What I Have Learned - My Journey With the Ojibwe of Swan Lake First Nation
- Finn Rachul
- May 5
- 15 min read
What I Have Learned - My Journey With the Ojibwe of Swan Lake First Nation
Finn Rachul
For my family, as a thank you for the relentless kindness and support they have all shown me.
My name is Finn. I'm writing from the community of Swan Lake First Nation (SLFN) where I have lived for the past 4 years. As a Mennonite guy from Morden, my path has taken me to places I never would have expected when I first met David Scott. This is my story, but more than that, it is about what I have learned living with the traditional people I now call family and my home.
How I Got Here
I always start by saying I am not someone you would have expected to come from a very different community and end up calling a reserve home. My background as a teenager was of intensely conservative and religious views of the kind that did not like indigenous people. Up until the age of 16, I had been exposed to the poverty, homelessness, crime, and other negative stereotypes that indigenous peoples are often associated with. History has never been kind to these peoples, as I eventually learned, but up until that point I am not ashamed to say I thought reserves were full of alcoholics, criminals, and free-loaders off the government. That was simply the information I was exposed to, even though I had never talked to an indigenous person face-to-face.
Then, one day, I met Dave at the Morden library with my homeschool group. He was teaching us through a blanket exercise about the atrocities and land-loss that had happened to the Ojibwe of Manitoba. Of course, being the person I was then, I fully expected him to be "just another indigenous person here to guilt us about what our white ancestors supposedly had done." I was hugely surprised by what was actually talked about that day - history told in both a kind and matter-of-fact way and including all of us in making things better. Honestly, it blew away my expectations, and I seemed to lose all my judgement for that moment.
As we cleaned up, I uncharacteristically approached Dave to talk to him. Being a rather shy kid at the time, I was extremely nervous, with all I remember saying is "I want to learn more about your language. Can you teach me?" Dave, in his usual easy-going manner, gave me his number and told me to be in touch. I also remember him being rather confused at my name, which to him was quite unusual.
Months passed, but eventually Dave reached out, and invited me to join him for coffee. We sat there for hours, and I don't think I said more than a couple words as Dave told the most fascinating stories about history and language. After we got to know each other over several coffee meetings, Dave invited me to join him on the reserve for his youth environmental stewardship program, the same one we run together today.
Still a bit apprehensive about indigenous people, being on a reserve had me extremely nervous. As time went on, I got to know the other reserve kids that I worked with and built fast friendships, and, along with the many kind traditional people I met along the way, I left behind my previous judgements. We explored creeks, spied on muskrats, camped the summer away, and learned an immense amount of traditional knowledge about our ecosystems. The six week program came to a close, but I worked with Dave as long into the year as he would tolerate having me around. Eventually, I turned 18 and embarked on a 5 month long backpacking trip in Latin America.
It was right around this time in the spring of 2022 that Dave invited me to live in his house. Dave distinctly remembers offering his upstairs loft to me, it being easier to live there than to commute from Morden every day for the next round of his environmental program, and I showed up with all my things the next day. In this new environment, I quickly got back on my feet with Dave's support. The next round of the program began, and that year was full of adventure, learning, and growing, and I left for college in Brandon that fall to earn my environmental technician diploma.
As time went on, I moved back to the reserve, grew into the community, was taken in by Dave's family and the community through a traditional adoption, and took Dave as my "gweemeh" (teacher).
I have learned so much about the land we live on as Dave teaches me more and more about the traditional perspective, and have learned an entirely new world view. The community members treated me like just another one of the kids, meaning I get teased and lectured as much as anyone else. I have learned Ojibwe values from Dave, looking at everyone as human beings first regardless of skin color, religion, or any other artificial divisions - we all rely on the environment just as much as anyone else. I cannot emphasize enough the kindness, love, and acceptance I have found here, from the very people I once judged so harshly. Few are so lucky as me.
Learning from the Ojibwe
Dave is a knowledge keeper for his community and many of the Ojibwe communities around him. The old Ojibwe language, oral stories, and traditional knowledge that he is training me in paints the picture of a worldview on the fringes of western society, one that has been pushed out of the mainstream but is absolutely essential in finding a way through the changing climate we are already seeing.
Today, Dave and I are in the fifth year of the 6-week summer program I first joined in 2021. We work as a team, monitoring the environment around us, teaching students and teachers land-based knowledge across southern Manitoba's school divisions, training young adults, writing, building permaculture gardens, moving trees, creating ecosystems, and getting into trouble. Protecting the environment and teaching people to care for it in a new way is at the forefront of what we do, and the Ojibwe values and knowledge Dave is teaching me leads that.
The Ojibwe teachings always begin with Obehmaatizee, which we have repeated throughout our blogs. Some of those teachings are:
Look at people as human beings first, regardless of race, religion, politics, or anything else.
Humans are an essential part of nature and must live with it.
Humans are no better than the largest oak tree nor the tiniest ant. We all rely on each other.
We must create a healthy environment for the security of all the future generations.
This value system and way of understanding the world is profoundly different from the one I grew up in. In school and college, the methods for understanding the environment are almost entirely about numbers, equations, minute chemicals, and strict science. While this has its merits and can compliment the traditional knowledge I am learning, it has serious limitations. Looking at the minutest chemical reactions, breaking down everything to statistics seems to really hinder the role of humanity in living with the environment.
Western science tends to remove the human component of nature. In the Ojibwe worldview, humans are as much animals as any other creature. This isn't an insult to humanity as a western worldview might see it, but instead is an honor and implies a responsibility to fulfill our role to nature. Just like the beaver that creates aquatic ecosystems that benefit nature, humans manage all the ecosystems on the landscape for the better of nature. The stronger nature is the stronger we are, as the teaching goes. Human emotional, physical, and spiritual flourishing to the Ojibwe is directly aligned with a healthy environment.
There are many ways that the traditional knowledge I am taught can work well with Western science. If someone is looking at restoring an ecosystem through these perspectives, they can start by understanding the site's history, its plant and animal communities, food chains and the roles all the different organisms play in balancing that and each other. Man-made chemicals affect everything now, so western science must play a role in describing how those substances alter the ecosystem in, for example, contaminating aquatic creatures or killing off necessary parts of the self-balancing food chain.
Many of the things we see now in our environment are very concerning. Birds, the maintainers of ecosystems, are disappearing, insects populations are shrinking, water is disappearing, and forests are being removed. As a young person in today's world, I believe we do not truly understand what we are losing as time goes on.
The oral histories Dave shares with me talk about what our local landscape once looked like, as we talk about here, how deforestation has advanced, waterways have dried, and plant and animal life has disappeared. The changes he and those who passed their stories to him have seen on the land is dramatic, and we are playing a game of removing each strand from a tangle ecosystem web, not knowing when it will collapse.
Traditional life was one of living with the land. Put simply, this meant nurturing your food systems in the environment around you, and participating in a culture that maintained that for long-term security. Ojibwe people understood the reliance we have on the simplest of creatures and the intricacies of what happens when they disappear, always working to maintain the living systems that supplied them with food, water, shelter, and security.
In the Prairies I call home, the lower parts of the food chain is at risk of spiraling into unknown territory. Insect populations seem to be booming when it comes to ants, crickets, grasshoppers, wasps, ticks, and mosquitos, whereas the diversity in insects seems to be shrinking. As Dave tells me, the vibrant colors of bugs, birds, and reptiles he grew up with would put what today calls "abundant" to shame. Many of these species have disappeared in his lifetime. We can't seem to find a forest where we can relax without being swarmed by mosquitos, ticks, and ants in particular - something that Dave recalls he did not have to deal with as a kid.
My understanding is that the predatory species (spiders, centipedes, aquatic species, and others) have declined along with the general disappearance of song birds that eat ants, ticks, and the like. Plants that once sustained or partnered these predators have also disappeared. Many of the people of the reserve community and outside talk of flowers and plants that once grew here in southern Manitoba that have since disappeared, and the many plant books I have evidence the species that were once here but I can't seem to find anywhere.
Dave talks about the management of broad landscapes by the Ojibwe and other peoples. Fire was once a tool constantly but responsibly used to restore ecosystems and prompt growth. Every plant in our area is somehow adapted to fire, whether it is resisting it, regrowing afterward, or using it to reproduce. The Ojibwe used it to manage decaying plant matter, prompt plant growth, control insect population fluctuations, or simply maintaining natural patterns. Dave talks about how the Cree of the north managed every lake, marsh, and forest and had paths across the forests of northern Manitoba, having a name for every place of value. As he tells me, they used fire to manage the burnable material before it created devastating fires that killed plants instead of nourishing them.
The Ojibwe did the same practices as they did in their homeland or the treaty land they inhabited in Manitoba where they were invited by their Cree relatives. As Dave tells, the Ojibwe that came to Manitoba were a peaceable and defensive people with a large army that inhabited what is now Western Ontario. As disease and conflicts erupted around the fur trade era, the Ojibwe were invited to southern Manitoba by the Cree under a treaty (Ogibizowen), meaning they would look after the landscape, learn to live with one another, build relationships, and share knowledge. The Ojibwe traded the wigwam for the teepee, which was much more practical for the open plains, and adapted their societies to their new home. Under this treaty, they learned the land management practices of the Cree and taught them their own, working together to make the land heathy.
The stories Dave tells me of these times are enchanting. Him being an oral historian, he tells me of the hundreds of such treaties big and small that were made between peoples from that Dakotas to the Mennonites. Before fur trade hunting practices and disease arrived and parts of the traditional indigenous peoples of Manitoba left their ways to hunt animals for the allure of fur trade money and power, the many tribal groups flourished in the abundant environment they created. Dave talks about how there was once cross-continent knowledge trading missions, vibrant societies, navigation by the stars, medicines, and a strong and mostly peaceful culture that held it together. While by Western standards things such as their "stone tools" and nomadic culture were considered "primitive", this way of life thought of sophistication as human flourishing with the environment, taking what you need and giving back. Why would anyone need more?
To me, we have lost so much when this way of life was pushed to the side. When did we stop looking at every lake, forest bluff, and open plain as something that provided humans with food, health, and security?
The Droughts of the 1930's and Dave's Stories
One event Dave and I discuss often is the situation around "Palliser's Triangle" and the Dirty Thirties in Canada. Dave and many community members still remember stories of what life was like for the old people of SLFN back then, as well as their predictions on how the environment would react to what people were doing to it. If you haven't heard of these events, it's worth doing some reading about it.
Back then, as the reserve was mostly forest and grasslands and the homesteads around it were mostly small-scale, the Ojibwe of Swan Lake First Nation weren't as greatly impacted by many of the things the settler populations were hit by. In many ways, they still hunted, gathered, gardened, and worked with their neighbors, and so weren't tied to the inflation and joblessness characteristic of that time. Many young men would jump off the trains that passed through the reserve offering labor in exchange for food, and some even stayed for a year or two before passing through. Dave remarks that many of the stories he was told characterized these workers as kind and grateful for the support.
The environmental conditions were dire. This time was characterized by drought, dust storms, blowing topsoil, wildfires, and massive amounts of people moving around looking for food and work. Fields were expanded so quickly and tilled so thoroughly in that time that much of the viable soil was exposed and blew away during the drought conditions. In Dave's stories, the old people talk about insects being prominent, and western histories speak swarms of grasshoppers across the continent.
People were forced to change the way they used the land. Ducks Unlimited sprung up around this time, working to protect wetlands that proved to be extremely valuable during the '30s coming from the perspective of waterfowl conservation (their article on the events here). Some of the initiatives at the time by the government included shelterbelt planting, slowing erosion and water drainage, using less tillage and more cover cropping. In many ways, the practices they used were similar to modern regenerative agriculture practices growing today. In the end, when the drought finally finished, these practices managed to make agriculture at that time's scale more feasible. There seems to be a good precedent there for humans reacting to environmental changes and improving the situation.
What's significant about the old people's stories Dave tells me is that many warnings that were in them that came from long before the events of the 1930s. These warnings speak of the same events - dust storms, fires, drought, insects, and times of struggles - and they stem from the time of the fur trade era when many Ojibwe broke from their close relationship with nature in favor of commercial hunting. Deeply understanding their environment and its intricate connections, the Ojibwe of long passed generations predicted what would happen when the environment was out of balance and human greed took over - and they predicted these events would happen as they eventually did in the 30s.
With the current common land use practices, it seems we are going head-long into the same situation - even the current fire risk and drought maps of today are almost identical to those I've seen of the "Palliser's Triangle" dust bowl. Dave remembers the shelterbelt initiatives in the 80s and 90s to improve soil conditions, some of which you can still see standing today in our area. However, many of these shelterbelts are being torn down today. Dave and I see the ants and grasshoppers and the lack of predators, drop in bird populations, and massive wildfires that only seem to be getting worse and can't help but see the parallels between these stories in today's events. It seems obvious what will happen with the way the Prairie ecosystems work and current trends, the only thing we don't know is what will happen with the current scale of human activity compared to back then - or how we'll be able to respond.
What All This Means For Me as a Young Person
As Dave talks about the stories the old people left him of "line of the ground" that would divide us, it's not hard to see how the strict squares and lines have impacted how we deal with the environment. Dave repeats this story often, where the old people said "They (the government) are drawing lines on the ground - lines on the ground that only they can see. This will imprison us as much as it will imprison them." Instead of looking at the people who live in the ecosystems all around us as part of the picture that makes us all stronger, we're divided behind jurisdictions drawn from a different era that stop us from dealing with the problems we have now in the growing wildfires and drought across the landscape.
As we've written about before, each direction a storm travels has an ecological significance in Ojibwe culture. Western storms carry moisture from the Rockies to the east, and northern storms carry cold temperatures and moisture from the lakes up north, both picking up more standing water as the air streams travel over the landscape. With the Prairies all being significantly covered in drainage, bare soils, largely remove the former beavers population, and conservation grazing still with plenty of room to grow, it's not hard to imagine why we've had so little moisture entering the atmosphere and becoming rain, or why droughts have become so much more impactful. Groundwater usage brings stability, but even that is a finite amount of water with its recharge systems having been largely altered or removed, not to mentioned the issues with it depositing salts and minerals on agricultural soils.
Nor is it hard to imagine why the forests are so frequently burning at a larger scale than before - humans have altered the climate so much by removing water and heating the atmosphere that the balance is changing. Animals that once had roles in managing these many ecosystems have been pushed back and their self-regulating food chains are out of balance. Most significantly, humans no longer play their role in aiding these ecosystems so that they remain healthy, instead taking out the processes it needs to function.
Taking it all in at once is overwhelming - as a young person, how are we supposed to make a difference? As Dave reminds me frequently, the best thing a person can do is focus on their own little world. Despite the chaos put in front of us by all the bad news, we still have to live our lives and find a way to flourish. I remember Dave saying once: "Slow down and look at all the things in front of you. Learn from the environment around you and take your time, you don't have to fix everything all at once. Only then can you help the things you care about."
For me, that looks like taking care of the birds that live in our yard. I feed them every morning (otherwise they harass me if I forget), grow things for them to eat, create a little ecosystem for them with water, flowers, fruits, and colorful plants, and watch them interact. Birds are incredibly intelligent and caring creatures when you engage with them - some will follow you around, some will mimic you, some will sing back and forth with you, and others are just plain curious about what you're up to. Watching them engage with each other is endlessly entertaining, almost like putting on a telenovela or drama tv show. They'll take the seeds I grow for them and spread them across the landscape, sprouting native species in areas I could never reach.
In other ways, I do my best to rebuild food security for our community, teaching what Dave passes on to me so that all of us can grow healthy vegetables within beautiful gardens. We're trying to relearn and rebuild the same skills the traditional Ojibwe of the past once used every day, brining back gardens that are healing and helpful to people and the environment at the same time, incorporating wild plants and animals wherever we can.
All along the way, I try to learn as much as I can from the people around me, bringing it to life in small ways as much as possible and helping people where I can. When I look at the work of our good friends at the Harvest Moon Society in Clearwater, the many farmers trying new regenerative practices and producing healthy and holistic food, the people teaching permaculture and ecological gardens, the teachers earnestly trying to learn land-based knowledge, the community gardeners in Winnipeg finding a way to grow vegetables in the city, and so many more good people bring me so much hope and excitement for the future.
To me, beginning to fix some of these things is as simple as rebuilding the tightknit relationships communities that my parents and grandparents talked about, and these are all great ways to do it.
I encountered a concept recently that in our times, the older generations are the teachers who bring knowledge and wisdom to our current issues, those in between are the fighters that tackle the big problems, and the younger generations are the fixers who take what was left to them and create a better world. There is a very similar concept in Ojibwe culture, where each generation has an equally important role to play. Above it all, creating a better world for future generations is at the center.
If I've learned anything after finding my way to living at the reserve, it's that a kind and supportive community that cares about helping people can make a radical difference in ones life and in the environment. As the Ojibwe teach, we have to find a way back to living with the land, but do it one small step at a time, help others, and always look at each other as human beings first.
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