Education and congratulations were the main themes at a writers’ gathering in Flin Flon last week.
Seven authors from Pukatawagan featured their works at the Flin Flon Public Library on Feb. 15, with each displaying their work and some reading from the books aloud for members of the audience.Copies of the books were also donated to the library.
The authors are part of the community economic development diploma class at the Pukatawagan regional centre of University College of the North (UCN).
Children are the main target audience for the books, with most featuring both Cree and English stories. Some of the books, like Desmond Castel’s Highrock Adventures, tell stories from the past – like Castel’s stories about camping at Highrock Lake near Pukatawagan as a child. Other stories feature educational lessons for kids, such as Pascall Bighetty’s book showing how to count from one to 10 in both English and Cree and Tyrone Caribou’s work, which teaches the reader both the English alphabet and Cree.
“I wanted to write something for the kids, the younger kids. They helped me,” said Caribou, referring to his own children. While he was working on the book, Caribou read the book to them and worked on sections according to their feedback.
“I would draw pictures for this – the reason I did that is so it would be more relatable for the kids,” he said.
UCN instructor Janice Seto helped spearhead the project. By the time things had finished, she had also written a book – hers details the 1994 Journey for Life walk by Pukatawagan residents to raise awareness of the community’s contaminated water supply.
“We want to make sure that people get a chance not to develop just the community – we want people to develop themselves. If you can’t develop yourself, how can you develop other people?”
While showing off their completed efforts, the authors not only told the audience their own stories, but how they finished the books and what inspired them.
Sylvia Caribou’s book details how to say the Lord’s Prayer in both English and Cree. Caribou shared that the creative spark for the project was her mother taking her to church as a young girl.
“‘You’re coming with me!’ is what she’d say,”
Caribou said.
“Now, I teach my kids to say it. My daughters know how to say it in Cree and English. My daughter’s ten years old.”
Meanwhile, Dhedra Dumas wrote a book about the importance of water and conservation, entitled Water is Life: Iyako Nipiy Pimatisiwin.
Dumas’ chosen topic took time to develop. “It took me a lot of time and research to come up with an idea of a book to write. There’s so many ideas and different characters you can use,” she said.
“Without water, we pretty much cease to exist. Don’t waste water. It really is life.”
Most of the books shown at the library event are available for purchase on Amazon. While there is potential for the authors to receive some payment for their work, the main reason for writing is more important – to preserve the Cree language, culture and stories of the region.
“That’s why we’re making these books – to be aware that we are not losing our language. We’re having a hard time reading our own Cree,” said Castel.
Castel added he was not fluent in Cree, praising Pukatawagan elders Theresa Bighetty and Lena Colomb for helping translate his book into the language from English.
