Island of isolation
Growing up on this Northern Ontario reserve means you’ll either live on a rock, or move to a hard place, by San Grewal
Early on a Wednesday evening, all the high school students on the Beausoleil First Nation file up from the ferry dock and make their way home somewhere on Christian Island. It’s near dusk.
It’s cold and dark. After a daily 30- minute crossing over the waters of Georgian Bay by ferry, followed by a 45-minute bus ride to school in Midland — and then doing it all over again after school — no one wants to stop to talk or laugh on their way home. An hour later a few arrive at the community’s health centre to talk about the pressures they feel as young people living on an island reserve. About 650 people live on the Georgian Bay island, located three kilometres across from Cedar Point, a 40minute drive northwest of Barrie.
“ When you get older you start to question things,” says 26year-old Lawrence Copegog, who has lived on the island almost his entire life. “ Being on the island represents safety and security for a lot of the kids. But you eventually wonder if you’re being treated like a refugee in our own land.” He explains the dilemma faced by younger members of the Beausoleil First Nation: They can either succumb to the racism he says exists across the water, and descend into a life of isolation and alcoholism on the island; or they can face the “ stereotyping” off the island and hopefully not get too deeply alienated by it.
“ People see natives in the news only ever depicted in deplorable Third World conditions within Canada,” Copegog says. “ There are terrible conditions that exist, but that’s the entire stereotype of natives, helpless and defeated looking for handouts.”
Marla Monague, 26, and Dawn Peters, 22, started wondering where they fit in when they came to grips with what their “ Indian status” number represents.
“ It’s a bit disturbing to me now. I’m not Dawn Peters. I’m 1- 4- 1, or whatever. You start to think that that’s what First Nations people are, just a number.”
“ To me, it used to be just a processing number,” says Monague.
“ But now I realize that’s what Indian Affairs uses to label us, like a prisoner or an animal.” The older youths say the feelings of alienation of the younger ones in the room will only increase now that they have to leave the island for high school. During the winter months, when the ferry doesn’t run regularly, teens board with families in Midland — cut off from the only home they’ve known.
“ We already see it with some of the kids we grew up with,” says 16- year- old Niki Monague ( all Monagues in this story are not related). “ Some of the girls have already dropped out. When they turn 16, they know they can. And instead of leaving the island they just start having babies.”
“ A lot of the girls don’t even last to Grade 9,” Copegog says. “ Going to town ( Midland) is scary for a lot of young people here. So they end up just having kids and living easy off a welfare cheque.”
If the kids already sound bitter, it’s because 500 years of oppression, genocide and alienation are in the “ memory chips of all the youth,” says H. Neil Monague, an addiction prevention counsellor in the community. “It will always be there. For some it makes them stronger, they want things to change and they are starting to change things. Others are just too scared.” The island isn’t exactly a place where the imagination and possibilities of youth can flourish.
“ Once you’re locked in here, you’re locked in,” Monague says, explaining that it’s more than a psychological feeling. “When the ferry stops running in the evening around 9, there is no way off the island. Most Ontario “ Indian reserves” — a phrase he resents — are located near small towns where “ small town” mentalities still exist, he argues. “ So you’re either isolated here or put on the back of the bus over there.” And if anyone does leave the reserve for good, they’re not often welcomed with open arms upon return.
“ For people who do want to get an education and go away, once they come back people say they are trying to be white,” says Niki, who wants to get a medical degree from the University of Western Ontario. She says she has not experienced the racism off the island the others talk about.
“ I get so much support from my white friends at school — they’re the ones who want to see me make it. Just recently I realized that the only good thing for me would be to get off the island.
“ It’s too bad that people are scared to get off the island or stuck here. The number of people here I have things in common with is going down.” Copegog says what’s happening in France is similar to what Canadian youth on the reserve experience here. But one element is different.
“ They immigrated there. Our people have been here for thousands of years.”