February is Black History Month. For the occasion, I watched the very necessary documentary Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street that tells the stories of the African-American communities who fled the South to settle in Oklahoma in what was still considered “Indian Territory” at the time.
It’s hard for the average Canadian to know exactly what the hell is going on these days. Perhaps Quebec Liberal leader Dominique Anglade summed it up best by saying, “Curfew, no curfew, unvaccinated tax, no vaccinated tax, vaccine passport which was deployed, maintained, now lifted. The contradictory messages of François Legault have been numerous and now must stop.”
As an Indigenous person, world news is very confusing and overwhelming for me. The world has always been troubled and now everything is getting more confusing. It is difficult to figure out what is true or false in the news. The way we use social media has complicated reality even more.
The handshake, the two-cheek kiss, the back slap, the hug – remember those things? Yes, they’ve been around for thousands of years and now are on the edge of extinction. Is this an evolutionary turn of events for humankind, the end of the casual or affectionate greeting between good friends and family?
Before OnStar and cellphones many drivers in the past had Citizen Band radios. They were two-way communications devices that allowed drivers to talk to each other. Hailed as a safety need, they also became a way for drivers to warn each other about speed traps by letting each other know where the police were. The biggest customers were truckers, and that produced a popular song (and movie) in the 1970s called “Convoy”.
The New Year is off to a bad start in many aspects. Covid-19 security measures intensified during the holidays, and everyone was back into lockdown throughout the province. Well, it wasn’t really a lockdown because the malls were still open. Go figure!
As the weather crisped up, the blowing snow tried to etch a frostbite sculpture into my face. I was happy to wear a mask as it helps prevent my skin from glowing neon red. As chapped cheeks get chiselled by wind gusting at highway speeds, I was thankful to reach my porch... only to discover it was buried under all that white fluffy stuff.
Quebec was an optimistic place shortly before the holidays – before Covid-19 infection rates exploded after the Omicron variant made a triumphant appearance during its blockbuster world tour. As I hopped a plane to Chibougamau in late December, the warning signs were more like huge billboards of flashing neon advertising that our recently recovered freedoms were about to disappear once again.
Koon is the Cree word for snow. It is a natural phenomenon that covers our northern world every winter and it is a very important part of life.
The year 2021 was as disastrous as could be expected given the fact that we are heading into a third year of the pandemic. After reeling from the first vaccination, then the second one and yet a third one, we now have three-quarters protection. Sounds like the Canadian dollar – three US quarters for a Canuck buck.
