A V.A. tells us about his experience in the Cree community of Waswanipi

By Ray Busbridge

‘Wachiya’ or ‘Hi’ was a surprise; it comes from the English ‘What Cheer.’ There were other surprises too. My friends saw two bears on the road from Chibougamau to Waswanipi, the weather was warm and the clouds of insects were not at all put off by ‘Off’, and the Gala Dinner entertainment was a Navajo rock band from Arizona.

Waswanipi is a Cree community, meaning ‘light shining on water’, from their traditional night fishing with lanterns. I was there as part of Ceso’s Aboriginal Women For Tomorrow program, participating in the 8th annual business development conference to give workshops on ‘Communication Skills’ and ‘Budgeting and Financial Planning.’ Other facilitators were covering subject like ‘Energy Efficiency and Reducing Waste,’ ‘Good Business Practices’, ‘Opportunities for Youth in Ecotourism,’ ‘Entrepreneurship,’ ‘Starting Your Own Business’ and ‘Preserving the Environment.’

There are about 1600 in the community, and we had plenty of interest. Some workshops were given in the Cultural Centre, down by the river, and some in the Youth Centre in the middle of the reserve. The theme of the three days was to ‘pay yourself first’ and encourage keeping money in the community. The nearest gas station is 50 km away, and most of the grocery shopping takes place in Chibougamau ( 90 minutes drive away) or Val D’Or ( 2 ½ hours drive). The Craft Shop and one of the Restaurants on the reserve was not functioning, so there are many new opportunities. We were there for the annual awards to entrepreneurs, when we saw four successful businesses feted, and heard examples of many others doing well, so we were optimistic that Waswanipi will continue to thrive on the challenges.

The gala dinner featured entertainment by a rock band from the Navajos of Arizona, called ‘Blackfire.’ There were many similarities to share in their experience and in those of the Cree, and they sang about the themes of the need to deal with social problems and the necessity to have confidence in ourselves.

I needed confidence in myself too. I could not get the CD player to track or the video machine to connect, so I had to impersonate Martin Luther King and Christina Aguilera for the communication workshop. The test will be to see if I get asked back next year!

Meegwetch / thankyou.