunks and pans of ice in an almost continuous rapid from the plateau to the sea. It is admittedly dangerous to navigate such waters especially with a valuable cargo of furs, but the good hunting is over and the trappers must get home quickly or waste their time in the woods. They know the river so well that, theoretically at least, they can get ashore in time and make a portage around the worst places; but sometimes their impatience overcomes their discretion. On one occasion Sam Goudie and John Michelin were racing home after a very long and successful season in the woods. They were both expert canoe men and could steer their way among the white eddies of the worst rapid, so they chose the river where most men would have gone ashore. They came round a corner and, just in front of them, the river swirled under a ledge of still unbroken ice. Goudie, who was kneeling in the bow, managed to jump on to the ice, but John Michelin had forced his legs under the tarpaulin which was lashed above the load and could not move in time. Goudie caught him by his long hair and jerked him to safety as the canoe disappeared beneath them with all their food and two thousand dollars’ worth of furs. They got home without much hardship, but they were poor men until the next season was over. pp.38-39
J. M. Scott
1933. The Land that God Gave Cain: an Account of H.G. Watkin’s Expedition to Labrador, 1928-1929. Chatto and Windus: London.
The Tshikapisk Foundation and the Arctic Studies Center.
The Tshikapisk Foundation and the Arctic Studies Center: the architecture of a community anthropology partnership.
Stephen Loring and Anthony Jenkinson (Tshikapisk Foundation)
Since 1999 Stephen Loring has worked closely with Tshikapisk staff in making archaeology and training in cultural heritage management an important component of the Tshikapisk agenda. Tshikapisk, an Innu experiential education program is named after a legendary culture-hero/trickster/shaman; Tshikapisk is dedicated to preserving and celebrating Innu culture, knowledge and language by providing opportunities for Innu youth and families to pursue traditional country-based life-ways, subsistence activities and language. Founded in response to the crisis in Innu society brought about by resettlement in coastal communities where problems of poor health, subsistence abuse, violence and village poverty have reached epidemic proportions (see Canada’s Tibet: the killing of the Innu, published by Survival International www.survival.org.uk) Tshikapisk strives to create opportunities for Innu youth to gain country-based experiences in the company of Innu educators and families. Tshikapisk is all about celebrating traditional Innu values and about respect: respect for the land, for the animals, and ultimately, respect for Innu accomplishments and heritage.
The Tshikapisk initiative evolved from a highly successful country-based training program developed by Anthony Jenkinson and Jean-Piere Ashini (Napes) which was called Nutshimiu Atusseun. Sponsored by Innu Nation the program, held in the country west of the Mealy Mountains, created opportunities for Innu young people to gain skills ---as well as emotional and physical strength--- by drawing from a reservoir of Innu traditions. The success of this program was the inspiration that led to the creation of the not-for-profit Tshikapisk Foundation in 1997.
Since 1997 Tshikapisk has developed a series of programs and projects centred at Kamestastin (Lake Mistastin on most maps, in the barrenlands west of Voisey’s Bay, near the border with Quebec) --a flooded meteorite impact crater-- where it is constructing a cultural resource centre and experiential education facility. Over the last six years an extraordinary consortium of interests including government agencies, the private sector, NGO’s, European and American researchers, the Mennonite Church and the German Air Force (which flew in tonnes of building materials and equipment which they deployed on the ice without landing as part low-level flying training exercises) have allied themselves with Innu community agencies and the Innu Nation to build the Kamestastin facility. The dream of an Innu Cultural Center situated in the heart of Nitassinan (the Innu word for their homeland) centers on construction of Shakutum Utshistun (the Gyrfalcon’s Nest). While the main lodge is still in need of funds to finish the interior, a suite of four out-buildings have been constructed and the plans and equipment for a solar-powered facility are well underway. Tshikapisk plans to use the Kamestastin facility to provide a country setting for educational, health and language programs for the Innu. It is hoped that these programs would generate revenues that would augment funds from eco-tourism and experiential education initiatives that are under development with schools and universities in Canada, the United States and England.
Stephen was drawn to work with Tshikapisk by the opportunity to travel with and learn from older Innu men and women who were born in the country and were knowledgeable about country matters, subsistence strategies, and stories: a unique and priceless corpus of knowledge and inspiration that represent one of the last intact libraries of direct experiences relating to humanities common hunting and gathering subsistence heritage. The Innu are forever linked, in their own minds, as well as in the minds of visitors and anthropologists, with caribou. Caribou and reindeer figure significantly in the story of human evolution from the origins of art and language in the Ice Age caves of Europe, to the subsistence strategy of choice for the colonizing paleoindian populations entering the New World, and as the means of survival for circumpolar peoples from the Pleistocene to the present. Working with Tshikapisk provides an extraordinary opportunity to learn from a remarkable group of Innu seniors about the practical aspects of caribou hunting and the spiritual realms and social responsibilities that hunting entails.
The practice of archaeology as incorporated into a Tshikapisk agenda has proved a remarkably close fit: as a bridge between the world of science and the interests of Innu leaders and educators and as a bridge for the Innu themselves, providing a common ground for discussion between country-born elders, Innu educators, and Innu youth, and visiting archaeologists
This past September (2006) was Stephen Loring’s sixth trip to Kamestastin. Stephen and the Tshikapisk team were able to spend a couple of weeks conducting archaeological excavation and survey prior to the arrival of a portion of the George River caribou herd, more than 10,000 animals, who effectively curbed our enthusiasm for revealing past caribou hunting and feasting camps for contemporary ones. The short archaeological field-season had three important epiphanies which are detailed elsewhere in this newsletter. The ASC involvement with Tshikapisk has been a tremendously rewarding experience for both the Innu educators and students and for the anthropologist they have befriended. We expect that the cooperative foundation that has been built thus far will continue to flourish in the years to come, that the future of the past, as it pertains to the Innu, will be as exciting and inspirational as the heritage it seeks to celebrate.
Stephen Loring and Anthony Jenkinson (Tshikapisk Foundation)
Since 1999 Stephen Loring has worked closely with Tshikapisk staff in making archaeology and training in cultural heritage management an important component of the Tshikapisk agenda. Tshikapisk, an Innu experiential education program is named after a legendary culture-hero/trickster/shaman; Tshikapisk is dedicated to preserving and celebrating Innu culture, knowledge and language by providing opportunities for Innu youth and families to pursue traditional country-based life-ways, subsistence activities and language. Founded in response to the crisis in Innu society brought about by resettlement in coastal communities where problems of poor health, subsistence abuse, violence and village poverty have reached epidemic proportions (see Canada’s Tibet: the killing of the Innu, published by Survival International www.survival.org.uk) Tshikapisk strives to create opportunities for Innu youth to gain country-based experiences in the company of Innu educators and families. Tshikapisk is all about celebrating traditional Innu values and about respect: respect for the land, for the animals, and ultimately, respect for Innu accomplishments and heritage.
The Tshikapisk initiative evolved from a highly successful country-based training program developed by Anthony Jenkinson and Jean-Piere Ashini (Napes) which was called Nutshimiu Atusseun. Sponsored by Innu Nation the program, held in the country west of the Mealy Mountains, created opportunities for Innu young people to gain skills ---as well as emotional and physical strength--- by drawing from a reservoir of Innu traditions. The success of this program was the inspiration that led to the creation of the not-for-profit Tshikapisk Foundation in 1997.
Since 1997 Tshikapisk has developed a series of programs and projects centred at Kamestastin (Lake Mistastin on most maps, in the barrenlands west of Voisey’s Bay, near the border with Quebec) --a flooded meteorite impact crater-- where it is constructing a cultural resource centre and experiential education facility. Over the last six years an extraordinary consortium of interests including government agencies, the private sector, NGO’s, European and American researchers, the Mennonite Church and the German Air Force (which flew in tonnes of building materials and equipment which they deployed on the ice without landing as part low-level flying training exercises) have allied themselves with Innu community agencies and the Innu Nation to build the Kamestastin facility. The dream of an Innu Cultural Center situated in the heart of Nitassinan (the Innu word for their homeland) centers on construction of Shakutum Utshistun (the Gyrfalcon’s Nest). While the main lodge is still in need of funds to finish the interior, a suite of four out-buildings have been constructed and the plans and equipment for a solar-powered facility are well underway. Tshikapisk plans to use the Kamestastin facility to provide a country setting for educational, health and language programs for the Innu. It is hoped that these programs would generate revenues that would augment funds from eco-tourism and experiential education initiatives that are under development with schools and universities in Canada, the United States and England.
Stephen was drawn to work with Tshikapisk by the opportunity to travel with and learn from older Innu men and women who were born in the country and were knowledgeable about country matters, subsistence strategies, and stories: a unique and priceless corpus of knowledge and inspiration that represent one of the last intact libraries of direct experiences relating to humanities common hunting and gathering subsistence heritage. The Innu are forever linked, in their own minds, as well as in the minds of visitors and anthropologists, with caribou. Caribou and reindeer figure significantly in the story of human evolution from the origins of art and language in the Ice Age caves of Europe, to the subsistence strategy of choice for the colonizing paleoindian populations entering the New World, and as the means of survival for circumpolar peoples from the Pleistocene to the present. Working with Tshikapisk provides an extraordinary opportunity to learn from a remarkable group of Innu seniors about the practical aspects of caribou hunting and the spiritual realms and social responsibilities that hunting entails.
The practice of archaeology as incorporated into a Tshikapisk agenda has proved a remarkably close fit: as a bridge between the world of science and the interests of Innu leaders and educators and as a bridge for the Innu themselves, providing a common ground for discussion between country-born elders, Innu educators, and Innu youth, and visiting archaeologists
This past September (2006) was Stephen Loring’s sixth trip to Kamestastin. Stephen and the Tshikapisk team were able to spend a couple of weeks conducting archaeological excavation and survey prior to the arrival of a portion of the George River caribou herd, more than 10,000 animals, who effectively curbed our enthusiasm for revealing past caribou hunting and feasting camps for contemporary ones. The short archaeological field-season had three important epiphanies which are detailed elsewhere in this newsletter. The ASC involvement with Tshikapisk has been a tremendously rewarding experience for both the Innu educators and students and for the anthropologist they have befriended. We expect that the cooperative foundation that has been built thus far will continue to flourish in the years to come, that the future of the past, as it pertains to the Innu, will be as exciting and inspirational as the heritage it seeks to celebrate.
Thoughts on the Ivory-Bill Spring 2005. The announcement in Science of an ivory-bill woodpecker sighting in Arkansas made the news the day before Joan returned from her sabbatical in Cambridge. When I picked her up at Dulles and we were back in the car heading towards home I said, “Joan, there is news and its HUGE!” and then I quickly said “its not political, its Stephen, its HUGE for Stephen”. When I was working in Arkansas for the Archaeology Survey the Ivory-Bill was the essence of the mystery and magic that seemed to infuse the landscape of imagination at the border of history and prehistory. Beginning in Arkansas in the early-1970’s and for the next thirty years I spent days searched the hardwood bottoms of the Deep South for the Ivory-Bill, convinced that there was a great conspiracy of silence that sheltered the bird and the mystery. In Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas I’ve left trails behind, striking off into backwaters and abandoned sloughs, finding Indian mounds, rattlesnakes, alligators and snapping turtles and losing myself, my worries, the world beyond the next hummock, the next big tree. Walking and wading as silently as possible or drifting in the old canoe motionless, as still and as quiet as I’ve ever been, almost breathless with the waiting. Waiting and watching. A deep silence slipping back to an ancient past as deep as the river, as deep as time with no beginning and no end in sight or in mind. After a while the deer forget you are about, wood ducks approach unaware and slide away without a ripple, wild turkeys begin to shuffle about the forest floor, herons put down their raised foot. The bottomland cypress forests of the South, especially the Congaree outside of Columbia, were my church and as real a wilderness as any Alaskan mountain top or ice-choked Labrador shore. I’d been haunted by the promise and prospect that if I went further in, lingered longer, braved darkness and eschewed comforts and promises then, only then, might I be rewarded by seeing an Ivory-bill. Ironically, among the first stories I heard of the Lord God Bird were in north-central Arkansas where I was a guide on the Buffalo River, living in a small log-cabin without heat or plumbing and working on my senior honor’s thesis on Vermont Archaeology. The bird was the stuff of legends –huge, invisible, mysterious. None of the guides I worked with had seen the bird, but their fathers had and stories of it persisted. The Buffalo is a tributary of the White River, my cabin, by water, was less than 200 miles upstream of what appears to be the Ivory-Bill redoubt. But at the time the Big Woods of the lower White were not on my radar screen. I was thinking further south and west in the Felsenthal and the Big Thicket. Once I made a foolish ascent of a precipitous bluff wall behind my Buffalo River cabin, arriving exhausted and thrilled at the rim where I fell asleep leaning against a scrub-oak. It must have been the bird’s arrival that woke me, for when I opened my eyes there was, close-enough to touch, a pileated woodpecker. The majesty of that moment, and the awe in being so close to such an other-worldly being, has never left me. I thought that this is how St. Francis of Assisi must have felt, that the wild creatures would come to his hand. And I longed to look into the eyes of his larger, wilder, mythical cousin. Since that day my mind has often been down around the bend, ahead of me, scouting and waiting. Waiting for this strange ornithological Holy Grail, this anachronistic thing from another time and place. Such a burden for one creature to carry as if in its sighting we might erase our sins, our sins of greed. Some Smithsonian colleagues in Birds are already dismissing the Arkansas sightings as those of an oddly-colored pileated but then, following in the tradition of Hrdlicka, the Smithsonian has ever been in the vanguard of conservatism. Hopefully time will prove the ornithological curators as wrong in their interpretation of woodpecker plumage as Hrdlicka was in assessing the antiquity of human beings in the New World.