New Navigation

   A birch bark basket caught my friend’s eye as we wandered around the Canada Day displays in Midland, Ontario last July.  As we got closer we could see that it was part of a display for Sainte Marie Among the Hurons, a local historical recreation of the fortified mission built by French Jesuits  brought by Samuel de Champlain in the early seventeen century.

(www.saintemarieamongthehurons.on.ca). The display table was covered with the furs of various animals and two bear skulls which I began to photograph. I could hear my friend telling the historical interpreter that we had been learning the Ojibwe words for some of these animals.  I had just finished reading Armand Garnet Ruffo’s book Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird where I learned some of the original words for animals that we see from our canoe.

   It was at this point that I turned to look at the young man who was wearing some of the pelts as well.  He pointed to one on his belt and said “this is otter, nigig.  I wear it because it’s my totem.”  I asked him the name for wolf. “Ma’iingan.”  We knew that beaver is “amik”.  Bear he said, pointing to the skull,“mukwa.” 

“What is deer?”  I asked. 

“I don’t know.  I need to learn more of my language.”

He had a pelt on a strap across his chest which I thought was a weasel.  “No,” he said, “red squirrel.”  He explained that one of the first chiefs that Champlain met gave him the gift of a coat made of red squirrel which is very soft and would have had great value.

   After our conversation he went to the inside of the booth to get something for us.  He handed us both a souvenir astrolabe key chain to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of Champlain’s arrival in Canada.  I thanked him for the gift and mumbled something about Champlain’s arrival being a mixed blessing, smiled and said goodbye.

   The tiny astrolabe weighed heavily in my pocket.  We had read Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda the previous winter about the Wendat (Huron) people who once lived on this land but had been virtually wiped out after the Europeans came.  We had visited Ste. Marie to learn more and found references to other missions which we hunted out and found.  Some were marked by National monuments, some cairns, and some signs painted by the side of the road.  We sadly imagined the events that had happened on this land that was once Wendake.  This year brought the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on the horrors of the residential schools which took seven generations of indigenous children away.  It also brought stories of more than 1200 missing and murdered aboriginal women.  

   And now, here was this astrolabe.  I learned that astrolabes are instruments used to measure the altitude of stars and the sun to calculate latitude.  They were used from classical times to later in the seventeenth century to navigate.  A little card in the souvenir package declared, “guided by his dream and his Astrolabe, Champlain laid the foundation of the New World… The Astrolabe… thus became a symbol of the New World and possible dreams.” 

   And look where that dream and astrolabe have taken us; cultural genocide, the end of the Wendat people in Ontario, missing and murdered  women, and children who died or were forever scarred in residential schools.  Champlain’s dream whatever that was became a nightmare for the people for whom this world was not new.

   I did some more research and it seems from what I found that the astrolabe in the museum is probably not even Champlain’s.  It was found in a farmer’s field in the later 1800’s when Champlain was becoming famous and was assumed to be his.  Closer examination of the facts, including that it was found with silver cups, bronze plates and an insignia suggest that it probably belonged to a Jesuit instead.  But Ottawa’s Museum of Civilization paid a lot of money for it even though the evidence of its owner was thin, and it is now lending it to Ste. Marie Among the Hurons for the big Rendezvous Champlain celebration. The keychain replica is meant to advertise this.  They say that history is written by the conquerors.  This little astrolabe is a new spin on a bad story.  What are we celebrating?  What are we re-enacting?  Why spin Champlain into a hero?  If we need heroes, let’s look in the direction of people who have not been assimilated even after all this time, who survive and find ways to heal and forgive.

   It is clear that our old ways of navigating are not working for many of us.  We need new dreams.  We need to dream them together.  We need to dream reconciliation, healing, harmony.  An astrolabe won’t get us there.  A GPS won’t help us to find our way.  But together we can create new dreams and new navigational tools. 

   We have newer tools like social media that help in spreading the word and creating movements.  We have old tools like respect and wisdom.  Healing is up to all of us.  We all have a part to play.  It starts with intent – to be part of the solution not part of the problem.  Then opportunities will appear and we can just step into them, not knowing our way – how could we?  We’ve never been there before

   I took the tiny astrolabe and wove a crow feather I had found into the chain.  I hung it from my rear view mirror in my car -- a symbol of the past, the rear view.  Later I found a trumpeter swan feather and as I added it, it would only stick out sideways, a change of direction.  As I drive it spins in the wind, a constant reminder of our new navigation helping us to find our way forward together.