Aroland

The train pulled into a station 11 hours later, at 4am. Nakina. As the snow fell lightly out the windows of Train #1, I once again gathered all the necessities of life that were crammed in two backpacks and walked off the train into the –10 degree weather of Northern Ontario. Soon I would find myself sleeping comfortably in the wood-stove warmed home of superfriend Ryan and his wife, Amanda, in apprehensive expectation of the days to come. While this trip would be a getaway from the norm of Southern Ontario life, it would not entirely be a holiday during this, the holiday season.

A couple of months ago, I got a call from Ryan, who was in search of a youth worker to lead a group of teens into the neighbouring First Nations reservation of Aroland to hang out with the kids for a week. I told him I’d get back to him. He got back to me first, saying that the group of teens would not be going up, so my assumption had been that the trip was off…until a late night phone call. John Reynolds, a man with a passion for First Nations youth, called to see if I was still coming up to work with the kids of Aroland. A bit confused, a bit curious and a bit hesitant I told him I’d get back to him.

Two weeks later, I found myself in a taxi cab, chasing down a train.

Little Africa

Five days of driving in and out of a First Nations reservation to interact solely with its future generation cannot and does not bring a full picture of life on a reserve. What I saw from the outside – as an outsider – did not line up with the statistics I had inside my mind. And the statistics are mind-boggling. But, like Africa, they tend to be statistics of a situation that seems to be bigger than the assistance of any North American with a desire to help. The irony of it is that these are statistics from within North America, where the major concern is not AIDS. Or famine. Or tribal warfare. In Aroland, and in many reservations across this first world country, kids face the consequences of their parents drinking problems either through dealing with an alcoholic parent or directly through the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Here, and in many reservations across this first world country, kids face the reality of a friends’ or a community members suicide. Here, I have heard of a 12-year-old girl drinking hairspray for its alcohol content. And like most kids growing up in North America, there is the constant pressure of drugs.

It’s sad to think that I feel like I needed to see a drunk parent, or a stoned kid, or a funeral for a victim of suicide to believe that these statistics are realities. I had to see the IDP Camps in Northern Uganda to know such places existed, despite the sponsor-a-child commercials. I had to see Ground Zero in December of 2001 to comprehend the reality of September 11, despite the television repetitively showing the twin towers collapsing. But what I did see in Aroland were kids. Kids are kids, no matter where you are in the world. And I can only assume that life will not get easier for them as they age and come to grips with the reality of the world they are brought up in.

There is a certain amount of joyful freedom in being a child, though I will admit that the kids I saw in Aroland have experienced more in life than I had by the time I turned nine. And they seem to be aware of that fact. As I was talking to a group of the First Nations youth, something I said triggered a response that still rings in my ears: ‘Yeah, but you don’t know Aroland.” He's right. My knowledge on the history of First Nations communities and reservations is vague at best, let alone their current situation. And so these thoughts are as of yet unfinished. And so is the processing of my experiences in Northern Ontario.