Essay by a Writer

Michel Noël

Copyright/Source

Beauty, Poetry, Life

Michel Noël

As a young child, I would fall asleep very late, standing at the helm of my great magic canoe made of birch bark. I would be one with the mighty river, the Mistashipu, which mesmerized me and carried me in its arms. I would travel high in the sky on the widespread wings of an eagle to the four corners of this vast land that was mine. And the strong heartbeats of my big moose-hide drum accompanied me, as did Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun, my brother the Tree and my sister Raindrop. I lived in harmony and fraternity with my environment.

All the wonderful stories of life in the forest, hunting and fishing stories, tales, legends, songs of my Algonquin elders fascinated me. I would take them all in at night by the light of a beautiful fire. I etched them in my child's mind, and once in bed, my eyes clear, I would take great pleasure in telling myself these stories again. I felt I was the heir to a great civilization, bearer of the word and tradition. My stories, mythical, came to me through the ages. I had my own place in the universe.

A long time ago, I followed my grandfather on an age-old portage route bordered by larch that were pointy like tents; the path beaten into the moss and stone by our ancestors as they made their way countless times. My old grandfather, out of respect for the spirits of our people that inhabit those parts, spoke little in the forest, and when he did speak, it was in a hushed voice, like the soft sounds of a brook in the half-light of the forest's undergrowth. At the highest point on the mountain, he stopped, his eyes and expression as sweeping as the wind, and he said:

- See how beautiful it is… You know, when we eat caribou, we are caribou. I listened, my eyes wide.

- You know, when we eat salmon, we are salmon.

Standing in front of this spectacular landscape, the old man continued in the hushed tones of prayer to recite one by one into the wind the names of all the animals and all the plants of the great forest, the rivers and the land that feed us, purify us, heal us. He thanked them wholeheartedly for their generosity toward us.

I never forgot this moment, so moving and rich. My grandfather told me that we must love and respect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat because they are sacred to humans. And now that I am myself old and wise, I tell you that we are in debt to them for beauty, poetry, and life.