I learned a lot from mom and dad from our times spent out on the land. Our conversations took place around things and places that sparked their memory to life and provided them the opportunity and the time to tell their stories. Now that I am an adult, strangely I find that not much has changed. I find that the best time I spend with my parents is when I am in a car with them on a long trip.

Recently, I offered to take my parents on a cross Canada vacation, so that they could see other parts of this country and visit the majestic mountains in the west. They eagerly accepted. Up to this point in their lives, the rolling prairie wheat fields and the Rocky Mountains existed only in stories my parents had heard and images they saw on television. Dad had the opportunity to travel many times when he was young but he explained that the only world he really ever experienced was the northern mushkeg tundra and the rocky northland of northeastern Ontario. Mom had learned about the Canadian landscape in residential school and often wondered what it would be like to wander from home. However, to both my parents, the different places hundreds of miles from their homelands were just mysterious and incomprehensible images and locations that they never thought they would ever see in real life.

With a little preparation, my friend Mike and I and my dad Marius and my mom Susan headed west. In travelling from Timmins west through Ontario we saw mainly the familiar mushkeg wilderness we had back home along the James Bay coast. Then it became rocky terrain. Once we crossed the border into Manitoba, I could see mom and dad were excited by the way they noted every town, river and lake on their provincial roadmap. They marvelled at the great farmlands, cattle farms and the many cities and towns we passed along our way. We stopped at several locations enroute to take in the view of the rolling prairies of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and to feel the cool morning breeze under a cloudless sky. The flatlands reminded my parents of the empty and barren tundra. They found it amazing that so many people lived their lives out every day in these foreign parts of the country. When we reached the mountains in Alberta and British Columbia my parents were quiet and in awe of what they were seeing before them. The vastness of the prairies, the awesome presence of the mountains and the many personalities along the way really thrilled mom and dad.

As we drove along over hours and hours in the car, mom and dad shared stories of our family and our ancestors and the land. The great mountains were more like legends or myths in our culture and it was said that these were the places where thunder and lightning were born. The rolling prairies were places where Weeseekeejack, a legendary figure in our stories and legends, had walked and roamed. The great mountains further west were the final places Weeseekeejack trekked and he was never heard from again.

Near Attawapiskat along the James Bay coast the closest thing we have to mountains are the highlands of the Sutton River system. My mom and her family were born and raised on this land and she related to me legends of strange creatures, monsters and adventures that people experienced in the rocky highlands. Dad told me stories of flying over these mountains in two-engined floatplanes with veteran World War Two fighter pilots while working as a guide for American hunters in the wilderness. This little mountain outcropping always held a special interest for my people.

With my parent’s favourite tunes by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and George Jones and Tammy Wynette playing in the background, my parents chatted with me about their childhood, family members, old friends, special places and funny happenings. For almost two weeks we drove through Canada. It felt good to really communicate with my mom and dad in a controlled and safe environment as we flowed along the highway west. At times it struck me how good it felt to be moving across the land and it occurred to me that wandering has always been a big part of the life of the Cree on the James Bay coast. Our nomadic lifestyle has roots that reach far back into time. No wonder we feel best when we are on the move. 

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