LETTER FROM OHIO MADE ME LONG FOR THE VIEW FROM TABER HILL

Appreciation for Tecumseh rooted in Iroquois prayer, writes Arthur Milnes.

Dad didn’t celebrate Tecumseh because the legend was Indigenous. He did so because Tecumseh was a great man who helped build a place called Canada.

Arthur Milnes and his wife, Alison, embarked upon a special project to mark Canada’s sesquicentennial year: a time capsule. But rather than filling it with things from around their home in Kingston, the pair have reached out far and wide to people, places and institutions with any connection to this country. The responses, whether from small towns or celebrities, have been overwhelming. This is the latest in a series of columns on his Canada 150 time capsule. Born in 1966 I grew up on Abbeville Road in Scarborough. The street next to ours was named Six Nations and all of us who grew up around the same time, and who were the same age, still call the old neighbourhood “Sixville.”

At the centre of our local part of Canada was a large mound. We called it Taber Hill and often tobogganed there in the winter.

But winter fun aside, what drew many of us to Taber Hill was the rock and plaques at the very top.

On a summer’s night, you could look out over far-off Toronto and even see the CN Tower in the distance.

You could also read the traditional Indigenous prayer, written by First Nations people and installed by the Township of Scarborough (with assists by Toronto and Queen’s Park), in 1956 — a decade before my birth.

My dad, in fact, walked me up Taber Hill when I was a kid and made me read the plaque and Indigenous prayer. He spoke of the First Nations people who had lived in Scarborough for thousands of years before us, like one imagines a British father would explain to his son if they lived in a town with Roman ruins: With respect, awe and wonder.

Later, and I discovered this independently in the years since, others my age in the neighbourhood such as Rob Latimer, Tom Harrison and more, felt the same sense of awe when they, too, walked up that hill as kids.

And I still do today when — deliberately, mind you — I make a detour down Bellamy Road in Scarborough on my rare trips to Toronto to drive by Taber Hill and the neighbourhood where I grew up.

They have since banned tobogganing there — mainly non-Indigenous folks did that — out of respect for First Nations peoples and the close to 600 skeletons, dating back to 1250 AD, that are forever buried and honoured there now.

In fact, in 1956, a three-day Iroquois Feast of the Dead reburial ceremony was held there in Scarborough, my hometown community. More than 200 Indigenous people attended, along with thousands of non-Indigenous folks.

But as tobogganing has been banned — a move I intellectually agree with — I only note sadly that a lot of young kids in today’s Scarborough won’t therefore get to read that Iroquois prayer.

And I therefore lament, as a Canadian, for them. And for all of us today. But back to my dad, and mine and Alison’s Confederation 150 Time Capsule.

Dad’s heroes from the War of 1812 were General Brock of Queenston, of course, but also the great man that was Chief Tecumseh. He had a book on Tecumseh which I looked at many times while growing up.

Dad didn’t celebrate Tecumseh because the legend was Indigenous, he did so because Tecumseh was a great man who helped build a place called Canada.

Who joined, along with his people, as national equals with the French and English to throw off an American invasion.

At least, that’s what my old man thought.

So when an Ohio jurisdiction — Ohio being the state where Tecumseh was born — answered one of our Time Capsule letters and later told us they would be having a public ceremony to honour Tecumseh’s contributions to both Canada and the U.S., I knew my dad would like that.

And for me, along with the Mohawk Valley town in New York State that declared July 1 as “Molly Brant-Canada Day,” these are perhaps the two most meaningful proclamations I was able to arrange.

Again, I’m sure my dad would have liked that.

I suspect Tecumseh and Molly Brant would have, as well.

And if I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter. Because, in all this, I am reminded of the view from Taber Hill.

And an Iroquois prayer I read as a kid, thanks to my dad.

And that’s a good thing.