Staying With and Learning From the Mi'kmaq Nation in New Brunswick, Canada

If you are fully vaccinated, have a passport and fill out ArriveCAN paperwork, you can now travel to Canada. New Brunswick Province borders with Maine and they share a good deal: cuisine, flora and fauna, as well as the indigenous Mi’kmaq Nation.

One of their prominent bands is located in Metepenagiag, New Brunswick, with all kinds of ways to immerse yourself in their culture! That’s exactly what I recently did.

In this era of political correctness, it might seem easier to retract into one’s own clan, as it were. The Mi’kmaq made the decision to reach out to other peoples, to bridge understanding and present the worth of their traditional ways in modern times.

They have a triad of outreach points on “the reserve”: Red Bank Lodge, Metepenagiag Heritage Park and First Nations Tourism, all within a short walk of each other.

There are lots of activities and in the indigenous way, they are seasonal. For instance, I came just a touch too early in the season to experience staying overnight in a teepee with a campfire.

The lodge was plenty comfy, though: locally harvested cedar was assembled by the Mi’kmaq community. Rooms access the porch facing the Miramichi River, as well as a hot tub right under clear, star-strewn skies at night.

I went kayaking, but there was a powerful wind taking me out to the Bay of Fundy — I had to be towed to shore. Other activities include Atlantic salmon fishing, paddleboarding, making indigenous crafts — I made a deerskin rattle — snowshoeing and sampling indigenous foods.

Tribal elder Bob Patles spent time cooking in fine dining establishments and prepared freshly caught salmon roasted on hand-hewn cedar, along with wild harvested fiddlehead ferns. Later, he walked me into one of the reserve’s many cannabis shops, to show one of their revenue sources!

Metepenagiag Heritage Park has a museum with precious artifacts, examples of hand-crafted boats and a world-class movie of the history of the Nation. The Mi’kmaq’s archeological discoveries prove settlement for at least 3,000 years, but in their words, they’ve been there “forever.”

Between the museum and the lodge are beautiful trails, which I walked with tribal elder Tolley Paul. Paul is a mover and shaker in the community; he worked for the United Nations for 15 years.

He proudly showed me photos of him with notables like Willie Nelson, folk singer Buffy St. Marie and Prince Charles. Paul began introducing me to his thought process as we moved along.

The reserve is a veritable supermarket of wild food: along with salmon and fiddleheads, there’s rockfish, lobster, turtles, deer, moose, blackberries, raspberries, hickory nuts. Food is so plentiful, I was told that non-indigenous have come to them for help in times of hunger.

We came upon a hazelnut bush, which Paul observed with concern. He noted there used to be more bushes. I pointed out that he could get some cuttings and grow a whole hazelnut farm, if he liked.

“I wouldn’t do that,.” It’s not the native way to manage nature like that. “Maybe some other people would,” he conceded.

I loved talking late into the night with elders Bob and Tolley, along with Stephen Paul and Robert Augustine. I learned that the indigenous of Canada didn’t have the right to vote in federal elections until 1960!

Where were our trailblazers, including Eleanor Roosevelt, who had a cottage in the province, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, along with early civil rights activists?

The elders spoke of how when they were young, Mi’kmaq and other tribal children were removed from the home to schools run by the government and the Catholic Church. The intent was to wipe out indigenous culture and their population.

It has come to light that thousands of the children were killed and buried in mass graves. I also learned that due to a U.S. treaty from 1776, they have dual citizenship, with the right to live and work in the US.

Canada does not recognize the treaty, so Maine’s Mi’kmaq do not have reciprocal rights.

While I was in New Brunswick, I heard of the settlement between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau representing Canada and the Chief of the western Siksika tribe, Ouray Crowfoot. Negotiations for stolen land, begun in 2010, had outlasted many of the tribe.

An economist simmering with restrained anger, Chief Crowfoot addressed the insensitive questions from their MSM. They seemed amazed about the $1.3 billion CND settlement.

Wearing a suit and full headdress, the chief tartly retorted that with their land’s natural gas, minerals and prime grazing, had it been ranchers filing suit, the settlement would have been $5 billion CND.

This was an amazing glimpse into Canada’s indigenous culture, and I encourage others to follow in my footsteps!