LAND ~ Interviews

First story:
Luc Gauthier Nolett

Second story:
Michel Durand Nolett

Who are you and where are you from?

«I was born here in 1978. I never left the reserve, I always lived here, presently I’m settled here, and I’m gonna die here.»

What do you do in Odanak?

«I work for the Band Council, together with the Public Works. We work on projects about endangered species, on environmental projects of all kinds.»

Were you passionate about that when you were young?

«Yes, yes, yes. In my youth memory, when I was young I wanted to be a gamekeeper, at the time it was called gamekeeper. At primary school, my dream was to become game-keeper. I don’t have the mental skills to do that, but today I work in an environmental office and I manage projects with endangered species. So I’m not that far from my goal. I work with elders and with younger ones. (...) We also take care that the community stays clean, it’s also this kind of transmission of the land. You know, when you go hunting, when you go fishing, you pick up the trash, simple things like that.»

I walked several times on the Tolba path, I find it great. I went there with one of the youth, Raphaelle. She has been working at the museum for a couple years, and recommends the walk to tourists, but it was her first time on the Tolba path.

taken during the photography workshop on the land, by Raphaelle Obomsawin, Odanak

«Still, it’s important to have an interest in knowing what is there. We inaugurated the path in 2009, we wanted a partnership with the museum, to train guides who would have walked and would have explained things depending on their competencies and their understandings. For example, I am particularly good with the birds, identifying the birds. I’m not an ornithologist, but I like that, I’m an amateur. Well in the end, it didn’t work out… Otherwise, we did it several times with groups of children from elementary school, primary school, and also with youths. We also organize workshops, such as for Earth Day. We will go to places with our things, take part in Earth Day workshops all around. We always do little events like that. We participate in the pow-wow and meet people like you.»

What is your practice with the ash tree?

«I am one of the last who takes care of the transmission of this little part of the culture that we still know, that we like to pass on. (...)it provides our elders who are the last ones to weave baskets, there aren’t many youths who do it.»

Learn more about traditional ash pounding

Do you think that young people are interested by that traditional practice?

«To the point that they go out, that they put away their screen, their Facebook, and Twitter...? (...) It’s hard to move them away from this torpor. We shouldn’t give up at all, we have to take them by the hand.»

«What remains of my culture, today in 2016?»

What are the challenges faced by Indigenous youth in today's society?

Luc: «The challenge is to find your identity through this mediatic landslide.»(...)
In my case, I’m part of the law before 1985, my mother married a white guy. Well, today my father is Indian. He has always been an Indian but it took 50 years for the procedures to go through. Eventually, my father got his card as Abenaki Indian, but before that he was white with my mother. My mother lost her rights, so I wasn’t Indian. I wasn’t born Abenaki.»

Louise: «But your were born here?»

Luc: «Yes, yes. It was the war, the absolute war. Some of my friends had an Abenaki father, so their mother became Abenaki. It created tensions… The young people today, they didn’t know that but they still know the prejudice that “ah the Indians they don’t know how to do anything, they are all bad people, they are all lazy.” These prejudices like that, I don’t pay them any mind because I know what we are able to do. It’s rather the ignorance that I dislike. The prejudices of the people aren’t often grounded. It’s the man who saw the man who saw the bear.»

The story of the Environmental Office

«When we opened here the office in 2007, there was Michel, a biologist and me. We were three. Since 2009, I'm here and it flows, projects are running smoothly. Until 2014, I was working alone here.»

«Anyone in the community, the elders come see us to ask for help, they have something heavy to transport, trees, whatever, we are here to help. For sure, I want to pass on that spirit. Are you always forced today to pull out some money to get a helping hand? It seems… I mean, we are what we are, we are welcoming, I am like that! I want people who come here to they remember us.»

How did the Enviromental Office come to exist?

«I called it like that because of the program for land management and environment. Since 2008/2009, it's the Enviromental Office, and the Band council is very proud of it, proud to tell about our office. We did a lot of progress in a couple years at the environmental level, with creating a disposal site for dangerous domestic waste, we did two interpretive trails. We found several ilegal dumps, some old ones, some less old, and more recent ones. We cleaned all of that, which was a very good thing.»

What do you do for the community?

«I work as land manager for the Band council. Land manager for First Nations, like Odanak, it's a program which entails the environment and the land. The transfers between two individuals, for buying, selling land, a property, land surveying, and so on. It's also making sure that all environmental tests are being done, by hiring someone, or by doing the environmental study directly.»

«Lately, we did a period of environmental assessment to get to a process called LGTPN, the law on managing the land of First Nations. It's process which requires a lot of information, including environmental information, what is the environmental health of the community. You have to write it all down so that, once the law will be put in force in the community, we will be in charge of our land. But we want to end up with land that is not contaminated, territories that aren't deteriorated in one way or another.»

What brought you to be land manager in Odanak?

«I am trained as a forester, and I was working for the Great Council, who hired me as a contract worker for potential projects for the communities of Odanak and Wôlinak. I got interested in environmental work with the project Tolba, and at the same time, the Band council approached me: "We need a land manager in the community, and we believe you are someone who can do the job." So I checked what it involved, what it was, and I accepted to be land manager, while keeping my position as a forester, and someone working with endangered species.»

How do you see the process of revitalization unfolding?

Ash pounding

Michel: «This is very present in the community, people call us, like in Montreal, to do a demonstration of ash pounding, at pow-wows. It's something that was lost, that wasn't practiced anymore. It used to be part of ancient pow-wows, but in the more recent ones, that wasn't alive anymore. But it came back, every pow-wow [in the Abenaki communities], you have a show of ash pounding because it's something which belongs to us, and which is directly connected to the community.»

Learn more about this traditional practice here

Dancing, singing and drumming

Michel: «Regarding the dances, there are several people who kept dancing, such as Nicole O’Bomsawin who carried on the practice. Regarding the singing, it's the same thing, several people like Jacques Watso and Daniel Nolett, they have a drumming group and they sing [called the Flying Sturgeons]. That's not something that got lost, quite the contrary, it even got better than before. So that's going very, very well.»