I’m on this fantastic tour taking me to some northern parts of Canada never seen by me before and yes, if all goes well, I’ll be taking this bus all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. Dawson City to Inuvik and from there to Tuktoyaktuk. Road, read dirt track, was completed in 2017. Ice road no more. Road access to Tuktoyaktuk year around.
We ain’t there yet though. We are in Fort Simpson. A community of about 1,200 people, named after George Simpson, once the governor of Rupert’s Land, an area about a third of present-day Canada. To be exact, all the land in the drainage basin of the Hudson Bay. The fur trade, yes. Originally a Hudson Bay Company trading post. Oh, and the community, at least the central part of it, is on an island close to the south bank of the Mackenzie River.
We have come from Yellowknife, the North West Territory’s capital, situated on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, about 300 miles east of here and hope to stay here for the next two nights. In the Nahanni Inn. Very basic indeed. Tomorrow my passengers hope to fly to Virginia Falls in the Nahanni National Park Reserve. Stunning place. However, the weather forecast isn’t all that great and those flights might not happen.
Tour groups do not often come to Fort Simpson, just the sight of the bus turns heads on the street. Upon arrival we are not only welcomed by the entire staff of the hotel, but also by Gerald Antoine, call me Jerry, the elected Chief of the Liiddlii Kue First Nation and his wife Beatrice. Their grandson sound asleep in the oversized blue pickup truck in the parking lot. We have a group dinner this evening and Gerry and Beatrice were invited by the hotel to join us for the feast.
As luck would have it, I’m seated at the same table as Jerry and Beatrice. While in line for the buffet I hear one of my passengers ask Beatrice if she had attended a residential school. For the non-Canadians under us, Indian residential schools were government-sponsored religious boarding schools. Purpose, turning native people into white people. Kill the Indian in the child. Horrendous acts of physical and sexual abuse, creating a legacy of alcoholism, substance abuse and suicide.
In 2008 our prime minister apologized on behalf of the Canadian government in the house of Commons. For what it is worth? I don’t know. So many survivors are scarred for life. So when Beatrice said she had not, but family members of her had, my passenger went on to say, ‘Oh I don’t think those schools were all that bad.’ A moment of reckoning. You just can’t make that up. Who would say or even think that? She did.
Jerry has been to many places, and not only in our barren north, but internationally as well. Now I have been to many places too, but I have never visited the pope in Italy. Or met up with him anywhere else for that matter. Jerry has. More than once. I don’t even know if he is Catholic. Jerry that is, the pope for sure.
September 12th, 1984. Pope John Paul II, the traveling one, is on a twelve-day tour of Canada. He had expressed great interest in visiting a native community and the honor was bestowed on Fort Simpson, in the Mackenzie-Fort Smith Diocese. By area, one of the largest in the world. By population? About 28,000 Catholics.
Six months of preparation, 250,000 dollars spent, and the day has come. 3,000 people gather around awaiting the Pontiff’s arrival. But not going to happen. A very thick fog bank moves in and the papal plane, circling the airport, diverts to Yellowknife. Excitement turns into disappointment. Pope promises to return another day. But right now that’s not good enough.
Meanwhile in Yellowknife where nobody expected the Pope, city now in a frenzy. Traffic jams, mayhem, everyone and their dog beelining it to the airport. Watch the Pope kiss the tarmac.
And so the Pope delivered his message, meant for the people of Fort Simpson, to a small crowd in Yellowknife. He talked about solidarity, injustices and forgiveness. He apologized for the behavior and actions of some missionaries in the past.
And that would be the end of it.
No, no, not so fast.
Jerry tells me that he and a collective band of Chiefs flew to Italy, made their way to the Vatican and auditioned with the Pope. Just like that. Jerry then proceeded to tell the Pope that a promise is a promise and you promised my people you’d come back. You have to make good on that. The Pope agreed.
Jerry told me that the Pope was right down at the same level with you, the way that he came across. He said, “Get your people to meet my people.” And that’s what we did.
September 20th, 1987 Pope on his way home from America. But first a five-hour stop in, you guessed it, Fort Simpson. Three years later, almost to the day. Little panic in the morning, overcast, steady drizzle, but sun breaking through just in time. Even a rainbow when he lands.
Nearly 4,000 people waiting to see their Yahtita, priest of priest.
He blessed a monument representing the four directions. He shook hands with as many people as he could. And he celebrated mass under a gigantic teepee, built for the occasion out of 12 red cedar logs.
Fort Simpson was ecstatic. A promise fulfilled.
