September 23rd

We woke early and Barbara gave me a "treatment" to assist in my writing.

Barb went on to repack the car. She has an immense capacity to be neat and

orderly. I look at the car and think it is fully loaded, and there is

still six bags of stuff to go in.

While she did this, I went and had some breakfast and had a chat with Ida

Chapman and Marlene. Ida had been at a conference recently and had a

complete file on Reserves across the country. She gave me a book with the

Royal Commissions on Indian Affairs and also gave me the name and phone

number of Chief Sam Stone of the Michipicoten First Nation just outside of

Wawa Ontario.

Marlene told a little of her story. She and her husband have sold all

their holdings down in the Sault and have purchased the Hilltop Motel. Ida

and her beautiful daughter Jennifer help out with the chores around the

facility while Dale continues his work in the Sault and tries to create

some revenue opportunities for the Motel. This is their first year. They

are planning to begin refurbishing as the business slows down for the

winter and Dales job has less demands on him. Marlene told some stories

from her experience with the First Nations, She once put a series of

pictures on the wall of her home and an elder came in and said that she had

put the pictures in all the wrong places. She had put the Chief at the top

and there did not appear to be an order to what she had dome. She went on

to explain that the women are at the top, and the Chief is at the bottom.

He supports the whole tribe, the women are at the top and tell the men what

needs to be done. This apparently is her understanding of the Mohawk

tradition and she pointed out that their traditions and ritual revolve

around the woman's cycle. She was not too definite on this information,

and recommended that we explore further.

We said our farewells and got on the road by 10:30.

Soon after leaving we thought we should call Chief Sam Stone in advance of

arriving. We tried our Cantel cell phone in our first practical use, but

it was out of service area. As we approached Wawa, we passed the area

where I was to contact Chief Sam Stone. I called and we had a great 15

minute chat. I explained my purpose and he expressed a great interest in

following up on the call. He gave me a fax number and informed me that

their community was in process of developing a community program around the

Medicine Wheel. I informed him that we were using a Medicine Wheel on the

Internet as a teaching tool, and would appreciate his looking at it and

giving us some direction and opinions. He agreed to do so.

Our drive continued as we explored some phrases like: dead serious, and

other words and phrases using "dead". Dead right. Dead serious. We

also stopped on a number of occasions to breathe in the beauty of the

country.

In passing through Terrace bay we were struck by the smell of Sulphur:

apparently the Kimberly Clark plant which we were led to believe is up for

sale.

As we left Terrace Bay we stopped for some smoked fish and the Dugas home.

We interrupted his dinner but Mr. Dugas was happy to leave the dinner table

and sell us his Smoked Trout. It was interesting that he also had some

smoked fish from Labrador which he picks up one or two loads a year. As

we were leaving I commented on the wonderful looking fish cakes that were

on his dinner table. I asked him if he would sell us some. He said no!

but he would give us some - which he did. Aren't people wonderful.

The fish cakes were excellent and just hit the spot.

We continued our day on to Thunder Bay. The night sky was a bright pink

and hopefully our camera will capture the magic of it. We decided it was

too cold to camp out and we decided to see if we could get support for our

work through hotel accommodation. We first tried Venture Inn. After

asking the girl to get on her negotiating cap, we learned that she had no

such cap. She could give us the summer rate of $64 instead of the regular

$85 rate, but we thanked her and went on into the night. We went to

Comfort Inn, and when they informed us that they were full up, and the

other hotels in town were also full , we saved our story and decided to

drive for another couple of hours. Amazing - almost all the hotels were

booked on a Tuesday night.

We left town arrived at a small town Kakabeka Falls Ontario. The first

Motel we went into we met Jacki Bobrowski and she listened to our short

story and agreed to accept our "budgeted" $30 amount as compensation for

the nights accommodation.