Added to CartSounds of the river dancing,
groovy, rapids 1
Pinock:
It’s very complimentary when somebody says
it’s an art piece, it looks good. I’m proud for my
ancestors for having made a piece of art.
But, personally, I’m just an Algonquin putting
canoes together. I just feel that I’m doing something
that I traditionally would’ve been
doing anyway.
You wouldn’t mention the name of the river,
you’d just say river, and then if you’re
going to the Ottawa river, you’d say
Kiche Zibi – it’s the big river you know.
So if you asked somebody how did you get here?
I came by river. You wouldn’t say
I took the Gatineau river and I came down
and I jumped in rapids – I came by river.
Simple, you move on.
You just say sibi, there’s just one river
so you don’t have to name it every time.
We didn’t really mention things,
there was no streets or anything,
you just – you got there.
On Indian time. Whenever.
Sounds of river, paddling
The river was the main Expressway of the canoeing.
It still is today. All the little roads would jump into
the river, it was their main road. But you have to
remember in those days there were no roads, it was all
bush so you had to carry that thing. During the fur trade
you could carry 5000 furs on these things.
Sounds of beavers,
quiet canoe sliding on the water
The animals are not afraid of it because it’s from
nature, they smell those things, you know some of them
they eat those things, so they’re not afraid of a canoe.
They’re very quiet, very lightweight, you can go down the
river really well. So the design is perfect for the environment
we’re living in, the area here. So I can never get
over it, how intelligent my ancestors were in
building that thing.
When they carry you in the cradle board your
education is starting. Because your mom carries you
around on her back, she sees you, you’re the same height,
you’re not dragging around on the ground you’re up here.
You’re always observing what’s going on around you, so
on day 1 your education has started.
Sounds of working canoe & cradleboard,
conversation in Anishnabemowin
I’m not formally taught but I’m definitely not self-taught.
Somebody showed me along the line, ‘cause I seen my
grandfather making canoes 50 years ago, 60 years ago,
I seen uncles on the reserve, I seen other community
members, so I learned from the community as whole.
Sounds of making canoe
You do not want to cut into this green part down here,
because that’s the inner bark, that you don’t have any use
for whatsoever it’s the other bark that you want…
You could have 2 trees side by side, one of them has all
this here, it comes out in layers, in Algonquin we say
pitoushkway, it comes all in pieces. Then you got the
other one is solid like this, see how think this is and it’s
solid… this you call an inoushkway. It’s one thick layer.
Pitoushkway because it comes in layers.
Inoushkway is the layered one.
Sounds of bark, touching bark…
We were going for bark, in my mind I was thinking
I’m going to come back with a truckload of bark
because I had to put gas in there, you got to bring your
lunch, you’re going a long ways to get to it. A lot of work
goes into harvesting bark. Then after we’re all done he
says “Put it in the truck and we’re going home.” And I
said O-kay, you know, ‘cause he’s an elder so I have
respect for the elder and his decision is to come home.
Take from Nature what you need,
it was put there for our use not our abuse.
He was showing me, that that’s
the way. He wasn’t telling me anything, just by what he
was doing. That’s the native way of teaching, with the
three “ L ”s : Look, listen and learn.
Take your fingers a second there,
now you’re pushing it down,
always push outwards, if you go this way,
and now you see it’s a little bit far gone,
see there’s no grain going this way the grain
is going way. This way it will split better… If it’s going off
on the thick side, you push towards the lighter side,
normally it goes right down. Just go very gently.
All in the selections of the materials.
I’m proud of my ancestors, it lasts a long time.
When you take bark like this here, this thicker one,
I’m separating the fibers and then I insert this root
into it, I put it in there, and I leave that and after a while
you can’t pull it it out again. Because that bark although
it’s been dead for five years and its dried out, it always
has some life into it. It wants to heal itself back up again
and then this thing won’t come out again.
It’ll stay in there.
Spruce roots, spruce gum here, spruce gum for the
seams, birch bark, all cedar in the interior, except for the
thwarts, they’re ashwood.
Smell that, it smells very nice. Then you melt that down,
it takes very little heat, you melt in the frying pan. That
thing there you would take it, and I would just take a
piece like this and I want it to seal up the birchbark.
So we’ll just take that and I would go like that.
And that now has been sealed… that’s a nice gum.
You can go into the bush with a minimum of tools
and nature’s supply and it can give you a vessel
that you can come out of the bush with. It makes you
appreciate the Creator and Nature and everything
because it’s there, it doesn’t pollute anything, and if you
leave it there it just returns to where it was before,
it goes back to nature without polluting anything
because it came from there.
Émilie:
So do you think people will still be making
canoes in 50 years, 70 years?
Pinock:
They’ll have the knowledge of how to make a canoe
will be alive. Because the young people that are learning
it today will know how to make it they’ll know how to do it.
Material-wise will be another story. It might come to the
point where we might have difficulty getting bark.
You can’t find the bark, quality bark, or even find trees at
some point.
Today we could still have good drinking water
and fresh air to breathe if we would just give nature
a chance to refresh itself again. But we keep polluting all
the time, and we’re all guilty. I’m not going to blame one
nationality for ruining the world, we’re all guilty because
we’re all here and we’re all doing the same things.
So you know, it’s a universal thing. But it can be turned
around but it would take an effort from everybody.
You can’t get two people to agree on anything so how
are you going to get nations to agree, it’s a nice dream
but it’s not a feasible one.
Émilie:
Maybe everybody should build a canoe together.
Pinock:
They should. It might make them realize how nice
the world could be, you know if we would respect it.
It’s down to that one word you know: respect.
- Ninóswáhadón Sibi, I follow the river (2019) by Émilie Monnet, is an 11 minutes 11 seconds audio piece for headphones and a podcast, created in collaboration with Pinock Smith. Here, we reproduce excerpts from their conversation which was recorded in Pinock’s studio at Kitigan Zibi. Some other audio material was collected and recorded on the shores of the Tenagàdinozìbi (Gatineau River) and the Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River). The peice was originally commissioned by CUAG and GUQO in partnership with DAÏMÔN and Transistor Média, with support from Carleton University, Université du Québec en Outaouais, the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the Reesa Greenberg Digital Initiatives Fund. Sound editing and mixing by Pascal Desjardins.→