My home town is on Moose Factory Island and its name is, well, Moose Factory. This island is one of the oldest English speaking settlements in Ontario.

The island is a very unique. There are three types of districts on the island: Indian reserve, provincial and federal. I had a very interesting upbringing because of the struggles and arguments in part sourced by those who governed these districts. My father brought home a lot of the discussions that happened at work. My sister and I listened attentively hoping we could muster some type of insight or advice. We were budding politicians.

In recent decades a fourth district has emerged. It is comprised of First Peoples from a massive land area of First Nation ancestry ranging from northern Quebec to the eastern door of the Moose Cree First Nation. In fact, a lot of these people settled in tents on the island over a hundred years ago. Some of the grand children and great-grand children of those who originally set up camp still resided in tents right up to the 1980s.

I was about six years old when I first saw the remnants of the settlement. They really did live in tents, wigwams, ti-pis, and make-shift sheds. I had seen this first hand with my own eyes. My father, Ernie T. Sutherland (1955-2006) made me walk the trail to visit my friend. My friend and his family lived in housing set aside for teachers. It was like a walk through time. I was in 1984, when I was dropped off on the trail I walked back back to 1905. No power lines. No roads. No houses. I’ve seen plastic covering holes in the sides of the shelter. I think they were windows. I was approaching an elderly couple just sitting outside their tent and then they smiled at me and spoke Cree. I didn’t understand what they said to me. I was completely in awe. But I kept on; determined to watch cartoons with my friend on a television powered by a ten-foot satellite dish. When I got closer to the federal part of the island, I approached a huge twelve foot wooden fence, felt like twenty feet really. I immediately looked for a place to climb. I found a route and hopped over into the future. I was back in 1984 but a much more futuristic setting. There were asphalt roads and concrete sidewalks. It was nothing like what we had “way down” on the island. I shortly arrived at my friend’s house and we watched cartoons until we got bored.

That was my first experience in the world where we live is home to people who have, have not and have too much. This epiphany was of course hindsight but none the less an education that will live with me for the rest of my life.

Moose Factory… is definitely an experience. The tent city I once experienced no longer exists. There are now are houses in the area that shame some of the housing on the Indian reservation. Whenever I pass by there I think of that day. Seeing how far this group of people have come. I wonder how much further they will go. This group that once lived in tents now own and operate cable television and Internet services for Moose Factory and Moosonee. They also opened a very successful restaurant which developed into the Cree Village Eco-Lodge. In a way, they put Moose Factory Island back on the map. Thinking differently, taking opportunity and investing in a future full of potential changed the status for a group of people.

Change is a wonderful thing. Changing the way traditional business is done is a scary yet exciting and rewarding experience. My company offers visual communication services. Niikaan Studio offers custom designed solutions to engage public, customers and stakeholders at an emotional and cognitive level. These services will change the way aboriginal people do business. It may be scary. It will definitely be exciting. Right now there are proverbial tents riddled throughout the aboriginal business spectrum. If we work together, we can develop and transform your tent into a mansion or a sleek and modern mobile home able to circumvent the world in less than eighty seconds.

Terrence
“Mr Jabbee”