Peering Inward
Peering Inward , how much Indian am I?
In the Beginning
This painting illustrates the Ojibwa creation story as told by Basil Johnston, a noted Ojibwa mythologist and historian. Bear offers his flesh to the first people who are starving with the onslaught of winter. As background to this particular beginning I added the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) blanket of the traditional white ground with green, red, yellow and black. My family’s story and the story of many Native and Metis people is tied to the fur trade the territory and operation of which the HBC was governor until 1870. The four black bars measured the number of pelts required to trade for this blanket.
Baptism at Black Bay
‘The hopes that our good Mother made us foresee on the day of her Immaculate Conception, have already been accomplished a hundredfold. The 2nd day of this month, the day on which she offered her only Son to the Heavenly Father in the temple, I had the happiness of offering him a crown of ten baptisms, eight adults and one child (sic) of about five or six years. This touching scene took place under a hut of birch bark, on the shores of Black Bay, …’ from the records of Fr H.N.J. Fremiot, Jesuit Missionary, 1852.
Moose Woman (Becoming White)
Great grand-mother Rosalie is depicted here. I’ve decided she is of the Hoof Clan and associated her with the moose, which was a major source of food for us as children. Rosalie is a figure of awe for me when I think of the changes that would over take he in only three decades.
Alexander’s Path
My father walked the trap lines with his grandfather Alexander McCoy (Pizheesh - wildcat) son of a white man and an Ojibwa woman. Alexander was a bailiff of sorts, charged by the Municipality of Fort William with (among other duties) looking after the lines that took water from a reservoir on the Reserve to the town.
Aloysius and the Lakes
This is a historical look at the development of resources north of Superior and the Aloysius’ participation as an enfranchised native. The Robert W is a logging tug, his last command. Interestingly its colours were Red, Black and Yellow, signifying three of the four cardinal points (South, West and East) of the Ojibwe nation.
The War Years
World War II, Neil takes an English bride (Mom like Granny is an orphaned white woman.) In Bognar Regis in the south of England 1945. Neil Alexander McCoy married Violet Jane Hill and at the end of World War II brought her home to Fort William. Neil was not counted among the high percentage of Native veterans who volunteered for duty and was therefore supported by Veterans Affairs benefits that his cousins and other band members would never enjoy.
Aloysius takes the Path of Souls
Granddad’s funeral and a church full of all the Indians I do not know. In 1971 my grandfather died suddenly of a heart attack. I was home from Toronto with my husband and I hate to think that I might not have come to Thunder Bay for his funeral. After the services and after our family’s visitors had gone home, my sister Heather and I were sitting on the front porch talking about the day. We shared our sadness over Granddad’s death but more than that we share our astonishment at the church full of people. It seemed that everyone from the Fort William Reserve was there for his service and we didn’t know who anyone was. They are still strangers to me.
White Girl Fishing
To depict one of the few childhood memories that relate to the Mission, or Fort William Reserve. My sister as a child is the model for the central character. With her fair colouring she has no obvious physical connection to our reserve family. It’s spring; we are fishing. The smelt are so thick over the cobbled streambed that we can wade into the water and pick them up with our hands. This is where the Indians live, here at Squaw Bay. As children, this is as much as we know.
