REMINISCING MY YEARS AT THE REZ
and the perils of early retirement
PART 1
Working full-time in a stressful job was just the recipe for thoughts of early retirement, a “seven-year itch” three times over, especially for one who’s been at it for more than three decades. Even for school teachers, long summer breaks, in my case, meant major projects that were still work-related in retrospect. Most of those years were spent in summer institutes, house building (https://www.balita.ca/memories-of-newfoundland/), or lumber jacking in the woods for saw logs and firewood. Still, I could count my blessings when I see the stresses today’s teachers face.
In the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, where I spent 25 years as a teacher and principal, optional retirement was recited like a mantra as “Thirty and Out.” Including my five years out-of-province, I reached that milestone in 1995. I was giddy at the thought of the Fall moose hunting season. Instead of reporting for the Sept. school opening, I headed to the woods, determined to get my first bow hunted moose. I remember eviscerating the family van and converting it into a camper.
Together with another bow hunter, we headed to area 21 in Central NL, called “Rattling Brook.” A week of walking and “chewing the fat” took us to several sightings, all beyond the reach of a 70 lb. bow (the draw weight of a compound bow ). Unfortunately, my buddy had to leave after a week to return to work while I stayed determined to max out the two-week allotted for bow hunters ahead of the rifle season.
I underestimated the psychological challenges of being alone in the deep woods. It did not matter whether it was a dark or a moonlit night. It was the only time I had experienced camping out by myself. I was glad I was not in a tent; the locked van gave me some sense of security from marauding bears. From the comfort of a van, I used a night vision scope to chance a moose. The week went with many sightings of caribou but neary a moose close enough for a bow. Unfortunately, I ran out of beans and bacon, my favourite meal cooked on an open fire. And by the end of the week, it was not a successful bow hunt. Instead, I was a rifle hunter with dozens of others for the rest of the season.
By October, a month into retirement, I was already becoming wary of staying home. There was no shortage of things to do, I was busy, but I felt listless, doing something that I used to enjoy. I used to have energy chopping wood, stacking them, readying them for the heating season, tending a big greenhouse, smoking fish, and other fall rituals. Of course, it was not helpful that my wife was not retired. The kids were in school, so I was left alone in the house.
I realized that the things that I enjoyed doing were more meaningful as long as it was an end-of-the-day or a weekend activity, but not as a full-time enterprise.
For the rest of that year, I volunteered my time transporting sports teams to various tournaments, supervising weekend dances and other extracurricular activities, the same things that I used to urge parents’ involvement when I was principal. However, one that took the wind out of my sails was the day I visited the staff room. Amidst the bustle of the coming and going of the active faculty, I felt a total nobody, an uninvolved witness to what was once my dominion. On that day, I decided that being “out to pasture” at 49 was only a fleeting, tenuous notion. I was not ready to retire.
It was downhill from there. A decision was made to sell the house, divide the asset, separate, and move out of NL, as it turned out, to Ottawa because we had previously spent summers there when the wife was doing her M.Ed. at the Univ. of Ottawa. As well, my son was to attend Carlton University in the fall.
STARTING ANEW IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT
Retirement, moving, and spousal separation are the top three causes of depression; all three happening simultaneously did not spare me. I was a headless chicken and a listing ship while staying in my sister’s basement, trying to shake the trauma of the previous year.
I found healing in unrelated work ( outside of education ). First in a very physical work at some warehouse and two years as a handy trouble-shooter at a Nursing Home. It was also the time to rejig and fortify my mind in preparation for another teaching adventure in a frontier Reserve of Northern Ontario.
A FLY-IN FIRST NATIONS RESERVE (the “REZ”) ON AN ISLAND ON THE WINISK LAKE.
A fly-in means there are no roads leading to and out of the community. These hamlets in Northern ON. and other points north can only be accessed by small planes on pontoons or dirt runways. Below the tree line, there is a two-month window for ice roads connecting them to major cities like Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, or Regina.
I chose an Ojibwa Reserve in the NW Northern Ontario near the Manitoba border. It takes 3.2 hours in a nine-passenger single prop from Thunder Bay, ON, stopping in three other fly-in Reserves NW of Sioux Lookout. It takes over 26 hours of driving on ice roads in the winter. A dirt runway has taken over what used to be a pontoon-equipped plane landing on Winisk River.
There was a small terminal building and two outhouses off the runway. But, other than the cool August, nothing was there that resembled the Canadian milieu.
The indigenous First Nations are dark-skinned with features more like Malayans. And so, I felt right at home with them. Coming from rural Newfoundland, the hinterland is nothing new to me. The dusty, dirt roads in the community is the same path shared by walkers, cars, bike, snowmobiles, and other off-road machines.
The non-native staff is housed in “teacherages” around the perimeter of the school building, which houses k to 8. The high school has separate individual portables, accommodating grades 9 to 11. My grade 11 classroom is a spitting distance to my house, beside the outdoor hockey rink and the baseball field on the opposite side. You might say this is the core of the community, the huge town square with the sports field surrounded by the Band (Municipal) Office, the Nursing Station, the Anglican Church, a Convenience Store, and the School Buildings. This community of 650 people ( now nearly 800 ) is serviced by water and sewage treatment plants, diesel electrical generation, internet, satellite TV, and Bell telephone. The “Northern” is the exclusive store in practically all isolated areas of the North, selling everything from gas to groceries. Winisk river systems on all sides surround this Reserve of 850 000 hectares.
( to get a sense of size, Metro Manila has an area of 63,000 hectares with a population of 14.5 M. This Reserve comprises 850 000 hectares with a population of 800 )
Against this backdrop, I spent six years on this Reserve, homeroom to grade 11’s ( senior high school in many Reserves in Northern ON. was 9 to 11. Most students either head to Thunder Bay or other larger communities to complete grade 12 )
ANOTHER YEAR IN A NORTHERN MANITOBA RESERVE
The isolation in a Northern ON. Reserve, despite three paid holidays to my home in TO, could be challenging, especially to the uninitiated. With no more than 4 km. of road within the community, walking or skiing on the frozen lakes in the winter is the only way to add variety to my forays outside. The daily grind in a non-mainstream school is challenging, but the isolation adds to the lack of choices in everything from food, recreation, or social contact.
After three years of feeling burned out, I beg for a year’s leave. But instead, a brief holiday in the Philippines and soaking in the urban life in Mississauga took me to late fall. Relaxed and feeling the urge to get back to the classroom, I felt confident to seek further into other Reserves in Manitoba. There was so much demand in many fly-in communities both in Ontario and Manitoba that I had, within a short time, several openings to choose from.
It was a fly-in First Nations Reserve of 2,500 people with a huge 9-12 high school. It is the second-largest Reserve in the Island Lake region of Manitoba of Cree ancestry. When I landed and met with contact people, I knew I was in for a challenge that I had not previously experienced. For one thing, why are they looking for teachers so late into the school year?
The logistics of getting into and out of this neck of the woods were arduous. The “Northern” and other fast food outlets are off-reserve. The winter provides walking or snowmobile rides on the frozen lake or by boat at different times. It’s the “in-between” ( spring and early fall ) season when the ice is breaking up or just forming; in and out could be a short helicopter hop or a hovercraft skimming the thin ice.
At the end of that school year, I returned to my Northern ON. Ojibwa community for another three years, completing a ten-year post-retirement endeavour to retire at 60 finally.
So what is it like working in a First Nations Reserve. in PART II, I will detail my experiences in an Ojibwa and Cree Rez’ of Northern Ontario and Manitoba.
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