In Part - Fall 2008 - While in the wilderness

Camping out in the northern reaches of Ontario’s Polar Bear Provincial Park, the traditional territory of the O’Mushkego Cree, Edwin Janzen had a revelation.

“It’s easy for me to believe I’ve got control, and that makes it easy to forget about God,” admits Edwin, a third-year Media Arts student at Sheridan College (Oakville, ON). Yet living in the wilderness, subject to the unpredictability of the weather and other natural phenomena, he realized his own powerlessness. “God means more to those who know they are not in control. Nature is a strong teacher to this reality.”

In May, Edwin traveled to the Park at the invitation of Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCCO) to create a film for the First Nations people about Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination, a serious problem in the area which has caused it to also be known as Site 415. Supported by the “rapid generosity” of The Meeting House, the BIC church in Oakville, ON, he attends while at school, Edwin accepted the assignment, joining a crew from the Mushkegowuk Environmental Research Centre (MERC)—a First Nation-owned independent research agency—to study wildlife in the remote wilderness park.

Each spring, O’Mushkego Cree fly up to Site 415 to hunt geese migrating in the area.

“My main objective was to document the hunting and dissection of animals,” he says. “It is important for the First Nations people, who depend on migratory hunts for food and money, to know the risk of contamination in their natural resources.”

PCB contamination at Site 415 is due almost exclusively to an abandoned Doppler radar site, which was built before the production of the compound was banned in the 1970s. Deserted but not cleaned up, the site still houses barrels and barrels of fuels and lubricants—primary carriers of PCB—which have leaked into the water system where animals feed and nest. Footage taken by Edwin will be used to create a film to teach First Nation children about the ways to avoid human PCB poisoning through careful harvesting and cooking of potentially infected animals.

Participating in this project required much traveling on Edwin’s part: leaving his home in Niagra-on-the-Lake, Edwin took a train to Timmins, ON, and then a small passenger plane with room for less than a dozen people to the site. He recalls, “When we arrived at the site we assembled a hunting tent—a temporary shelter with a tarp roof, walls made of large wood planks, and a stove for heat and cooking.”

Edwin stands outside of his tent following a day of filming a hunt.

During the trip, Edwin enjoyed a variety of new and interesting dishes—courtesy of his hunter-companions. “I got to eat things that I had never tried before,” Edwin says. “Partridge, goose, and caribou—a delicious treat for me!”

Although Edwin admits that he and the men he camped with didn’t initially have a lot in common, a bond eventually developed. “It was an opportunity to meet new people and learn about what they were doing,” Edwin says. “In comparison to them, I was a city boy, and I was given plenty of interesting things to watch.”

While Edwin watched and learned from these men, he knew they were probably watching him, too. “They knew I was a Mennonite Christian,” Edwin explains, so he tried to demonstrate his faith in very practical ways. “What I wanted, and purposefully pursued, was to be as helpful, positive, and enthusiastic as I could as a volunteer, a representative of MCCO, and—most of all—Christ.”

Abandoned buildings and satellite dishes still mark the location of Site 415, where stores of PCB threaten to contaminate surrounding wildlife and the people living off of it.

Edwin and his two MERC companions also had an opportunity to work and learn alongside several First Nations people who’d come to the park to hunt during the spring goose migration. Edwin found himself humbled as Christ was modeled to him by the very people he was serving. “This group of O’Mushkego men exhibited qualities of Christ that put me to shame,” Edwin says. “They welcomed me—a complete stranger—and were gracious, without any resentment or reserve.”

Following Edwin’s return from his assignment at Site 415, he’s found himself continuing to come to a fuller grasp of his time there. As he puts it, “My experience with the people I met in Mushkegowuk country and the complexity revolving around the issues of treaties, land claims, and poverty compel me to turn to the simple way of Jesus.”

WELCOME