Pimachiowin Aki

World Heritage Site

Elders

13 Rapids with a Traditional Place Names Map in Hand

When young people go out on the land, they come back with their language.

—Anishinaabe Elder, in translation

This summer, eight youth had a one-of-a-kind experience using the Poplar River First Nation Traditional Place Names map. The teens participated in a five-day knowledge-sharing trip hosted by Poplar River First Nation Guardian Norway Rabliauskas and his mother Sophia. Together, with hired guides, the group boated from the Poplar River First Nation community to Pinesewapikung Sagaigan (Weaver Lake). Along the way, they manoeuvred through 13 rapids marked on the map, and translated the names into Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language).

With names like Thagitowipowitik (Rapids before Poplar River flows into Weaver Lake) and Machi-powitik (Bad rapids where some people sense bad feelings), the map prepared them for the rapids ahead. It also helped them reflect on the past.

“I think it’s important for the young people to learn whey where they come from, and the history of Pinesewapikung Sagaigan (Weaver Lake),” Norway says.

The map gives meaning to places and helps keep the language and stories about these places alive.  Do you want to view the Poplar River First Nation Traditional Place Names map, with 149 named places? Click here and scroll down toward the bottom of the page.

Learning the History of Weaver Lake

Cultural heritage connects people and unites communities. The group camped on an island, where more people from the community were already gathered. Together, they visited the healing camp near Weaver Lake to learn more about the history of their community, and why the healing camp was established many years ago. 

“We wanted them to know who went there, why the camp exists, and why it is important,” Norway explains. He and Sophia shared with the youth that some Elders in the community were residential school survivors who used this site for their own personal healing journeys. 

Learning the Seven Sacred Teachings

Sophia also explained the principles of the Seven Sacred Teachings that have been passed down from generation to generation: 

  • wisdom 
  • love 
  • respect 
  • bravery 
  • honesty 
  • humility 
  • truth

Inspiring the Next Generation of Guardians

Anishinaabeg were placed on the land by the Creator and have a sacred responsibility to care for it, so the trip included a ride around the lake to see the offering rock and pictographs, with a hike up a high rock to see tea kettles (deep holes in rocks). The youth also learned about the trees in the area. Each youth received an information booklet. 

“I wanted to create a spark that might inspire them to work as Guardians,” Norway says. 

The youth will carry the land-based knowledge and skills with them into the future, he adds, noting that the youth prepared meals and helped around camp. 

“They set up and took down the tents, too,” he says.  “I wanted them to be involved as much as they could.”

Each youth had a journal to write down their own personal reflections.

“On the last day, we went fishing as a group and cooked our meal with the fish we caught,” says Norway.

Because the knowledge-sharing trip was such a success, Norway plans to make it an annual summer outing. “We’d like to make it bigger next year,” he says.

It was Norway’s work with the Education Department that inspired the trip, funded in part by Pimachiowin Aki. Norway facilitates a language and culture program that was cut short this past school year due to the COVID-19 school closures. He intends to continue the program in the current school year with the help of community members who speak Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language).

5 Spectacular Pictographs Explained

The Bloodvein River waterway in Pimachiowin Aki contains the largest collection of pictographs in Canada. Hundreds of millennia-old pictographs (rock art paintings) have been documented at over 30 locations, including this cliff face on Artery Lake, beautified with handprints, animals, canoes, snakes, and other symbols painted with a paste made of a red ochre and fish oil or bear fat.

Paddling up to one of these rare images is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Canadian author and pictograph-hunter Selwyn Dewdney called these particular sites along the Bloodvein River a “rare experience” and a “supreme reward.”

Elder Leslie Orvis of Bloodvein First Nation suggests making an offering each time you pass by a pictograph.

Here’s a close-up look at five spectacular pictographs in Pimachiowin Aki:

1. Moose

Recently, Pimachiowin Aki Board Co-Chair William Young took Elder Leslie Orvis to the site of this moose pictograph on the Bloodvein River. Leslie believes that the message behind this drawing is of respect. 

“Respect the land,” he says. He then echoes the words of Elder Kenneth Owen—“If you are looking for moose to hunt, you put down tobacco in order to have a successful hunt.” 

Leslie and other Elders in Bloodvein River First Nation aim to teach local students about Anishinaabe history, culture, and language. They are developing a program that will be a part of the curricula after the community’s new school is built.

2. Kingfishers

In some cases, scholars suggest that Anishinaabeg created pictographs to mark significant personal events or associations between certain clans and areas used for traditional land use and ceremony. This pictograph found at Sasaginnigak Lake shows two Kingfishers, one of the clan emblems of Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki.

This particular pictograph was probably painted in the early 1800s by members of the Kingfisher clan who wintered at Sasaginnigak Lake and used the lake as part of their family harvesting area (Petch 2010).

3. Bison

The bison in this pictograph is recognized for its circular hooves and the dark outline that appears to indicate its heart. 

In the 1950s, guided by Ojibwe elders, Selwyn Dewdney began his studies of pictographs on the Canadian Shield. His book titled Indian Rock Paintings of the Great Lakes names this pictograph the Bloodvein Bison and describes it as “beautifully proportioned.” 

The book, co-authored by Kenneth E. Kidd, suggests that this pictograph is located a hundred miles north of where the bison herds once roamed, and the person responsible for the drawing was from that region or had traveled a far distance to hunt there.  

4. Shaman

Dewdney titled this pictograph the Bloodvein Shaman. The shaman is carrying a medicine bag. Dewdney notes that the zig-zag lines that appear above the shaman’s head are also seen in other pictographs, and are often interpreted as thoughts or magical powers. He adds that the “large canoe beneath and the porcupine to the left might represent the fighting prowess and clan of the shaman.”

5. Wigglers

Dewdney refers to these pictographs as the “two curious wigglers” but does not provide details on what they represent. In his Ramblin’ Boy blog, True_North suggests “they may be representations of the medicine serpent.”

Many of the drawings in Pimachiowin Aki include animals and people that one can assume were based on powerful spirit beings and first-hand experiences of the artists. Each pictograph has its own significance. Archaeologist Jack Steinbring writes, “The imagery may often be prompted by dreams, or visions sometimes induced by fasting or prolonged concentration.”  

How Pimachiowin Aki Guardians Help Preserve Pictographs
The spectacular pictographs in Pimachiowin Aki are well preserved. Guardians keep the sites clean of any litter, in addition to educating people about the importance of respecting the pictographs (i.e. leaving offerings, not touching or wetting them, etc.).

The rate at which the pictographs are deteriorating due to natural weathering is unknown. Lichen encroachment is probably the most serious threat.  

Locating Pictographs in Pimachiowin Aki
Pictographs are usually found on steep granite rock-faces overhanging the waterways of the boreal forest.

The drawings are typically found in places associated with powerful spirit beings, such as next to water, at the intersections of sky, earth and water, underground, and underwater. 

Not all pictograph locations are to be revealed. 

“There are rock paintings at Dog-skin that are sacred because the people of Little Grand Rapids believe that those paintings were made by the little rock people (memegwesiwag). The rock people were part of creation and were here from the beginning.” 

—Joseph Levesque, Sr. (in translation, 2014)

Anishinaabeg communicate with memegwesiwag at particular pictograph sites by presenting offerings to demonstrate respect and request assistance in travel or hunting.

“There is a cliff-rock-painting of a snapping turtle [on a certain river]. When someone travels along over there, they’d cut some tobacco. They would say, ‘I will kill a moose’ as they placed tobacco in their pipe. Sure enough, that was exactly what would happen. That person would get the blessing to kill a moose.” 

—Elder Kenneth Owen of Pauingassi First Nation (in translation, 2007) explains the importance of a particular pictograph in communicating with the memegwesiwag responsible for the painting

For more images of pictographs, including a link to the digital version of Dewdney and Kidd’s book, click here: 

https://archive.org/details/indianrockpainti00dewd/page/n1/mode/2up

Anishinaabe Pictographs On The Bloodvein: The Artery Lake Site

Sources

Indian Rock Paintings of the Great Lakes by Selwyn Dewdney and Kenneth E. Kidd
Discussion paper: Rock Paintings in the Eastern Lake Winnipeg Watershed by Jack Steinbring 
Cultural Landscape: Macro Scale Document. Virginia Petch, August 2010

Tips on How to Smoke Fish and Meat

After 46 years as a commercial fisherman, Frank Young Senior retired last year. That doesn’t mean he has stopped fishing. Today he fishes to feed his family, to share with Elders in the community and neighbouring communities, and to pass on traditions to his children and grandchildren.

Frank and his wife Ellen raised two daughters and a son in Bloodvein River First Nation. He says that his daughter Lisa, who now lives in Winnipeg, wants to learn how to smoke meat, and his grandchildren are interested in fishing.  

“We go out on the lake in the boat with the net. They really enjoy that,” he says.

Learning to fish, hunt and trap are a right of passage for youth living in Pimachiowin Aki, and learning how to prepare and cook meat is passed down through generations. 

“When I cut up and dry meat, my daughter always wants to be there,” says Frank, adding that his grandchildren like to watch him filet fish.

Frank has also done a lot of moose hunting, sometimes traveling a long way to “get moose just about every year.” He says that he cuts the moose into quarters to haul it home, where he then cuts it up into smaller pieces.

“My daughter wants to learn how to cut up meat into slabs and hang it,” he says. She was helping me last year. She’s very interested in stuff like that.”

If you’re interested, too, here are some tips from Frank:

The Best Wood for Smoking Fish and Meat
“Look for dead poplar trees,” says Frank. He builds a fire out of dried poplar, found right outside his home. Poplar is best because it doesn’t have sap—trees with sap make a black fire.

Frank’s Tips on How to Smoke Meat
Historically, many people would smoke meat to dry it out, to preserve it. This was in the days before electricity and deep freezers, Frank explains. “Now that we have a freezer, I still smoke meat because I like the taste of it. It’s tradition.” 

Frank hangs pieces of moose meat on sticks and smokes them.

 “There was someone who was drying meat a couple of years ago and he used spices,” Frank says. “That’s not the traditional way of doing it. I don’t use spices, just salt. That’s how it was done when I was growing up so that’s the way I do it.” 

Unlike fish, which is smoked for flavour and then boiled or cooked afterward, smoked meat is eaten right away.

Frank’s Tips on How to Smoke Fish
Frank has his own smokehouse where he smokes catfish, whitefish and goldeye. “We don’t smoke pickerel filets,” he says. “We fry those with flour and butter.”

Franks recommends using birch sticks to pierce the fish. He smokes six to eight whitefish at a time. The fire should have a small flame, he says. 

Frank closes the door and just lets it smoke. “You don’t want to dry it out,” he warns. “Just smoke it long enough to have the flavour.”

Try this Duck Fat Potato Recipe!
Fish, moose, and duck are favourite traditional foods along with delicacies like smoked meats, white fish, and pickerel caviar.

Little Grand Rapids First Nation Guardian Dennis Keeper says that duck is one of his favourite traditional foods. He notes that the ducks are especially fat this year, so he looks forward to trying this duck fat potato recipe:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/duckfat-potatoes-recipe-1957259

You can watch a video with British Chef April Bloomfield making Duck Fat Potatoes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93404IQdSSY

The recipe is on page 238 in her cookbook ‘A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories’.

Elders are Our Scientists

There has been much dispute about global warming and climate change but Anishinaabeg have long known that poor land use planning can have damaging results. The Elders who came before us have taught us to respect the earth. Pimachiowin Aki is a gift from the Creator, and Anishinaabeg have a sacred responsibility to care for it.

Years ago, Elders spoke about the impending changes in weather patterns and cautioned us that we must work together to make a difference for current and future generations, says Pimachiowin Aki Board Co-Chair William Young. “We have our own scientists,” he says, referring to the Elders in the communities. 

William generously translates as we speak with Bloodvein First Nation Elder Leslie Orvis. Born in Bloodvein, Leslie has worked all over Manitoba as a commercial fisherman, and is an experienced hunter and trapper.

Leslie sees the changes that Elders talked about long ago. “They used to be able to do various things, like make it rain. Now that’s all changed,” he says. 

While we may no longer be able to call upon the clouds to open up, the Elders in Pimachiowin Aki are the knowledge keepers. Sharing their traditional knowledge is invaluable. They talk about the effects that global warming has on the wildlife in their communities. 

At the end of November, Bloodvein was experiencing rain and unusually warm weather for about a week and a half. “When it rains this time of year,” Leslie says, “it freezes onto the twigs, trees and bushes, which the moose and rabbits rely on to eat.“   

Lack of food for wildlife inevitably affects the trappers and hunters.  

“The wolves are starving,” William adds. Recently three wolves were spotted on the road walking at night, desperately searching or food, coming closer than normal to residents’ homes.

Communities Affected by High Waters 

Dennis Keeper, a Pimachiowin Aki Guardian who observes the lands and waters in Little Grand Rapids is very concerned about the unusual weather patterns and erratic water levels that he has witnessed over the last few years.

“Usually at this time of year, the water levels drop and the current slows down,” he says. But this year is different. The lake froze once in the fall and then opened again near the end of November. Yet in June and July, water levels were lower than normal. Dennis says that in 2018 Little Grand Rapids had low water levels all year.

Pauingassi First Nation, 18 kilometres north of Little Grand Rapids, is experiencing its highest water levels ever, with some parts of the community swallowed up and becoming islands. The high waters prevent trappers from accessing their trap lines. 

“We have to rely on outside food, says Dennis. “It puts pressure on the community.”

It also affects communities’ access to transportation. Typically, for about one month each winter, people use winter roads to travel to and from the communities of Pimachiowin Aki. The roads are a direct route across the lakes. But those roads won’t open until the lakes freeze, and Dennis worries that the roads won’t be open for as many days as needed. 

 “It takes a month of minus 30 degrees Celsius for it to freeze,” he explains. It takes six to eight weeks to get the roads passed as driveable, which results in 22 to 30 days of winter road driving. The slow freeze-up can also result in the trucks having to carry smaller loads, cutting the weight of the loads in half from 80,000 pounds to 40,000.

This is unsettling news for Little Grand Rapids, which is expecting 1500 loads of supplies this winter via the winter road. The trucks will be carrying materials to build the community’s own much-needed high school this spring.  

“Global warming is not a myth,” Dennis says. “Come over here and see it for yourself.”

Elder Leslie says, “There will be days ahead that will be hard, and we have to prepare our youth by teaching them skills like hunting, trapping, fishing and survival.” He believes that we can, and should, all work together toward sustainable hunting in order to build a brighter future for all.

Fall Moose Hunt

A moose can provide six months of food for a family, but moose hunting is more than just practical. It’s a family tradition, passed down through generations. 

Norman Pascal of Pauingassi First Nation learned how to hunt from his grandfather, Bushie Pascal, when he was “old enough to know how to handle a gun,” at the age of 14. Today, he hunts duck, geese, moose, beaver and muskrat. He learned from past generations to only take what you need. “Just because you see five moose, you don’t shoot five moose,” he says. 

When someone kills a moose, they think about the whole community. If a family doesn’t have the capacity to hunt, hunters will share the meat with them. “We share the meat with whoever asks for it,” says Norman. 

Hunters will also hunt for the Elders in the community. Pimachiowin Aki Guardian Dennis Keepers says that there are eight people who look after the Elders in his community of Little Grand Rapids. They will harvest beaver and duck, and fish and hunt moose for them. Dennis says he “has lots of family in the area,” but the Elders he hunts for are not related to him. The Elders give him gas or other hunting supplies as payment. 

Moose hunting is so important to the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki that many children enjoy official breaks from school in order to join their families on fall moose hunts. 

Dennis, who also learned how to hunt from his grandfather, plans to pass on his knowledge to his son when his son turns 10 years old. “I will take him and his friends out to learn how to survive out in the wild,” he says. 

In October, when moose are mating, you can hear the bellow of the males along the lakeshores.  Hunters use horns made of birch to call them. They typically lure the males by imitating the sound of a female moose (cow), or by imitating the sound of a male moose (bull).

Anishinaabeg are careful not to be wasteful. They honour the Creator’s gifts through the continued harvest of plants and animals in a manner that ensures continuity of all life on the land. The Guardians in each community of Pimachiowin Aki are constantly monitoring their areas, building relationships with hunters, and watching out for poachers and trophy hunters. 

In our ancestors’ time, a person who wasted an animal would be punished, explains Bloodvein First Nation Guardian Melba Green. “You take only what you need and don’t waste it,” she says. Today, community members report back to the Guardians, sharing what they observe when they go out onto the land. Any illegal activities or other areas of concern, including wastage, are passed along from Guardians to the relevant authorities. 

Anishinaabeg are respectful of all living things. Once a moose hunter skins the meat and hide, to share the good news of their successful hunt, they display the head in front of their home. It is a show of pride, but also a show of respect for the moose, which has given up its life to feed the people of Pimachiowin Aki. In an act of respect, the moose beard is hung in the trees. This tradition is to give back to the land, Norman points out.

Sadly, not all traditions are being kept alive. “The older generations used to make leather from the moose hide but there’s nobody doing this anymore,” says Norman.

Dennis stresses the importance of talking to the Elders, to learn from them. “All the knowledge they have, once they’re gone, it’s gone.” Knowing this makes Dennis’ job as a Guardian all the more important. A huge priority is to bring youth and Elders together on the land, he adds.

Photo: Hidehiro Otake