Wally Rabbitskin and Jason Coonishish of Mistissini were honoured with awards at the Gala of Excellence in Chibougamau on May 6.
Wally was named athlete of the year for 1994, and Jason won an award for innovation in tourism. They were chosen from among candidates across northern Quebec.
Wally came in second of all 400-500 Canadians who entered the Boston Marathon in April. Overall, he came in 51st out of nearly 10,000 runners. His time in the tough 42-km race was 2 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
“I was pretty happy about that. It has given me a lot of confidence in myself and is going to probably motivate me to try harder in future races,” said Wally.
Sometimes spoken of as a role-model, he says, “I want to share with other people. It wouldn’t do any good co just keep it to yourself and that is part of our culture too.
“It gives me great motivation when people ask me to talk to them.” Wally’s advice to young Crees concerns “the importance of goal setting—why you need a goal to go on in life. The only way you can achieve your goals is to work hard at them.” As for Jason Coonishish, only two years ago he was fresh out of Toronto Business School. Today he runs an adventure tourism company providing employment to four guides. Together they hosted 60 European tourists last year. All 60 tourists came back for another visit.
Jason has had a chance to travel to Sweden and France to promote the tourism possibilities of James Bay. In two or three years, his company, Native Adventures, will have to double its employees to keep up with the business. Helping Jason along the way was his cousin, Charlie Iserhoff, who’s been in the bush all his life and a guide for nearly two decades.
Jason gives tourists a chance to design their own packages of one to six days in length. They can sleep over at Mistissini’s culture camp, ski-doo out to a trapline and watch a trapper at work fishing, skinning hide and so on. “I like it because it’s a way to show our culture and how we live.”
