Joseph Dandurand

If we talked about the past

we would say how strong our people

were and how they had survived

the constant rains and the great floods

and how they lived in the ground

and how they, like us, took the fish

throughout the year and how it fed

their families. And if we talk about

how they would war against other

river and island tribes who would

come upriver to try to take our people

back with them, we would say

we had great warriors who would wait

for the canoes to come to shore

where we would club them to death.

But today we do not use violence

to survive and we have become quiet

and accepting of our neighbors though

in the beginning we were almost wiped out

as sickness came with the people on ships

who wanted to trade and cheat us of our fish.

That sickness nearly wiped out all river people

but today we are still here, and we survive.

Our children have grown up with loss

and alcohol and drugs and they too fight

for their lives in a world that does not

seem to care about them but we try

to teach them the lessons from a long time

before there was anything written down.

In our ceremonies we repeat those words

and our children will also repeat those words

and so we the river people are still here.

We are all the silent warriors and we say

enough is enough and our young they pick up

the drum and they sing new songs

and they stand and shout to the world

that we are still here and will never leave

this simple island on the great river where

we still take the fish and yes, we still live

where we have been for thousands of years

and we are the ancestors of our future as

a child picks up a drum and begins to sing

a new song given to him from long ago.

In the deepest part of the river

there lived a great sturgeon

and she swam along the bottom

and fed upon the dead who had fallen.

She was about three hundred years old

and when she was full, she came to

the surface and jumped as high as

she could and all the males came

to her and she kissed each male

and let them have her. Months later

she quietly went to her favourite part

of the river and there she released

her eggs in the millions and then began

again to swim the bottom and to search

for any new bodies that had fallen

from upriver, which she feasted upon

with her old softly kissed lips.

The legend goes that a fisherman

had fallen into the waters and was drowning

when the great sturgeon came to him

and asked him for a kiss. He agreed

and the two fell in love and together

they would feed upon all the food

at the bottom of the river. One day

her eggs came to life and created

the people across the water.

The people lived there for centuries

and the sturgeon and man would visit

from time to time, bringing them food

to survive the cold wet winters

until the people too walked into

the water and fell to the bottom

as the man kissed his lover.

Today we do not fish for sturgeon

as their numbers have been decimated

by overfishing and loss of spawning

grounds. Whenever I catch a sturgeon

in my net I let her go and she always

turns back and smiles as she flicks

her mighty tail and splashes me.

My son always laughs as I stand there

stunned and wet, while the great sturgeon

slowly swims away and turns back

to blow us a kiss. We both wipe

our lips as the great sturgeon

falls to the bottom of the water.

There, waiting for her, is her lover.

He kisses her one last time.

She cries as she begins to eat him.