Songs of the Wolf

We have allowed technology and world progress to dim the lights and sights and sounds of things that carried so much more meaning.  I lived where, with my bedroom window slightly open, I could hear the wolves howling under the Northern Lights.  Wolf Creek ran along a small stream down into the Mighty Peace River in the community I lived in.  It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever lived.  The forest was just meters from my house, and the stream just meters from the edge of my back yard.  And the wolves howled and spoke to my soul most nights as they ran along the small embankments through a small area of town and on a few hundred yards to one of the largest rivers in Canada.  I was so blessed to live, where wolves and bison and other forest dwellers lived.  

The Baha'i called Garden River "The Jewel Of The North" and it surely was.  The gentle Woodland Cree culture was just a step away from their ancient traditions.  They truly were/are gentle souls.  The community was family.  Their isolation in the far north, in Wood Buffalo National Park, kept them sheltered from much of the hustle bustle of closeness to cities.  There was a great sense of being more tied to their ancient ways.  

As in my previous Northern community, I learned to pick medicine, to harvest food from the land.  I knew where and became in tune to where medicine was, like fungus, berries, leaves, roots.  I knew where and how to gather ‘rat root’ and dry it for coughs, sore throats, etc..  I was taught how to walk a fish to catch it.  I learned small traps.  I learned how to fillet the large jacks and whitefish.  I learned to make fish scale art.  I learned to set up drying racks.  I learned what wood to smoke what with.  I learned how to cook beaver tail.  I learned to love bear fat for smearing on dry meat or bannock.  I learned how to cut meat as thin as paper with no holes.  I learned how to make Northern duck soup.  

I learned the complexities of community living, how work was shared, how gender roles work.  I learned their stories and their songs.  I learned how to give honor gifts.  I learned how to stretch and tan hides.  I learned how to fish with a pop can.  I learned how to fry fish guts over a campfire at the lake’s edge and how salty and delicious these are way up North.  I learned how to ice fish and how to set up a warm, lovely ice hut.  I learned how to make and put up tipi.  Oh, how lovingly and patiently, they taught me.  

And I went there to those beautiful Northern places to teach…  I learned so much more.  I will always be grateful for what they taught me.  I am grateful to be called family.  I was grateful to live in the far reaches of Northern forests with the beloved people I came to know as family.  I came to know the ways and songs of the Wolf.

When I changed to my new computer, I found I had lost some of my photos and blog entries I was working on, so I do not have step by step as to how I did this painting.  But it represents the learning I did by being a teacher/learner – learner/teacher.  It represents finding my own unique song to the unique heartbeat echo of the Woodland Cree drums that are different than other drum sounds of other tribes. 

As an aside, still working on the bridge of noses.

I was so greatly loved and loved in return.

©Carol Desjarlais 4.17.20