Deacon Rennie Nahanee and minister Mary Fontaine talk about the legacy of colonization
Deacon Rennie Nahanee was only 14, but he still remembers the day his family was confronted by a fisheries officer as they cooked salmon over a fire.
His Squamish First Nation father, mother, and aunt had been barbecuing fish they had caught. “My dad had caught all this fish,” said Deacon Nahanee, a Squamish First Nation elder and coordinator of First Nations ministry for the Archdiocese of Vancouver.
The fisheries officer approached the family and “in not a kind way“ told Deacon Nahanee’s father to open up the trunk of his car for inspection. Seeing the salmon stored in the trunk, he ordered the family to throw the dead salmon back into the water.
“The rules were you had to cut off the nose and dorsal fin of the fish you caught,” Deacon Nahanee told a group of participants during a workshop on colonization in Canada. “The reason for that is so you couldn’t sell it to the supermarket.”
But before the fisheries officer left, he walked over to the salmon cooking on the fire and kicked it into the flames.
“Watching his treatment of my mother and my aunt and my dad, it hurt,” he said. “I wished I hadn’t witnessed that, because I have no respect for fishery officials today. I don’t respect them or their laws.”
Deacon Nahanee was speaking at a workshop on the effects of colonization in Canada. First Nations speakers shared their stories with about 50 people at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre Feb. 11.
“My experience with the laws of Canada and with fishery officers was very negative,” he told the group.
Similarly, Reverend Mary Fontaine, a Presbyterian minister and Cree elder, saw her tribe suffer from government abuse and colonization efforts. “That’s what they did to us on the prairies too,” she said. The government “took away our economy first.”
Fontaine had grown up in Saskatchewan, and her family was very familiar with government mistreatment. “They starved us out by killing all the buffalo. It’s how colonization works. They disable you, then make you dependant.”
Fontaine and several children in her tribe were taken to day schools in nearby towns. “We were lucky to not have residential school because the Presbyterians brought a missionary to the reserve to teach, but eventually we had to attend at the town schools.”
She remembered the treatment she received from the children at the public schools. “The kids at the school called me a dirty little Indian squaw. I was very, very, hurt. I came home and cried to my mom.” As her mother comforted her, she told Fontaine, “God always has the final say, no matter what we go through in life.”
Her mother’s calm demeanor and trust in God strengthened her and helped her through the experience. “We are sent to earth to learn to how to love. That is the most important thing in life.”
Deacon Nahanee’s experience with the fisheries officer left him with a negative attitude toward government representatives. “He showed an abuse of power, that’s what it is. He didn’t have to kick our dinner into the fire. He didn’t have to have that kind of treatment of my parents and my aunt.”
He told the audience he has worked on getting through his pain. “I have learned a lot of things. I have learned resistance, I don’t blame anyone, and I don’t carry my anger (anymore). I try to smile more often.” Then, laughing, he said, “It’s a work in progress.”
“I’ve forgiven a lot of people in my life, but I’m still working on that fishery officer.”
