http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2007/05/02/1095/ Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:23:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2007/05/02/1095/#comment-144378 Douglas Winspear Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:12:18 +0000 http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2007/05/02/1095/#comment-144378 <p>I want to thank Richard Wagamese for sharing his thoughts about his Ojibway grandfather. I, too, had an Ojibway grandfather, who spent most of his life in the bush. I never got to meet him, though. My father had moved from Manitoba to a small town on the coast of Massachusetts, where I'd grown up. My earliest recollections are of my brother and I walking through the trails in the woods surrounding the village, and my father teaching us about the plants and animals. Although he'd spent most of his week working in a nearby factory, he was happiest in the woods. Toward the end of his life, my father would talk about his days spent cnaoing and portaging around the Lake of the Woods. Unlike Richard, I'd grown up around the woods, and as soon as the school bell rang, my friends and I would head there, away from the world of adults and rules and bells, away from the brick and asphalt. And this morning, I woke up on a beautiful June day, in Montreal. Instead of the songs of the birds, whose songs my father had taught me, I heard the drone of machines. My only contact with reality is the old maple tree in front of my window. I look at his leaves to see which wa the wind is blowing. I sit and look at the patterns on the bark, the shadows telling me that the wind has shifted to the west. My home town, a former Wampanoag village, later a whaling a shipbuilding village, was swallowed up by a beltway from Boston and turned into a fancy suburb. Twenty odd years ago, one could live off the land for at least half the year. Now, most of the scallops and fish are gone, the woods have been swallowed by fancy developments. Occasionally I run into another refugee from progress, a Gaspe fisherman forced to move to the city because all the fish have been shipped to a supermarket near you. It must be lunch hour now. The machines have stopped, and I can hear a couple of sparrows chirping in the tree. Soon my neighbor will be out chasing away the pigeons from the bread crumbs he leaves for the squirrels.</p> I want to thank Richard Wagamese for sharing his thoughts about his Ojibway grandfather. I, too, had an Ojibway grandfather, who spent most of his life in the bush. I never got to meet him, though. My father had moved from Manitoba to a small town on the coast of Massachusetts, where I’d grown up. My earliest recollections are of my brother and I walking through the trails in the woods surrounding the village, and my father teaching us about the plants and animals. Although he’d spent most of his week working in a nearby factory, he was happiest in the woods. Toward the end of his life, my father would talk about his days spent cnaoing and portaging around the Lake of the Woods. Unlike Richard, I’d grown up around the woods, and as soon as the school bell rang, my friends and I would head there, away from the world of adults and rules and bells, away from the brick and asphalt.
And this morning, I woke up on a beautiful June day, in Montreal. Instead of the songs of the birds, whose songs my father had taught me, I heard the drone of machines. My only contact with reality is the old maple tree in front of my window. I look at his leaves to see which wa the wind is blowing. I sit and look at the patterns on the bark, the shadows telling me that the wind has shifted to the west.
My home town, a former Wampanoag village, later a whaling a shipbuilding village, was swallowed up by a beltway from Boston and turned into a fancy suburb. Twenty odd years ago, one could live off the land for at least half the year. Now, most of the scallops and fish are gone, the woods have been swallowed by fancy developments. Occasionally I run into another refugee from progress, a Gaspe fisherman forced to move to the city because all the fish have been shipped to a supermarket near you.
It must be lunch hour now. The machines have stopped, and I can hear a couple of sparrows chirping in the tree. Soon my neighbor will be out chasing away the pigeons from the bread crumbs he leaves for the squirrels.

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