Far North Rambles #34: Table For 10
“Far North Friday”: Early on, when we started to visit with the people of Webequie First Nation, we learned that a local coffee shop (Photo 1) would gladly make us meals for a fair price. Many of those meals turned out to be a “table for 10”.
Photo 1: The local coffee shop operated by Elijah Jacob, Webequie First Nation. It was a great place to informally meet people, chat and eat. Photo by Andy Fyon, June 10, 2006.
In Webequie, local entrepreneur Elijah Jacob (Photo 2) ran the local taxi service, a small local coffee shop and "corner store", and a tourist camp in the area. I don’t remember how the discussion came about, but Elijah offered to make us meals when we visited the community - the cost? "Priceless".
Photo 2: Elijah Jacob (Webequie First Nation), in his coffee shop, with the kids who dropped by in the evening. Image by Andy Fyon, Dec 4, 2006.
This was a fabulous arrangement. We found eating meals in Elijah’s coffee shop was a great way to meet community people. When we arrived in community, and ate at the coffee shop, we quickly became known by many community people who dropped by to get a taxi, to buy coffee, tea, or a few groceries, to get warm beside Elijah’s wood stove on a cold winter evening (Photo 3), or just to chat.
Photo 3: Elijah Jacob in his coffee shop, by his wood stove, that blasted out the heat. Photo by Andy Fyon, Dec 3, 2006.
To cook the meals, Elijah generally hired a Rosalie Jacob (Photo 4), wife of Isaiah Jacob, who also worked in the coffee shop.
Photo 4: Respectfully shared: Rosalie Jacob (Webequie First Nation) wife of Isaiah Jacob cooked many of the meals in Elijah Jacob’s coffee shop, Webequie. Photo by Andy Fyon, Oct 11, 2006.
Inevitably, we invited others to join us and to share the table and food. Those meals became a time to get to know people, to chat about what was going on, to receive a language lesson, and to learn about the interests and concerns directly from the community people. It was a time to explain who we were and what we were doing in community. As the ad states - "There are some things money can’t buy" (apologies to the MasterCard ad).
The meals were always fun. We never knew who would join us. Some meals were with kids. For other meals we ate with elders (Photo 5) and every one in between.
Photo 5: Elder Josie Jacob (Webequie First Nation), having lunch with us at Elijah Jacob’s coffee shop. Elder Josie sometimes joined us for lunch after a morning meeting in the Band Office. Photo by Kristina Meade (MNDM-OGS), Date: Dec. 4, 2007.
When kids joined us, there was a lot of teasing and joking. When elders joined us, there was different kind of joking and lots of quiet listening. Elijah and Rosalie sometimes ate with us. Sometimes the food was local wild food. Many times it was “store food”. But it was about the connections.
When we traveled with other Ministry representatives who were new to the far north, we explained in advance that a large group of people might join us for meals and that was important.
One two different occasions, we had the opportunity to bring two technical - political officials from China with us on a multi-day visit to different remote First Nation communities. It was an opportunity to introduce the Chinese officials to Webequie First Nation and to our engagement and relationship-building efforts taught to us by the First Nation. I recall vividly the contrast between the indigenous relationship-building and social license approaches we were learning and trying in the context of our collaborative projects compared to the “less adaptive” approach followed by the Chinese Government. We still have a ways to go in Canada, but let me just say the approaches of China and Canada were…different!
Not every far north community had a community-based coffee shop to meet, chat, and eat. But, when we learned of such a place, we tried to share a “table for 10”. It was a great place of “street learning”.
Andy Fyon, Sept 18, 2020 (Facebook, September 18, 2020).
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