Speeches at the Canada Day Event in Niverville on July 1, 2022

Those participating in the Canada Day Program in Niverville on Friday, July 1, 2022 were, standing left to right, 

1) Brenda Neufeld Lapointe, descendant a brother of Métis trader Peter Garrioch who pioneered the building of the Crow Wing Trail on her mother's side.  Brenda also has great grand-parents on her father's side that that arrived at the Mennonite Landing with the first Mennonites in 1874, and whom Peter Garrioch took on his Red River Cart from the Mennonite Landing to the Shantz Immigration Sheds eight kilometres to the East.  
2) Myron Dyck, Mayor of Niverville and Emcee for this Canada Day Celebration.

3) Métis Elder Lucy Guiboche, a member of the Mayor of Winnipeg's Indigenous Advisory Circle, and speaker at Niverville 50th Anniversary Celebration on September 8, 2019.

4) and 5) Jackie and Jason Heistad (Guitar Player and Métis Fiddle Player) from Niverville. 

6) Murielle Bugera, president of the Crow Wing Trail Association. 

7) and 8)  Armand and Kelly Jerome, builders of the Métis Red River Cart that is now on display in Niverville.

Seated in front from left to right...

9)  Janessa Leanne Roy, Métis Dancer from Ile des Chenes who has taught school in Niverville, and presently teaches in Blumenort.

10) and 11) Sienna English and Edlynne Paez, Students from the Niverville High School who are a part of the Student Action Group on Indigenous Issues that is facilitated by NHS Teacher Tony Clark.

The following comments are taken ver batim as they were shared during the course of the program.

Opening Comments by Niverville Mayor Myron Dyck

My name is Myron Dyck, and I am the mayor here in the Town of Niverville. Today is a day we celebrate the land we call Canada, a land of lakes, forests, mountains and prairies, a land that extends from sea to sea to sea.

It is also a day when we remember the people who traversed the land. We celebrate and honour those people who have made our land better from the very First Peoples of this land to those who followed through the generations, and also to those who are not with us in this present day.

Today is also a day that we embrace forgiveness and reconciliation for wrongs that have been committed. Our Creator made this land, and has asked us all to be His caretakers. Our Creator also made each one of us, gave us equal standing and now asks us to not only care for the land, but also to care for one another.

Speaking of the land, we do acknowledge that we are standing on Treaty No. 1 Territory, the traditional land of the Anishinaabe, Cree and Dakota people, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. We are grateful for their stewardship of this land, and their hospitality, which allows us to live, work and serve God the Creator here on this land, an understanding which was inherent in the treaties that were made.

Canada has been known to be a nation of people that welcomes the foreigner. Beside me is a replica of a Red River Cart. It was used to meet people, and to welcome them to this area from 1874 to 1876 when people from foreign lands got off the boat at the Mennonite Landing that had brought them up the Red River to their new home here in Manitoba.

We have this cart placed here in a place of prominence to remind us that just as the residents of the land in 1874 to 1876 welcomed newcomers to this land and region, the people of Niverville should continue to welcome all those who come to our community, whether for a visit, or a more permanent stay.

Greetings from Murielle Bugera, President of the Crow Wing Trail Association

Greetings from the Crow Wing Trail Association. We are very honoured and proud to be with you today to celebrate this historic moment. We really have been working on the Crow Wing Trail for a long time, and it is really nice to see communities participating as well. The Crow Wing Trail is a part of our common history, and it is not just about the Métis with their carts on rugged paths and creaking wheels, because the Métis had a trade in the 19th century that was just as important as the international trade that takes place today on Manitoba Highway #75 and Interstate Highways #75 and #94 south of the border.

There have been many steps that have been taken to commemorate this Crow Wing Trail. For example, one hundred years later, there were horse rides that were organized from Winnipeg to Emerson, and meeting people at the American border. Later, carts started cropping up on the Crow Wing Trail. A few communities have displayed them, and now Niverville is the fourth community to do so. So the Crow Wing Trail is a part of the history of the communities in this area. That is why Niverville joins the other municipalities of the RM of Richot, RM of de Salaberry, village of St. Pierre, RM of Franklin and Emerson, and also the Roseau First Nation.

In 1999, they created the Crow Wing Trail Association in order to recreate the Crow Wing Trail to be a part of the Great Canadian Trail. The Crow Wing Trail is 200 kilometres long, and is the longest section of the Trans Canada Trail in Manitoba. It is really unique, and is giving people the opportunity to talk about the Métis and also about the Crow Wing Trail and its importance to the Province and to Canada. We can now talk to people, to the trail users that come from near and far.

And that is what Niverville is doing with the Heritage Wall, with the new Historical Museum, and now the Red River Cart that is being unrolled here today. So we thank Niverville, and we are inspired by their helping us to really walk with the indigenous people, to tell stories, to connect with land and nature and to celebrate relationships and cultures. The Crow Wing Trail is really still a very young trail, and it is a work in progress, but it can really add to the economy of the region, just as the Métis did when they created a thriving economy with the bison trail and the carts. So thank you very much, Niverville, and let’s celebrate. Thank you on behalf of the Crow Wing Trail Association. Thank you.

Remarks by Kelly and Armand Jerome, Builders of the Cart

Kelly Jerome: Thank you to everybody who is so involved in the community. We just love being here, and participating. It is so welcoming and so warming. Our gratitude, deep, deep gratitude.

Armand Jerome: I really thank the group that planned all of this for this dedication. The cart that we made we covered with a certain type of coating that we were hoping was going to last awhile. However, the sun and the rain kills it, so we really are impressed with this timber frame, and we know that it is going to be excellent, and it will preserve that coat for years to come.

At first, we were not sure how to design these carts. We had the opportunity over the past number of years to actually try these carts out, and have them break down, and then improve on them. I went back to the books, back to the research, and finally came up with a cart that probably was the same as the carts that they made back in the 1800s. If you were to see pictures from the 1800s, you will see that they are identical to this cart.

That is basically how I learned (through trial and error). So thank you very much for all of this. I am glad to see this turnout. This is just a great event. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting us here.

Comments from Edlynne Paez and Sienna English from the Student Action Group of the Niverville High School

Sienna English (on left): I thank you all for coming. This is an amazing event. We are very grateful to have been invited to say a few words. We are from the Student Action Group at the Niverville High School. We are dedicated to Truth and Reconciliation within our school. We are very excited to be here, and to celebrate Métis culture.

Edlynne Paez (on right): It is because of the Métis culture that Niverville and many other communities exist, and the people that made them, that we are here today. Niverville would not be Niverville without Métis people, and now is the time to acknowledge their contribution as we work towards a Canada Day for everyone. It gives us time to think, remember, learn and listen.

Sienna English: We want this to be a celebration that continues for many years, and we hope that today’s celebration can continue, and also encourage other communities to do the same.

Note: This is Niverville High School teacher Tony Clark who facilitates the Student Action Group at the Niverville High School.

His comment via email was: “That’s wonderful news. Thank you for the opportunity. I watched a video of their (Sienna’s and Edlynne’s) contribution and felt so very proud of them. Here’s to more opportunities and connections in the near future.”

Blessings from Métis Elder Lucy Guiboche, who is with the Mayor of Winnipeg’s Indigenous Advisory Circle and who is quoted in the Niverville Museum

It is a great honour to be here today, due to the invitation that was given, and I have also been honoured to have met the people of Niverville which blesses me a lot. I want to send greetings from the Métis people. You have already heard mentioned about Treaty No. 1, the Anishinaabe, the Métis, the Cree, the Dakota, and we thank them for what they have given to the people all around.

I am so blessed to hear the young people, and what they shared about the Métis people. Coming from somebody else, and giving such a positive note and a loving affirmation from someone who recognizes the role of the Métis people, and today, I am honoured to have heard the words spoken by the young people.

I am going to leave here today blessed. I came here, and was asked to bless, but amazingly, when we are invited by the Creator also and when we are obedient unto Him, when we give and when we share, because we can never out-give the Creator, He will give you back more than what you will give.

I see a great thing happening from the last time that I was here in 2019, and now, I see the emerging of ethnic people and cultures coming together, and forgiving one another. We ask that you would continue, because I believe that with the emerging that is happening here, that we will be one, not in colour, or even in what we wear, but the Creator looks at each heart. He looks at you!

Right now, even today, as we sit here, and we gather in His Name, He sits on His Throne above, and He is watching you and me doing a great thing. I heard before that He is coming soon, and that He is coming to do a new thing! And I am beginning to see things that are happening that have never happened before. I want to give you thanks as a Métis person for your obedience, and for your being here. You matter. You have value. You are important.

So as we come together as one, under the sovereignty of the Creator, as I am asked to do, I bless all of the farmers in the Niverville area. I also bless this land, for the indigenous people, when they first came on this land, they called it ‘Kanata.’ It started with a ‘K.’ What that means is that it was a sacred land. That means that it is holy. I would like you to know that. It is not just an ordinary land. It’s precious to you and to me. It will feed us. It will give us food to eat. It gives us water to drink. It all comes from the land, and the trees that we see will bear fruit.

So I bless also the grain elevators that were put here. 

We welcome again the Mennonite people, and other ethnic people. I bless them. I bless all of the children, and all of the ethnic people who are living here. We welcome them, and we bless them, and we speak life and protection over them.

We also bless the sowing of the seed into the ground. We bless their gardens. May there be another bumper crop. I pray that your eyes and ears and hearts will be open, and that you will see and recognize that something has happened to the land, and that it is different, that the food will be so plentiful that even one grain that is put into the ground will multiply and feed a whole family. Because of that, I believe that the Creator is going to be opening doors all the way around, and that your obedience, and because of what is happening around us, that even in a time of famine around us, that God always calls a peculiar and a certain people when that happens.

I believe that you are those people that He is calling, because I hear that the people of Niverville, and the Mennonites share, and when you share, it will be given back to you 100-fold. 

Our Creator is a Multiplier. He brings great increase, and I bless that over the people of Niverville, and in your families and in your homes and in your children.

I bless the next generation. That next generation will not be the same. It will be like no other. They will turn the world upside down, because they have been called by the Creator to do certain things, and they will be obedient because of their love for Him.

So it gives me great honour, and great blessing to be here today. I bless all of the dignitaries. I bless Mayor Myron Dyck…

I talk a lot about Niverville. I love this place, and I love the people. And I thank you for your heart for all that the Creator is asking of each one of us. I believe that you are going to see things that you never dreamed of before. I believe that we are going to see things so great and so vast, just like our gardens. We bless them. We bless the ground. We bless the sacred ground. And I want to thank you from my heart.

As I said earlier, He sits on the Throne, and He is watching you. I speak hope even to those who live outside of Niverville—to the North, South, East and West. And because of your thankfulness, and because of your heart to share and to love and to forgive, I receive that forgiveness, and I thank you for that. God makes us one when something is broken. Only good things can come out of that. So thank you!

I bless your homes, bless your businesses. I bless what the others have spoken of. So from my heart, I give thanks, first and foremost to the Creator again, because He is the One who sustains life, and gives all that is needed.

Right now, because of the things that are going on around us, we don’t know what is going to happen, and what is next, but when we do our part, we will not be a part of that, but we will be a part of a good thing that the Creator wants to do, and I believe that it will start here in Niverville.

(This was followed by a powerful prayer of blessing in Lucy Guiboche’s Native Ojibwe language).

I ask the Creator that God will bless your home and your children, and that there will be no sickness in your homes, and that He will protect your children, and protect you. Thank you! God richly bless you all!

Mayor Myron Dyck: Thank you so very much, Lucy. Those were very, very kind words, very heartfelt words, and we wish to bless you as well in all that you do, and all that you are doing, and may God grant you health and happiness!  

I do wish to acknowledge one other individual who is with us here on the stage today, and that is Brenda Neufeld Lapointe.  Brenda's 5th generation grandfather was a brother to Peter Garrioch. Peter was a Métis trader who pioneered the construction of the Crow Wing Trail back in 1844.  

And it was this same Métis trader who also took Brenda's great grandparents on her Mennonite side from the Mennonite Landing to the Immigration Sheds in his  Métis Red River Cart back in 1874. 

I will ask Brenda if she would like to say a few words.

Comment by Brenda Neufeld Lapointe

As Mayor Myron Dyck has said, I have 100% Russian Mennonite ancestry on one side of my family, and 100% Métis ancestry on the other side of the family.  When I was a young girl at home, our dinner conversation went like this.  

My dad would say, "My grandparents walked all the way from the Red River to the Immigration Sheds!"  My mom would say, "That's not true!  My uncle gave them a ride!"  

Thank you!

Recognizing and honouring both our Métis, our Mennonite and our other Ethnic forefathers and foremothers who have gone on before us, and prepared us for where we are at today in pursuing a journey of reconciliation with every tribe, every nation, every language and every culture, we honour our ancestors, and build upon all that is honourable in our legacy, and will seek to learn from their mistakes.

"God who gave our fathers and mothers freedom,

God who made our fathers and mothers brave,

What they built with love and with labour,

Let their children watch and save!"

Leaf symbolic of healing of the nations

 Métis  flag symbolic of infinity and eternity

"My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back."           

       

--This statement is attributed to Louis Riel by oral tradition.

Filling the Land with the Father's Glory Rather than with the Orphan Spirit!

 

Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is our Helper, but in what ways does He help us?  Looking at the context of the references in John 14-16 where Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as our Helper (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), we get some idea of the areas where we need help in our time of need.

1.  In a state of disconnection from our heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit helps us to cry out to "Abba!  Father!" so that we become aware of the reality that Jesus has not abandoned us as orphans.  John 14:18.

2.  The Helper enables us to experience God's peace in the midst of trials so that we do not let our heart be trouble, nor allow it to be afraid.  John 14:27.

3.  The Helper enables us to remember that we are not of the world when we are persecuted by the world as they persecuted Jesus, and hated Him without a cause.  John 15:18-25.

4.  The Helper enables and guides us into all truth when we are bombarded by voices that are speaking the lies of the enemy.  John 16:13.

5.  The Helper enables us to give birth to the things of God so that our sorrow and birth pangs are turned into joy and the fulfillment of what God has promised.  John 16:20-24.

6.  The Helper enables us to be of good cheer and to have peace in the midst of a world that has tribulation.  John 16:33.

7.  The Helper also helps us to pray when we do not know how to pray as we ought to pray in our vernacular language.  He helps us to pray with groanings too deep for words so that we give birth to what God has deposited in us.  Romans 8:26.

Various religions all over the world have "spirit helpers" that can become powerfully controlling, and while initially seen as helpers, there are times when a person that has looked to a spirit helper will need another stronger "helper" to hold that spirit down when it becomes hostile or oppressive.  And so one goes ever deeper into being controlled from without by these spirit helpers as one seeks ever more powerful spirits in order to be set free from fear and the insecure feelings that come with spiritual orphan-hood where there is no loving Father.

In the book, Inuit Shamanism and Christianity, Transitions and Transformations in the Twentieth Century, by Frederic B. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, reference is made to Tungilik, an Inuit elder from Repulse Bay, Nunavut, who never doubted the power of shamanism, but he acknowledged that the power of the Holy Spirit as Helper was greater, and that the Tuurngaiit (helping spirits) of Inuit religion that were bad would actually hunt people like a carnivore.

Tuurngaiit (so-called helping spirits) could be sent to attack people.  Iqallijuq, an Inuit elder from Igloolik, described the practice.  "Sometimes shamans may have got mad with someone and hold a grudge against the individual.  Without other means of getting back at the individual, he will resort to his shamanistic helping spirit to get back at him, usually killing him.  This was known as popping the soul by hand squeezing it.  That is the way that some shamans used to kill."

Tuurngaiit (helping spirits) may attack people in other ways.  They can inspire fear, and also make people ill.  Tungilik, the Inuit elder from Repulse Bay related, "Whenever a person did something that displeased a helping spirit, the person would become sick.  There were some helping spirits that would make a person sick because they had the desire to kill."

Getting totally set free from a spirit of fear, whether it is through the church acting as a controlling religion, or through other fear-based religions, is a process that is going to take an agreement of the corporate Body of Christ with the HELP of the Holy Spirit to get totally set free from.  

Bringing this closer to home, I would now like to focus in the remainder of this article on a community that is a bit closer to home to those of us who live in the Canadian South.  I am referring to the community of Berens River, Manitoba, on the eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg.

At Berens River, and in other communities in the eastern corridor of Manitoba and over into North West Ontario, windigo was a powerfully controlling spirit that was seen as a helper, but there were times when one needed another stronger "helper" to hold that spirit down when it became hostile or oppressive.  It is clear to me that whether our background is inside or outside of the westernized, institutional church, that we all need the Help of the Holy Spirit to get set free from spirits of fear, hostility and oppression, not by the love of power, but by the power of a love that is greater than fear.

There were different types of windigos--cannibalistic beings who struck terror into the hearts of Cree and Ojibway people.  The windigo spirit is also associated with the fear of being lost in the bush.  Did the cannibalistic spirit of windigo carry over into the life of the denominational churches even after Christianity was introduced to the tribes in the eastern corridor of Manitoba?  I believe that it has, and so it is still a journey for which we, as the Body of Christ from both Native and Non-native backgrounds need the help of the Holy Spirit.  My belief is that "the Deliverer will come out of Zion" Romans 11:27), the people in whom the Spirit of God dwells, but we are going to need to get set free from that cannibalistic spirit ourselves wherever it has found a lodging place in our souls if we are truly going to see whole communities manifest a deliverance from this spirit of fear that devours other human beings with our words.  Words are important.  Spirits attach themselves to words.

I will now give something of a history of the coming of Christianity to Berens River, Manitoba, in order to thank God for the coming of the gospel to this region, but also to create an awareness of how the denominations themselves perpetrated the spirit of windigo when they fought like cats and dogs between the Methodists and the Oblate missionaries.

Jacob Berens (1832-1916) became the first Berens River Ojibwe to convert to Christianity.

His history runs deep on the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg.  He had a grandfather whose name was Yellow Legs, a widely known religious leader,  Both he and Bear, Jacob's father, conducted Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) and shaking tent ceremonies, and were long remembered for their spiritual powers and abilities.  

In 1861, during a visit to the Methodist mission at Norway House at the north end of Lake Winnipeg, Jacob Berens not only converted to Christianity, but was baptized by missionary George McDougall.  There he also learned the Cree syllabic system that the Methodists were using to transcribe the scriptures.

Jacob was a leader in negotiating Treaty #5 with the Canadian Government which was signed at Berens River on September 20, 1875.  Subsequently, Jacob Berens became the chief at the Berens River band from 1875 until his death in 1916.  

Jacob Beren's son William Berens became chief at the Berens River First Nation from 1917 to 1947, so between Jacob and his son William, this father-son duo were chiefs at Berens River non-stop for 72 years!  One of the very best resources about this transition period at Berens River between shamanism and the beginnings of Christianity is a book written about William Berens and some of his recollections in Memories, Myths and Dreams of an Ojibwe Leader, by A. Irving Hallowell, an American anthropologist who taught for most of his life at the University of Pennsylvania.

I was made aware of this book by Nancy Whiteway when I had lunch with her and her husband along with Raymond McLean on January 10, 2010.  Nancy is a direct descendant of Chief William Berens, and is an exemplary leader in the community of Berens River as a school principal.

A few of the chapters of this book expose something of the windigo spirit that has continued to hold much of this region in captivity for so long.  I believe that windigo, is a principality, or a ruling principal spirit that has controlled many people who live in Manitoba and in North West Ontario with fear in a way that causes them to socially cannibalize others by way of reaction whenever they take offense.  One does not need to even be a believer to recognize that windigo is clearly a demonic spirit.

The deception of this demon is the false belief that the problem is out there with other people, especially with civil authorities, and with police officers, or with the judges, and so we bite and devour them with our words, and speak disrespectfully, not realizing that we cannot even see other people correctly as God sees them as long as this cannibalistic spirit is a stronghold within us that causes us to devour, to gossip, to attack, to accuse, to condemn, to put down, to demean, to curse and to demonize other human beings who are created in the image of God.

Although William Berens told A. Irving Hallowell only one story that specifically mentioned windigos, he told of his real-life experiences of hearing and seeing these beings and of encountering a human being at risk of becoming a windigo (pages 98-100).  There were different types of windigos—cannibalistic beings who struck terror into the hearts of Cree and Ojibwe people.  The windigo spirit is also associated with the fear of being lost in the bush.

A starving human could be driven to eat human flesh and would become insane.  Persons subjected to sustained cruelty reached a point when they could not tolerate any more abuse and might become windigo.  Some windigos were giants and others looked perfectly human, eating people at irregular intervals and going undetected for periods of time.  If powerful shamans became windigos, they could possess a great threat, as they possessed formidable powers to keep the people in fear, and to keep them silent (pages 232, 233). 

In wendigo legend, anyone possessed by this spirit can become a ravenous cannibal capable of killing and devouring their own family.  The best known way to become a wendigo is through cannibalism.  By eating another human being, even out of necessity for survival, a human can be overcome by these spirits and be transformed into one.  The fear of turning into this creature was so strong that it was preferable to kill one's self rather than resort to cannibalism.

In describing Chief Walter Beren’s experiences in Memories, Myths and Dreams of an Ojibwe Leader (McGill-Queen’s University Press), A. Irving Hallowell describes themes in First Nation’s history that highlighted the need for power just to survive, and so shamans became a part of that culture in the power struggle for control.   This resulted in a competition “for spiritual power, using and misusing it and competing to see who has greater power, since relative power is often difficult to determine except through competition.  Shifting balances of power are prominent in the narrative.” (p. 123).

“Powerful shamans could cause changes or turn themselves into something else to achieve good (attacking enemies, healing, finding out vital information, effecting a prophecy) or do evil.  Metamorphasis was a means to demonstrate the extent of their powers and the uses to which they were putting them.” (page 125)

At Berens River, and in the eastern corridor of Manitoba, windigo was a powerfully controlling spirit that was seen as a helper, but, as mentioned, there were times when one needed another stronger “helper” to hold that spirit down when it became hostile or oppressive.  Interestingly, Jesus called the Holy Spirit, not our Accuser or our Oppressor, but our “Helper,” or “the One called alongside to help.”  John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7.

According to Hallowell, “If powerful shamans became windigos, they could pose a great threat, as they possessed formidable powers.” (page 233) The wendigo is described as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous.  Its influence is said to invoke acts of murder, insatiable greed, cannibalism and the cultural taboos against such behaviors.

In Ojibwe lore, wendigos are often described as giants that are many times larger than human beings.  Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation.  The wendigo is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess, never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they are constantly searching for new victims.

Chief William Berens had experienced frightening experiences, and there were times when he felt that he was going crazy, but he also experienced how that things would get brighter when he opened his Bible.  There were  times when he did not know what to do, but then would remember that he had a Bible in the house, and as soon as he opened it and read the word “God,” things seemed to get brighter.  (page 73)

On another occasion, according to Hallowell, Chief William Berens “met an old Indian man and he was trying to do something to me by his magic power—but I pulled through.  He asked for tobacco and a pipe in the store…Everybody was scared of this old man.”  (pages 73, 74)   

On still another occasion, when William Berens went to a camp, and “there was a man who had magic power there.  We went to his tent first.  He looked at me and said, ‘You’re alive yet—you came through a terrible night—lightning right at your tent.’  ‘My time was not come yet,’ I said.  That was the fourth time a shaman tried to do something to me and failed.’  This man killed two in a year—one in fall and one in spring.” (page 75).

Dr. Susan Elaine Gray, a research associate to the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Peoples in an Urban and Regional Context at the University of Winnipeg,  wrote in her book, “I Will Fear No Evil”  Ojibwa-Missionary Encounters Along the Berens River, 1875-1940: 

“In her reminiscences of Berens River, Julia Asher wrote of living with her Indian agent father in the community between 1898 and 1900.  Julia remembered the Methodist church being full on Sundays and the friendly relations between her family and the Berenses.

“One evening, Jacob Berens told her a legend of the windigo, adding that most of the older Indians believed in windigos despite the church’s teaching against their existence.  

"‘Christianized as they were,’ she wrote, ‘this belief…lingered on, even in our time…We had two indications of it on our Reserve while I was there.’

“At Little Grand Rapids, the Ojibwa world view still prevailed widely.  Belief in medicine men, polygamy, and Saulteaux ceremonies abounded.  Writing about both Berens River and Little Grand Rapids in 1880, Rev. A. W. Ross lamented, ‘We…cannot speak encouragingly of these polygamous bands, and yet there is a longing to hear the Word’” (page 83).

“The fear of windigos was still tangible among Christian as well as non-Christian Ojibwa at Little Grand Rapids in the late 1920s” (page 141).

So the point needs to be strongly made that even though the coming of the missionaries suppressed the outward manifestations of the principality of windigo, this spirit continued to do its cannibalistic work among Christians and between churches as denominational churches started fighting among themselves, and instilled fear in the hearts of the people that who attended another denomination were going to hell.

Religious enmity between Protestants and Catholics did not become rampant in the Canadas until the 1840s and 1850s in denominational rivalry in Indian Residential Education.  The Methodists set up a mission at Berens River by 1873, but by 1912, the Oblates set up a mission there as well.  Award-winning scholar Susan Elaine Gray in 1999 said of the relationship between Roman Catholic Oblate and Methodist missionaries at Berens River that “They fought like just like a cat and a dog.”

I ask the question, was this the work of the Holy Spirit, or of a religious spirit?  The Holy Spirit gives Life!  The flesh counts for nothing.

The Holy Spirit is our Helper to birth the very life of Jesus that is already in our recreated spirit into the life of our soul, our personality, so that we will outwardly manifest the Life of Jesus!  Our calling is to be partakers of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4), partakers of Christ (Hebrews 3:14), not people who bite and devour other human beings.  It is the log in our own eye that prevents us from seeing Christ in others as our hope of a glorious destiny together as sons and daughters of the heavenly Father.

When I was with Raymond McLean at the Berens River First Nation from January 8 to 10, 2010, he preached on this very scripture in addressing the spirit of wendigo that was still at work in the community with brothers and sisters in Christ biting and devouring one another, blessing God on one side of the mouth, but cursing fellow human beings who are created in the image of God out of the other side of the mouth.

It has become clear that if the spirit of controlling fear was exercised by some shamans who used spiritual powers to put curses on people at times, while helping them at other times, that this same spirit of controlling fear, intimidation and social cannibalism has been practiced in the church as well, whenever church life is impersonally practiced as a religion rather than as a relationship with a good, good Father in whom we have found security as our Source of provision, protection, significance and belonging.

Contrast and compare the two statements given above:

1.       Religion is the man-made control to instill fear in the masses in order to exert better control of them.

2.       True unity and synergetic revival is marked by leaders that bless, encourage, labor and mobilize people in ministries, denominations and fellowships that they have no control over.

Why does religion keep trying to exert control over other human beings by fear?  It is because we have not fully experienced God’s security in a world that devours one another.  We have not really allowed Jesus to lead us to the Father who created all human beings, and who wants us to look to the Holy Spirit as our Helper to pray as we ought, even when we do not know how to express our hearts in a way that can be articulated in human speech, and so as infants we cry out, “Abba!  Father!  Daddy!  I need you Daddy!”  Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6.

The biggest enemy to the gospel is not atheism, but religion, because religion does not deny the existence of God, but it does misrepresent Him as One who rules by a fear that torments and accuses rather than by agape love, and this is what turns more people away from the God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, even more than atheists who simply say that God does not exist.  

Our problem is that the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has been misrepresented, distorted, caricaturized, skewed and falsified, resulting in hardness of heart setting in that becomes a veil of unbelief that prevents people from seeing the true image of God as it is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

I praise God that He is raising up mature believers in First Nations communities like Berens River today.  These are remote northern communities that are destined to see the Father's glory revealed.  They be believers like Nancy Whiteway who, back in 2010, showed me the very spot in her school where the letters I M manifested on one of her classroom walls where Karen Legett was the teacher.  A prophecy had been given that the Spirit of God was going to work in the school, and sure enough, the following Monday, the Presence of God showed up, and continued to be felt and sensed throughout the following week.

When Nancy Whiteway was running for chief in the Berens River First Nation back in December of 2015, she made the following statement: 

My main thoughts are about the people of Berens River.  Listening and talking with people, I hear so much frustration and see the hurt in their eyes. Oh how we need a healing in our land. 

Many look to today and tomorrow but not twenty years from now. We need to break the cycle of all forms of abuse by allowing ourselves to be healed. I want see a true healing for all of us. We need to admit that we have some form of hurt that needs healing.

If we really want to see a change for a healthier community then it's time to admit our hurts and deal with the painful issues we experienced as a child. If we really have a love for others then we need to allow God to heal us from the inside. Dealing with the inner hurt is not easy.  Believe me, I have been going through my own healing for a few years.

I honestly believe that we need to address this so we can really move onto a better tomorrow. This is about the future of our people. We can have all the money and material things in the world, but that won't heal us. 

Life is about others and to help others but we can't reach out to others until we first get healed.  As our people are healed, all the hate, jealousy, greed and all other negative things that impact the discord in our community will leave.  For the sake of our future generations, we must heal. I want a better tomorrow for those yet to be born.

I am tired of seeing our people being destroyed by the drugs, solvent and alcohol. I lived a great part of my life being dependent on drugs and alcohol not knowing why I was bound to that lifestyle. I thought it was to have fun but all along it was a way to bury my hurts.

The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind but not weak; be bold but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor but without folly.

In the light of what has been shared, the book that has just been released that I have been talking about lately, could not be more timely.  I am of course referring to the book entitled, Are We All Cannibals Experiencing God’s Security in a World That Devours One Another by David Braun.

None of us have had perfect parents, and we have all been imperfect parents, and there is really only one Father who can meet all of our personal needs for provision, protection, belonging and significance.  Apart from encountering our heavenly Father, we have these unmet needs and start living with orphan shadows that leave us feeling exposed, anxious and defensive.

In this state of identity our automatic reaction is to resort to defensive posturing, avoidance of people, micromanaging others, offense-taking, and the list goes on.  I believe that it is truth that sets us free, and the truth in this book will go a long way in equipping the Body of Christ in Manitoba to come against that windigo spirit that has been at work to make us social cannibals instead of children who reflect what the Father and the true Origin of all of us is really and truly like.

I encourage you to order a copy of this book at this site.

So please allow me to finish with this closing challenge.  We need the Holy Spirit to help us to stop biting and devouring One another, and to instead edify, build up, encourage and exhort one another to walk in the Spirit, and to not fulfill the lust of the flesh.  The Holy Spirit helps us in our human weakness to cry out to "Abba!  Father!" so that His Presence on the inside of us can drive out that orphan spirit and those orphan shadows that leave us feeling exposed, anxious and defensive.

With an orphan identity, our automatic reaction is to resort to defensive posturing, avoidance of people, micromanaging others, offense-taking, and the list goes on!  When we truly know that we are a child of the heavenly Father, however, and that our security comes from Him alone and not from the people that we bite and devour and who also cannibalize us, we will reflect the Father's glory into the creation until our land is filled with that relational knowledge.  God's intent is not just to fill individuals, but to fill communities, regions, principalities and nations with the knowledge of His glory!  His intent is to use the church that He is building to fill all things!  Ephesians 1:22, 23; 4:10; 5:18.