{"id":537,"date":"2015-06-18T11:55:44","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T11:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/chaimcentre\/?p=537"},"modified":"2015-06-18T11:55:44","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T11:55:44","slug":"the-strength-and-persistence-to-regrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/chaimcentre\/2015\/the-strength-and-persistence-to-regrow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strength and Persistence to Regrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"burning_woods\"Every forest is a little magical. Unique layout, diversity, and character\u2014no two forests are ever the same. But when a fire rolls through the forest, it can swallow everything. Colours that once stood as brilliant greens or families of intertwined wood and fibers are all destroyed. All are charred. All become black. No matter the immense amount of diversity in the forest beforehand, the fire leaves a forest looking exactly the same\u2014black, broken, and destroyed. Sometimes air attack arrives at a fire after we\u2019ve started suppression, and so we pull back from the fire\u2019s edge. When we return, it\u2019s shocking to see what\u2019s happened in those few absent moments\u2014where there was forest, equipment, wild-living-things\u2014there is now nothing. Just burnt. Sometimes it\u2019s almost unrecognizable. That unique tree lost all its foliage. Or that rock now stands completely on its own. There aren\u2019t many words to describe how it feels to see a burnt over area after the fire has calmed down, except truly amazing. It\u2019s amazing how everything is gone, and all that remains is the solid, uniform, black. The forest loses all its character. It all looks the same. Few remains exist to remind you how diverse it used to be.<\/p>\n

\"pelican_lake\"I remember driving through town in my first year with my crew when a public announcement was broadcasted on the radio. It was about Residential schools. \u201cWhat\u2019s this all about.\u201d I had no idea. My crewmember started to explain it to me. A partnership between the Canadian government and the churches supported the removal of First Nations children from their families to Residential schools. Children were taken from their homes. Boys\u2019 hair was cut short. Their clothes were mainstreamed. They were banned from practicing their home language or cultural practices. The severity of physical or sexual abuse varied.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom remembers being scolded for saying \u2018nimaanendam\u2019 when she didn\u2019t understand what the teacher was asking her. But other people won\u2019t talk about the schools at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The system strived to strip the unique culture from the children.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they were successful\u2014think about all that knowledge and all those traditions that are gone… they can\u2019t pass any of it down to us because they don\u2019t know any of it anymore. So we lose it. It\u2019s just\u2026 gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

We continued to drive downtown Kenora.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so you always hear people look down on the homeless or drunk Indians in town, but can you blame them? If their parents were abused in school by supposed superiors, and developed a substance abuse problem, then had their own children, how can they be supportive and successful parents, when they struggle to take care of themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more to substance abuse than just the addiction to the feeling. It\u2019s the coping. The conditioning. The necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a man that drove to Calgary for his settlement. He didn\u2019t want anyone he knew to hear his case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement attempts to price reconciliation. How can you really price complete loss of knowledge or culture? What is the price of revisiting and refreshing the memories of such pain?<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say that the memories are too painful to revisit in front of a courtroom of people\u2026 the money isn\u2019t worth the cost of reliving those memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"burntI\u2019ve only started to ask, learn and understand the repercussions and effects from such a shameful historical event, though it\u2019s given me a greater appreciation for peoples\u2019 inner warriors. Those warriors: persisting to fight for what they believe, whether it be traditional or adopted knowledge and practice. A friend of mine disallowed his son from cutting his hair, despite schoolmates mocking him for having \u201cgirls\u201d hair\u2014his culture was to wear his black hair long. So my friend proudly grew his hair long again as well\u2014he is supporting his culture. I met an elderly man at the Kenora library. I was always envious of his black fox fur, deerskin, beaded gloves he bought handmade from his community. He once told me to never go to a Pow Wow\u2014inappropriate things happen there. Bad things, he said. He was a Christian. That was his culture.<\/p>\n

\"ariel_bird\"Culture is not an outlined set of specifications or requirements. It\u2019s not a definition of certain songs, practices, or beliefs. A person\u2019s culture is derived from a collection of experiences, choices, and goals, irrespective of skin colour, or born label. While parts of someone\u2019s specific culture may be lost, or forgotten, culture is always being rewritten, fine-tuned, tweaked, and regrown. It\u2019s amazing how people can be so broken down, yet the smallest flicker of light remaining from within can support and strengthen regrowth.<\/p>\n

Regeneration of a forest after a fire can sometimes take years. It will never look exactly the same as it did originally, but the components are all there\u2014brilliant green foliage, intertwined woods and fibers, unique layout. In fact, the growing season following a forest fire supports some new species, like morels and blueberries \u2013 new additions that strengthen the ecosystem. One thing that never fails to amaze me is how quickly regeneration begins after destruction. When you look hard enough, you\u2019ll spot it; green will poke through the charred, blackened earth only days after a fire has stripped the land of everything it can. Despite robbing beauty and life, there are some things a fire will never be able to take from the land: persistence, resilience, and strength.<\/p>\n

\"grass_post_fire\"Author Ariel Root<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is currently in Kenora in her fourth season working as a forest fire fighter for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. \u00a0She has a BSc in Food Science & Nutrition from Carleton University in 2012, and is currently a graduate student in the Health Science, Technology and Policy program at Carleton University. She has been featured on APTN’s new hit TV show, Playing with Fire, Season 2.<\/p>\n

Come back for next week’s instalment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Photos by Ariel Root<\/p>\n

Follow us on\u00a0twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every forest is a little magical. Unique layout, diversity, and character\u2014no two forests are ever the same. But when a fire rolls through the forest, it can swallow everything. Colours that once stood as brilliant greens or families of intertwined wood and fibers are all destroyed. All are charred. All become black. No matter the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[81,80,82,83],"yoast_head":"\nThe Strength and Persistence to Regrow - CHAIM Centre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Every forest is a little magical. 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