As told by Louisa Diamond Sr.
It was during the hunt in the fall and there were a lot of birds. That’s all you would hear, wavies. Although there were many wavies, if it was a calm day, Moojoo wouldn’t go hunting. He would wait until it was windy. Even if we didn’t have much to eat, Moojoo would never go hunting until it was windy.
We would dry fish and that’s what we would eat, fish with their eggs that had been smoked. We also had potatoes from the huge field in Waskaganish.
One time we had to leave my grandmother and brother behind in Waskaganish. My brother had been in an accident and couldn’t walk. We paddled to the place called Ministukawtimi and lived there while my mother collected fish to smoke. The days were beginning to turn cold when we started heading back.
We were heading up-river for the winter. But before we could, Moojoo planned on dropping us off at Nooscan and making his way back to Waskaganish to get my grandmother and my brother, and bring back more supplies. The north wind blew and Moojoo predicted, “The tides will probably be very high… It looks like the tides will be very high.”
Later, night had fallen and we were in bed when we were told to get up. We were living in a domed tent. We were told, “You have to get up! The water’s getting closer!” We got up and got dressed. The two dogs we had with us had to be re-tied on higher ground near the campsite. The stove was taken down and the boat was dragged
into our tent. All our belongings, which weren’t much, were loaded up in the boat. We all sat there and after a while there was water all over.
My mother, who was sitting at the front of the boat, cried out suddenly, “Look at that rabbit!” There was a rabbit right inside the tent. “Hit it!” someone shouted, but she didn’t even bother. There were rabbits all over running away from the rising water.
We sat there in the tent in the boat waiting for the tide to go out. Two of the younger children were sleeping. It was very uncomfortable and there was ice floating around. We stayed there the whole night. The next day we had to rebuild our campsite, getting boughs, drying everything and staking up the now dry tent.
At the time the old man, Edward Namagoose, was living on the island close by. They told me and my brother Harry, “Go and check up on the old man.” The old man had already built his fall cabin and Sophia was living with him and his wife. We went to see them. Along the way we saw a drowned rabbit hanging from a branch. There were also chunks of ice hanging from branches all over. I don’t remember how many rabbits we found hanging from branches on the way to their cabin.
The ice crunched beneath our feet as we walked over to check on the old man. There were three of them at the dry camp. We walked in. “What happened?” he asked. We told him we had been flooded and we had been told to go check up on him. He told us that when the tide was high like it was, the only place dry was where he had his lodge. The rest of the place was under water. We told him about all the rabbit we saw hanging from trees and then we headed back to our camp.
We had planned to head out that day, but it was still too cold and windy. We stayed for another night, and at dawn the next day we got in our canoe and headed up-river. It was so cold and there was ice all along the shore.
Translated by Neil Diamond and transcribed by Brian Webb. Voices of the Elders: made possible with the assistance of the Canada Council.
