Dechinta | In the Bush: Northern Harvesting and Land-based Learning

I am standing on the back of a wood sled that’s being pulled behind a snowmobile. We’re crossing a one-kilometre portion of Tı̨ndeè | Great Slave Lake from Mackenzie Island to one of the back lakes just north. It’s April. The lake is frozen; the ice is about eight-feet thick. Breakup will start in a few weeks. Until then, the ice roads and snowmobile trails allow folks to travel for spring hunting. On this day, we’re heading out for muskrat. John Crapeau has been a bush professor for Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning since 2019. Dechinta is an Indigenous-led, land-based education organization that is dedicated to creating a future of Indigenous cultural revitalization through a reconnection with the land. We are in John’s home territories. He’s driving the snowmobile that I’m being pulled behind. His two nephews sit behind him, a Dechinta student—a young mom from Fort Simpson—and her daughter sit in the sled upon a foamy and wrapped in thick blankets. I feel exposed standing on the thin wood extension off the back of the sled with not much to hang on to, but two handles. If I lose my footing, I’ll fly off the sled, there’s no question. My son, Luka, is in a sled being pulled behind another Dechinta bush professor. He’s bundled up with the children of other Dechinta students and staff.  

I’ve ridden on a snowmobile a couple of times, but this is my first time standing at the back of the sled. I remember the first time I attended a Dechinta course as a guest instructor in 2018. Luka was less than a year old then. We were gathered on the lake shore just as a Dechinta staff member was arriving with his son literally in tow. There was three-year-old Antwon standing on the back of the sled. His body effortlessly absorbed every bounce and skid. He had a huge smile on his face and even managed to wave to us, much to the delight of his dad and everyone watching.  

I feel stiff and nervous compared to my memory of Antwon. I’m worried about falling. At the same time, I want Luka to see me on the sled. I want him to see me trying something new and attempting to build my bush legs, so to speak. Bush legs like Antwon’s: steady, strong, comfortable with the shifts in the land and the surface of the ice on the lake, prepared for what the trails ahead might bring.  

Once John starts ripping across the lake, he doesn’t look back. The first stretch is straight and fast. My hands grip the handles through my thick mitts. I stagger my feet and soften my knees to absorb the bumps. My body weight shifts forward and back as John slows down and accelerates. A few minutes in and it is proving to be a full body workout staying upright and attached to the sled. John stops once we get to the shoreline and we wait for the rest of the snowmobiles to catch up. I adjust everything—my hat, my mitts, my stance. The wind is cold, and it cuts through all the layers that I’m wearing.  

We head into the bush with the rest of the group. The snowmobile trail is about a metre wide. It weaves around trees and through willow brush. It rides like a kid’s rollercoaster. It’s fun; there’s only a slight hum of potential danger. I duck below tree branches that are like clotheslines across the trail and, on tight corners, I lean into the turn to help keep the sled upright.     

I grew up in the city and on the coast: Victoria, BC, to be exact. I didn’t grow up riding snowmobiles, cutting fish, setting nets or traps, fixing muskrat or caribou. Dechinta has played a big part in facilitating my reconnection to the land, and the Dene Elders and bush professors have played an even bigger part in teaching me and many others through living the Dene Laws. I have brought my son to Dechinta programming four times. Dechinta’s family-centred approach means that students, staff, and faculty can bring their children to camp. This past winter semester, Luka was four years old and the most independent he’s been at camp since we started coming. He was fully emersed in the Dechinta programming geared at the young learners.  

A typical day in a Dechinta course is a mix of classroom time facilitated by Dechinta faculty and time on the land led by the bush team, Elders, and bush professors. At one of our April courses, after a morning in the classroom tent, everyone goes out to check the fishnet that was set under the ice. We take turns breaking the ice that formed over the hole. We use a long metal pole-like ice chisel. One end is pointed, the other end has a rope on it that you put around your wrist so as not to lose it once it breaks through the ice. The first few times we checked the net, we watched the bush professors—long-time Dene harvesters—do all the chisel work. Now that we’ve seen how it’s done, we take turns trying. A couple kids try; then a young woman asks to have a turn. She pounds the ice with a confident, rhythmic motion. A murmur of approval ripples through the Elders present. They reward effort with positive words of encouragement and nods of approval. It’s a kind and gentle coaxing performed by the Elders that has a way of bringing out the best in students and kids. In return, the Elders get to see young people’s confidence grow over the days we share out on the land.  

The kids help fish out the rope attached to the net, and we begin to pull it out of the water. Everyone hoots with excitement when they see a fish in the net. Once the net is all the way out, we start collecting the fish. I try releasing a frozen, wriggling fish from the tight nylon strands of net that are caught in its mouth and gills and corseting its whole body. “Grab hold of the gills, like this,” says Brenda, the camp cook, her middle and index finger deep in gills on each side of the fish’s head. “Then you can pull it through the net like this,” she shows me. I use her technique from therein out.  

After setting the net, I watch Luka race back to the hole: “Can I drop the rock in?” he asks. I realize then that he has learned the different steps. He knows that after we set the net, the next step is to drop a rock that is tied to the net through the hole and into the water. The rock holds the net open below the ice. It was a subtle remark, but it stood out to me because it exemplifies the grace of experiential learning. For Dechinta, it’s a simple equation: bring people together, teach by example, and learn to open ourselves to be guided by the land, Elders, and Dene ethics.  

We help carry the fish and tools back to the classroom tent. Bush professor Irene Sangris is ready and waiting. Her workbench is set up. There’s cardboard on the tabletops, rubber gloves, and an array of sharpened knives. We watch as she begins filleting a fish. We listen as she shares the Wiìliìdeh names. T'áncháy Redvers, a Dene / Métis two-spirit creative and facilitator, is a guest instructor for the course. They share a memory of watching their mom and auntie’s hands as they cut fish. They say that hands remember. I slide the knife along the fish’s spine and begin following the ribs down towards the belly. The knife tip lightly tip-taps against the fish’s thin rib bones; its like playing a tiny xylophone.  

After lunch, we meet outside to practice setting the traps we use for the muskrat. We are circled around John, kneeling in the snow. John, who has likely set traps like this since he was a kid, teaches us by doing it again and again in front of us. No talking, no explanation. He just keeps setting the traps at varying speeds as we watch. His hands move with ease. With a light flick of his finger, he rests the pin on the trigger, holds it up to show us, then places it on the ground and uses a stick to snap it closed. It’s our turn to try.   

I am anxious. I watch the others. There’s lot of giggling and jokes as everyone handles the traps. A student hands me a trap and asks if I’d like to try. I take it reluctantly and begin prying it open. I realize almost immediately that the pin that sets the trigger is in the wrong position. To get it in the right position, I need to close the trap again, and I need to do this without snapping my fingers. I panic with the wide-open trap in my hands and start to talk louder and faster: “I don’t know what to do. Somebody, please help me.” Minowe, a sixteen-year-old Annishnabeg student and daughter of one of the faculty, takes the open trap out of my hands. She is now in the same situation that I was just in: gripping open jaws of a metal trap strong enough to kill a muskrat.  

John ends up taking it from her, and we both sigh with relief. Luka has been watching the whole thing. As I was panicking, he came and sat next to me and snuggled in close; he may have sensed that I was scared. I knew then that I had to try again to show him that I could do it, even though I was nervous. Minowe sits close to me as well. We talk through the steps as I squeeze open the trap, this time with the trigger pin in the right position. I switch hands, as John had done, set the pin and slowly release the jaws of the trap into the set position. Luka watches as I focus, as we help each other, as we laugh with relief, and as we celebrate each other’s newfound skills.  

We end the day by meeting back in the classroom tent. We’re taught how to finger knit mitten strings by Gwitchin artist and guest instructor Karen Wright-Fraser. Everyone selects the colours they want and cuts their strands. A couple students pick up the knitting motion effortlessly, others are dealing with massive knots in their yarn. Kids are coming in and out of the tent. The blast of cold spring air is a welcomed reprieve from the woodstove heat. All of us—students, instructors, children, adults, locals, visitors, born-and-raised, and returnees—are brought together by a love for the land and Dechinta has made our journey to each other possible. We tend to the fire. We sharpen knives, chop, and stack wood. We work together to set and pull net. We ride snowmobiles and cut fish. We finger knit mitten strings that will secure warm mitts to our bodies that in turn will keep our hands warm as we head out, once again, to check traps and nets, and on each other.