Dinah Shashaweskum’s story

Yeah, one time, I remember, the trap line, my father’s trap line, was far, far away, like even beyond Sakami [Sakami is a huge lake], the other side.  We would come, or travel from where we were by walking, travelling by foot, so your plane wouldn’t have to go all the way up there.  It was to Sakami that the plane came, then we went further inland by foot. I think we travelled two or three days from where we were left off by the plane.

I remember setting up camp along the way. There were no camps or cabins, so we set up camp even if it was just one or two nights.  And people still hunt along the way.  Like if we didn’t have enough food, we would set the fish net in the evening if it was one or two nights so we would have something to eat the next day or while we travelled. And we would set rabbit snares, and snares for ptarmigan. Along the way we never had that much store bought food stuff. We had just some flour for bannock, baking powder, lard, sugar, tea, and milk for us children, powder milk.

I remember when were traveling that time so we walked along most the way.  Some people, my brother and the younger men would go ahead [because they were faster] and start building our shelter for the night, a teepee. It wasn’t big, just enough room for everyone to sleep. So they started building the teepee before we got there.  As soon as we got there, we started helping with gathering the spruce boughs for the floor and our firewood.

I remember it was really cold out at bedtime. We didn’t have big mattresses to sleep on then. We had feather blankets and used those and we had bear skins to keep us warm too. And it was still very cold. We went to bed all close together to keep each other warm.

So that time I don’t really know how far we travelled.  I remember that plane coming to the lake later to take us back [to Wemindji].  Just the women and children went on the plane. The men traveled all the way back to Paint Hills by foot. That was a long distance.  So I wanted to tell you that story, I always remember that time.