It’s hard for me to believe that my younger brother Joe has grown up so quickly. Recently he showed up in a fancy rental car during a visit to Timmins where he was filing claims that he had prospected up the coast near Attawapiskat this winter. I’ve never seen him so happy and he had lots of interesting stories about working as a prospector out on the land.
He and several others were camped at their base in the deep wilderness in an area accessible only by helicopter. They lived in large prospector tents with much of the comforts of home. One day, while he was on his own and staking claims in the middle of the frozen forest at 30 below zero, he spotted a small group of caribou. His eyes met theirs and they lingered for a while surprised at finding company in the middle of nowhere. Joe moved towards them on his snowshoes and they let him come close and did not move away until he was only a few feet from them.
With the exploration and mining development happening up the coast it is good to see some of my people taking the opportunity to benefit from these projects. It is important that any work being done on the land on or near our traditional hunting, fishing and trapping lands must include people from the nearby First Nations.
Exploration going on up the coast is bringing new technology to my people. Not long ago Joe called me one night on the telephone. I thought he was calling from home in Attawapiskat. Surprisingly he was on a satellite phone near his base camp in the very remote wilderness near Attawapiskat. This was my first-ever satellite call and I marveled at how clear it was. He filled me in on satellite phone technology and I was happy to hear that the cost of these handy phones has gone down to somewhere between $ 1,500 to $2,000. It is still expensive to call, at around $2 a minute, but the benefits are great for my people, the James Bay Crees, who spend a lot of time out on the land in extremely remote places. The other thing that surprised me was that the satellite phone technology has evolved to the point where the actual phone is no bigger than a cell phone.
Apparently, all you do is point the phone in the general direction of the satellite, power it up, dial your call and talk to anybody in the world who has a phone. I have no doubt that these battery-powered satellite phones will someday replace the old-fashioned bush radios that most people take with them out on the land. The new satellite phone technology will make trips out on the land a lot safer.
When Joe showed up to visit he had another interesting piece of technology with him. He was excited to introduce me to the wonderful world of the Global Positioning System (GPS). I was amazed at how accurate his little hand-held GPS was. It was able to pinpoint my location on the planet to longitude and latitude and to within a few feet of where I stood. It also had a map of the region which allowed us to see our location on a map at any given time and to plot a course.
As a matter of fact my brother Joe and my youngest brother Paul plotted a course on the GPS and then in a blinding blizzard rode their snowmobiles from Attawapiskat to the family camp on Akamiski Island. All they had to do was keep an eye on the GPS, which directed them and kept them on course as they could see only several feet in front of them.
Amazingly, they arrived just a few feet away from the camp.
I imagine that many of our Elders are in awe at this technology and I am happy that the prices are coming down so that First Nation people who live in remote First Nations and travel far out into the land will be able to afford these new products that will make life safer and easier for my people.
