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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #106, November/December, 1999. Related articles
from this issue: |
Blending
the Old and the New by David Hertzler |
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“The old toys are coming back!” Twelve-year-old Mike grins and flips his Yo-Yo at me. “Old toys. Like the Yo-Yo,” he says. When Mike is home, he watches TV, as do most of his friends. But this weekend he is at a family camp hosted by his church, Weagamow Evangelical Fellowship. Here at the campsite there is no TV, no video games, no four-wheelers, no power toys. Only the Yo-Yo, and a soccer ball which keeps Mike and his friends happy for hours of ball tag.Mike’s parents are also enjoying their break from the distractions of modern technology: no phones, no radios blaring, no trucks roaring past. This is a weekend to refresh body, soul and spirit, to rebuild family life that is constantly under attack. Most of the family tents in camp are made of synthetic fabric, lightweight and rain-proof. But the tent that gets the most attention is a large one made of canvas, belonging to Mike’s grandparents. Next to it is a traditional tipi-shaped structure made of pine poles and chinked with moss, open at the top. The moss is drying up and falling out. So, the family covers it with a reinforced plastic tarpaulin and uses the building as a cookhouse. A similar but smaller structure further up the hill is taken over by Mike and his friends. Imitating their elders, they find an abandoned piece of foam-backed carpet to cover their “hut.” Someone has brought a guitar. Several times a day we sit around a central campfire to sing and discuss themes from the Bible. Meals vary, from store-bought bacon and eggs to garden grown stir fries to fresh-caught lake trout boiled in a large, black pot. All are cooked over open fires and washed down with either tea or coffee. Pastor Arnold Flett is recovering from open heart surgery. Although he has needed to return to the village to conduct a Saturday afternoon wedding, he too is feeling refreshed by this weekend away. “My grandfather did a lot of hunting and fishing,” he says. “And gardening. He had a very large garden in which he grew food for the winter.” “My father got busy with jobs that came in, such as carpentry or the fish plant, and didn’t have as much time for the old ways. It was that way with many of his generation.” “For my generation, a weekend away often means a trip to the city. But some of us are going back to the bush for recreation. I see more families going for weekend campouts. I’m trying to learn to do that myself.” I ask him what is bringing this change. “I think each generation craves something new,” he says. “For my father’s generation it was the new technology. My generation is already getting bored with technology. For us, the old ways are becoming a new form of recreation.” “And a healthy one,” I think, remembering Mike and his Yo-Yo. A strong wind is whipping up whitecaps on the lake. It is not safe for canoes. We will need a strong aluminum boat with a 25-horsepower outboard motor to get us back to the village. Modern technology is here to stay, sweetened by the best of the older traditions. |
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