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00:00Here we are on Lenox Island First Nation!
00:07Here on the west shore of Malpec Bay, Lenox Island,
00:10a beautiful mix of marshland and sandy stretches of beach.
00:15For thousands of years, the abundance of berries and the bounty of seafood
00:20made it a place the Mi'kmaq considered sacred, despite its small size.
00:25Now, I say small, but I suppose size is always relative.
00:29Although, I think it's safe to say, when you're in a place where the locals refer to the mainland,
00:35they're talking about Prince Edward Island, I think you could call that small.
00:40Over the past years, Lenox Island has been highlighting the effects of climate change.
00:46As the ocean warms, it expands, and you get a higher sea level.
00:50And you guys are, much like myself in university, you're barely above sea level.
00:56Your height above sea level, according to Stats Canada, it's four meters.
01:00But on your Tinder profile, it says six.
01:04When you grow up in a small town in Newfoundland,
01:07you see the people have a sense of humor about hard times.
01:10I turned that into a career and hit the road.
01:14Now I'm on a mission to find it funny in the places you least expected.
01:18Canada's struggling small towns.
01:20Towns that are against the ropes, but hanging in there.
01:23Still laughing in the face of adversity.
01:26This is Lenox Island First Nation.
01:41The Mi'kmaq of Lenox Island don't shrink away from a challenge.
01:46But the challenge nowadays is Lenox Island has been shrinking away.
01:50Higher sea levels combined with more intense storms every year means more powerful waves eroding your shoreline.
02:01The problem here with this island, the people are sweet as potato pie, but things are a little rough around
02:06the edges.
02:07I learned a lot when I met Lenox Island's natural resources manager, Tim Bernard.
02:16Tim said the island is made of sandstone.
02:19He said Lenox Island is essentially a sandbar.
02:22And if you know anything about sandbars out in the waterways, they shift, they move.
02:28You know, we have an island that's shifting constantly.
02:30The shoreline is so soft it easily erodes into the water.
02:35Lenox Island was once 1,500 acres, and now we're looking at approximately 1,200 acres.
02:40So we lost about 300 acres.
02:42I couldn't help thinking Canadians would be outraged if this happened anywhere else.
02:47Could you imagine how Canadians would feel if Lake Ontario rose enough that both Toronto and Ottawa were...
02:55Actually, that's not a great analogy.
03:00Measures are being taken.
03:02He'd like to see more living shorelines.
03:05Utilizing the planting of trees, shrubs, and grasses in order to hold the soil using the roots.
03:11Strategies have been put in place like where the new wharf is.
03:16In years past, you know, we used hard armoring methods.
03:19Putting hard surfaces like rocks to armor the shore so that it's going to take that impact of the water,
03:24the waves.
03:25So you see those rock walls.
03:27Those are protecting, amongst other things, your cemetery, which is obviously sacred ground and was at risk for erosion.
03:35That's what the problem is here.
03:37Most indigenous people I speak to, they're fighting to keep their sacred ground sacred.
03:42You guys are fighting to keep your sacred ground ground.
03:47Climate change is far from being the greatest challenge the Mi'kmaq people have faced thus far.
03:53He said our ancestors survived an ice age.
03:57We have artifacts that date our people habitating this area about 12,000 years.
04:03He said if our ancestors could see the problems we face today, they'd probably laugh at us.
04:08And as a comedian, right away, my ego was like, I wonder if they would laugh at me.
04:14I'd be like, oh, you guys survived an ice age.
04:16Tell me the truth.
04:17The ice age must have been a little bit fun, especially for the guys, right?
04:20I mean, how often do you get to go on a hunting trip with your buddies, bring a few cold
04:24spears?
04:28Tim said, you know, he wants action, but not panic.
04:31If you just hit people with a message of doom and gloom, you will scare them into inaction.
04:38You know, we talk about climate adaptation and resilience.
04:41Why sit at home worried about what could happen when you could be out there contributing to the solution?
04:46It's not climate death. It's climate change.
04:48And if there's change, well, you can adapt.
04:51Like anybody has to adapt to a changing place or a new place.
04:55Like I had to adapt when I got here.
04:57When I first got here, I loved just walking around, taking in the scenery.
05:01I walked along the roads and the sidewalks and I loved it.
05:05And then I walked along the grass.
05:09And I was immediately cannibalized by mosquitoes.
05:15And I adapted. I don't walk on the grass anymore.
05:20In the battle with climate change, a big win for the community came just last summer.
05:26Lenox Island First Nation and Abergaard First Nation, along with Parks Canada,
05:30just established a new national park reserve called Badumgeg.
05:34Badumgeg, the dune islands just north of Lenox here, became Canada's newest national park.
05:44One of the biggest reasons why our island is protected as much as it is, is because we have those
05:49dunes.
05:50That natural breakwater is suffering the same levels of erosion.
05:54The dunes themselves are suffering a higher rate of erosion than our island.
05:58They shield Lenox Island from waves and storms and erosion.
06:03And also the mainland behind it.
06:06All of PEI is sandstone.
06:08It's all that.
06:08Oh my God.
06:09Now I'm calling PEI the mainland.
06:11That's hilarious.
06:21The traditional art scene on Lenox Island is thriving.
06:24And I got a little lesson from a local master quill worker.
06:27Her art is on point and she's just quilling it.
06:31Kay Bernard.
06:36How did you get into it?
06:37It was actually an apprenticeship program through skills PEI.
06:41They hired Cheryl Simon.
06:43How did it feel when you were first introduced to it?
06:45I thought Cheryl was batshit crazy.
06:49But once I started it, it was like it was always there.
06:54Kay takes porcupine quills and then she'll dye them various different colors and stitch them into birch bark.
07:03She makes these incredibly intricate designs.
07:05It's very elaborate work.
07:07She said one of the trickiest parts is getting the quills in the first place.
07:12I don't believe in hunting animals or like, cause I'm not using the whole animal.
07:16Like I'm not going to be using it for food or nothing like that.
07:19She doesn't want to kill for the quill.
07:23Instead, she hunts for porcupines that have already crossed the rainbow bridge.
07:30Oh my god, you guys, I'm so scared.
07:32I pick up road kill on the side of the road.
07:35Are you serious?
07:36I'm serious, 100%.
07:38We make sure there's no maggots.
07:40And because there's no porcupines on Lenox Island or PEI, she's got to go to New Brunswick to find dead
07:48porcupines.
07:51I get out there and if there's guts hanging out of it, I rip it out.
07:56I do all of that myself.
07:58Were you that way before you got into quilling?
08:02No.
08:02I wouldn't even touch hamburger before I was a quiller.
08:06I was like, no, my kids will be living a hamburger-less life if that's the case.
08:11Just because, like, it's kind of grossed.
08:13I, yeah.
08:14And you obviously have very intricately done nails.
08:19I do.
08:20I get out there with my nails done, my lashes.
08:23Yeah.
08:24Dress on, whatever I'm wearing, I pick up road kill off the side of the road.
08:27Now, nothing fazes her, right?
08:29I guess you're never going to be grossed out by raw hamburger when you work with grilled porcupines.
08:36And she said after she finds a porcupine road kill.
08:40I put it in a bin and then I find the closest gas station in New Brunswick and I get
08:44out and I open up the truck and set it there and I pull all the quills out.
08:48She doesn't want to bring the whole thing home so she'll pull over at the gas station in New Brunswick
08:53and get in the back of the truck and start sitting in her truck at the Irving Big Stop plucking
08:59a porcupine.
09:01Kay said she wants to clean and sterilize the quills before she brings them into the house.
09:07When I get home I put like borax to clean all the bugs and the germs and everything and then
09:14I wash them and dry them and then I color them.
09:17When she goes shopping she's getting gloves and knives and borax and plastic bins.
09:26The poor cashier must be terrified.
09:30He's like is there anything else you need today ma'am?
09:34Die.
09:38I need die but I probably won't find it here.
09:44Kay got me started on some quilling.
09:47Like a lot of her art it centers around the eight point Mi'kmaq star.
09:51Of course it was I didn't know it was it was all new to me but she said.
09:54Quill work was so foreign to me like even culture was kind of foreign to me at first.
10:00I like because growing up I never had any of this stuff.
10:03She said my grandparents went to residential school.
10:05They didn't they didn't learn this this wasn't handed down.
10:08It opened up something in me that I just wanted more and I felt like this is what I need
10:13to be doing.
10:13And here I am teaching my kids other people in the community.
10:18So for my children.
10:20It's normal now.
10:22It's what it should be.
10:23Her kids have always been around it and she's taught it and she's been doing it for so long.
10:28It's no big deal to them.
10:30There's no wow factor.
10:31Like it's normal to see mom dequilling a porcupine outside on the step.
10:36Right right.
10:36When I'm outside and I have my pot and I'm like coloring.
10:40They'll just be like oh nice orange.
10:41That's how you know you've succeeded in bringing back the tradition.
10:46When your kids look up to you and roll their eyes.
10:50Kids take stuff for granted.
10:53Important stuff including their culture.
10:56In a way kids shouldn't ask you about their culture anymore.
11:00They should ask for food or water.
11:02They should ask you to stay in the other room because you're embarrassing them.
11:07So I have a surprise for you.
11:10My friend brought us a porcupine.
11:12No you don't have a roadkill porcupine.
11:14There is actually roadkill porcupine outside.
11:17I am not kidding.
11:19What luck.
11:22So we go out back and there's these big bins and she pulls a porcupine carcass out of the bin.
11:31Oh my god.
11:33This waft of smell just hit me like a punch in the face.
11:37On Murdoch Mysteries I've been acting like I smelled a dead body for 20 years.
11:43I've been doing it.
11:44I don't think I did it right.
11:55I had a discussion about Mi'kmaq percussion with Jigamoggan maker Jimmy Bernard.
12:06What is the name of this instrument?
12:10Jigamoggan.
12:10Jigamoggan.
12:11Yeah.
12:12The Jigamoggan, I had trouble learning that word.
12:15At first I called it a thingamajig.
12:18And then I called it a thingamajigam.
12:20And then I just shortened thingamajigamoggan to just Jigamoggan.
12:24Jimmy is an elder in the community and an artisan who weaves traditional Mi'kmaq baskets out of black ash.
12:31But he didn't even know what a Jigamoggan was up until a few years ago.
12:35My niece Julie, she came up with these.
12:38And I says, where did you get those?
12:40She bought it at a Mi'kmaq arts fair.
12:44And of course, being a man, his first question was, what did you pay for it?
12:49And it was over a hundred bucks.
12:52Wow.
12:53You got to be crazy to pay all that much money for that.
12:56It's just, I could make those.
12:58When he cuts his black ash for weaving baskets, it's about the size of one of his off cuts that
13:04he would normally throw away.
13:06So he was inspired by this.
13:08The same way that I'm inspired by the other writers on my show.
13:13You know, that thought where you're like, okay, this is material I would normally throw in the garbage, but maybe
13:18I can make something out of it.
13:20I'm just kidding, guys. I'm just joking.
13:26You know, the layers, this black ash will naturally split into these layers, but they're all different sizes.
13:32This will be a year's growth. Another year. These are all years growth.
13:38Sometimes you're going to have a good growth and you'll get a thicker strip like that.
13:43And then a lean year, you'll get a thinner one.
13:46That's one of the reasons that every Jigamagan has a unique sound.
13:50I went to school one time, and one kid come up to me and said, how come mine doesn't sound
13:55like hers?
13:56I said, does your voice sound like your mother's? No.
14:00Does it sound like your father's? No.
14:03This is the same as you and your family. Each one has just a little different sound in it.
14:10That's mostly true, although sometimes I'm almost scared by how much my voice sounds like my father's.
14:15When I talk about certain things like how today's music ain't got the same soul or back pain.
14:21When the non-indigenous people came to our lands here and the singing, the dancing and the drumming.
14:29Well, they took that all from us because in their mind, they're saying those Indians are on the warpath.
14:38When, as he says, what it was, was song trying to get the attention of the creator.
14:43It's prayer through song, which every culture does.
14:47It's no different from hymns or gospel music.
14:50Could you imagine someone being like, call the police.
14:52The Christians are getting ready for warfare.
14:54Oh my God, how do you know?
14:55I just heard them doing, will the circle be unbroken?
15:00Sometimes the circle, they'll have a big campfire in the middle of the circle.
15:05They'd have spotters, basically, who would tell them if the police were coming.
15:09When that happened, just go to the fire and they'll throw it in the fire.
15:14All they'll see is a big fire because these will catch fire and these will go real fast, right?
15:19That's not so much gospel.
15:20I think lighting your instrument on fire, that's very rock and roll.
15:25At one time you would pound this, usually with the back of an axe.
15:30Okay, yeah.
15:31But I'm 75 years old.
15:34You have to learn to work smarter, not harder.
15:38Right, yeah.
15:41Now he uses a hydraulic press, which goes to show even traditional Mi'kmaq music can benefit from a little
15:49touch of heavy metal.
15:55And when he performed for me a little bit of the Jigamuggan song.
16:02He might be 75 years old, but he can still shake that ash.
16:17A particular passion of people here on Lenox Island is making bread.
16:23Same thing with me, that's why I'm going to pass a hat now in a minute.
16:27It sounds half-baked, but I was asked to be a judge of the Big Bannock Bake Off by your
16:35Director of Culture and Tourism, Jamie Thomas.
16:42I've been working here for about 10 years.
16:44Every year we have a Maui Omi.
16:47Maui Omi represents our gathering.
16:49Big celebration here.
16:51It's the powwow on Lenox Island.
16:53When I started, we had to do meals for everybody for Sunday evening as part of, you know, welcoming them
16:59to our community.
17:00They were having difficulty trying to figure out how to feed everybody.
17:03So, again, work smarter, not harder.
17:06You have a cooking contest and suddenly everybody brings their own food.
17:11We started a Bannock competition.
17:14Bannock, it's a bread that has become very traditional in our communities.
17:17Every meal that we have in community, there needs to be Bannock.
17:22She told me how people here traditionally made Bannock.
17:26You'd build a fire on the beach, dig a hole in the sand, place the Bannock in there, cover it
17:32up.
17:33And when you pulled it out of the ground, it would look like a charred big piece of coal.
17:37You just give it a shake and a tap and it all sort of falls away.
17:40And even if there still are a few grains of sand, you could call it multigrain.
17:45There is a lot of pride and there is a lot of competition.
17:48And there is a lot of competitive nature in these folks.
17:51I'm telling you right now.
17:53And I'm supposed to judge this?
17:55It was a tough spot for me.
17:56Like, it's an intense competition.
17:58I don't know what to look for in Bannock.
18:01Nobody's going to hurt you, but, you know.
18:04I was so nervous.
18:05I was trying to get out of it.
18:06I was trying to think of an excuse.
18:07I was like, I'm going to tell Jamie I'm on the Atkins diet.
18:11I can't do it, dammit.
18:12I'm off the curbs.
18:15So this is it.
18:16This is it.
18:17A, B, C, and D.
18:22So remember, consistency, thickness, all of those things.
18:26Fluffiness, whatever you like the best.
18:28Alright?
18:31And I went and I tasted them all and they were all delicious.
18:35I was like, why would anybody eat any other kind of bread besides Bannock?
18:41I kept going back and forth and the best Bannock was always the last one I stuck in my mouth.
18:51Mmm.
18:52It's a bread contest and I'm waffling.
18:55I have decision paralysis right now.
18:59In the end, I had to pick a winner, so I picked A as winner.
19:05Oh, Jimmy Bernard.
19:06Jimmy, you made that bang!
19:08Woo-hoo!
19:10Jigamoggan Maker, Best Bannock Baker, Basket Weaver,
19:14and I'd have to say overall overachiever.
19:18At the end of the day, everybody can be a winner if we all try to be like the traditional
19:26Bannock.
19:27If we all come together and get baked on the beach.
19:43Erosion is dire, sea levels grow higher, but let's not forget what you've managed to protect.
19:49You made a National Park Reserve of Bedumaget.
20:02The Jigamoggan beats as the song carries on.
20:05Traditions come back that were so nearly gone.
20:09Like colorful quill work almost lost to time.
20:13Orbanic baked in the beach.
20:15That still blows my mind.
20:21Lenox Island First Nation has given this place your love and your blood, sweat, and tears.
20:27And the Mi'kmaq will survive here without a shadow of a doubt.
20:31You've been doing that for 12,000 years.
20:34Thanks for coming out, everybody. Have a great.
20:39Lots of love.
20:44It was fantabulous.
20:47I enjoyed it and laughed hard.
20:55I finished the quill piece that Johnny made.
20:58It's the eight-pointed star, and I framed it and added some sweet crafts.
21:07When Johnny makes Danik at home, he needs to put a lot of loving to it.
21:13Take care, guys. See you now.
21:17And I got this.
21:20Oh, it's an autograph by him.
21:23I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:24I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:25I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:25I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:25I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:25I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:25I'm going to put it in a frame.
21:25I don't know.
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