It was a cold, cold night, not unlike one that my mother had told me about a long time ago. Another holiday season when it was a chilling minus 41 degrees Celsius or more. That night, long ago, we were in the vehicle somewhere in Northern Ontario, with Dad and Mom up front and my two brothers and me in the back. We were all shivering with the cold. A police officer stopped Dad and offered to put us all up for the night at his house because it was that cold. Dad refused saying that we were almost home.
This was not the only time that strangers offered to come to our aid during the holiday season. Holidays are a time when people seem to go out of their way to extend a helping hand.
For example, I have a stepbrother. His cheque was a little late and his ex-wife offered him $350 so he could buy presents for their three sons. She didn’t want him looking bad in front of his kids at Christmas. Fortunately his cheque arrived but this is the sort of thing I’m talking about. People helping people, even where and when you wouldn’t expect it. It is in the human spirit to be a part of the community of man and do works both good and beneficial to others. It is our way to connect with each other and reaffirm that we are not alone in this world.
But back to that cold night in December 1998. It is about 9:30 in the evening and I see a man by the side of the road waving us down with a flashlight about 15 kilometres from Chibougamau, just down from the Route du Nord turn-off on the way to Mistissini.
This Cree, at first, looks like the abominable snowman. He is covered with frost and it’s hard to tell who he even is. He’s looking for a ride back to Mistissini.
Earlier in the day his father and him had
went to check and pull out some traps. A Cree trapper had fallen ill and no one was sure when he would be able to go back on the trapline.
It isn’t the Cree way to leave traps unattended. It’s wasteful and disrespectful to the animals and the land.
It’s also tradition to help each other out because survival is sometimes a difficult proposition to say the least in the Far North. This is why the father and son took time off on their holidays to go back to work to help out a trapper in need.
It is also why we stopped to pick him up. He was somebody in need on a dangerously cold night.
As Donnie and me were talking to him he told us the story of picking up the traps and animals for their friend. We thought this was a great thing. He said that after a while on the snowmobile sled the cold had gotten too much, so he told his dad to drop him off and he would hitchhike home. He didn’t anticipate a problem, it being the holidays and all.
I guess he was a little too optimistic as he told us several cars and trucks had passed without stopping.
Thinking back at how cold it was, given the season and the traditions of Crees helping Crees, I can only think those drivers must have been tourists. After all no Cree would leave a Cree to freeze by the roadside, wouldn’t you think?
If it was a Cree then perhaps our Cree Nation collective New Year’s resolution should be to find and promote those Cree traditions that made the Crees strong and self-reliant with a sense of community.
Either way it is only right to pick up someone stuck in the middle of nowhere when it’s 40 below. Anything else is a shameful way of life.
