Spitting in public and other vacation highlights

My vacations always turn out to be a learning experience for me – thankfully, usually for the better.

This past summer during one of three visits to the Niagara area I discovered that the first person to survive a plunge over the mighty Horseshoe Falls was a woman – Annie Edson Taylor – a schoolteacher from Bay City, Michigan. On Oct. 24, 1901 – Annie’s 46th birthday – her first words after being pried out of her barrel were: “Nobody ought ever to do that again!”

Like most people, I am drawn to such daredevil stunts since about the riskiest thing I do these days is ride my bicycle without a pant clip.

As I stood listening to the roar of the Falls one evening, I tried to picture the largest-ever assembly of North American Indian leaders -- historians say at least 2500 of them -- that took place somewhere nearby in late July, 1764. During that summit Britain’s representative presented wampum belts to the leaders of the 24-nation Western Great Lakes Confederacy to seal a treaty of peace and friendship. That ceremony reinforced the previous year’s Royal Proclamation, in which the British Crown recognized that the First Peoples of North America were nations, and that they were to live “unmolested in their lands.”

Then I wondered how long it would have taken those 2500 chiefs to get through the lineup at the 175-foot-high Ferris wheel that overlooks the Falls. The Anishinaabe called Niagara Falls “the crooked place”, which seems to have present-day resonance in reference to the two casinos that operate there.

One of my summer visits was to participate in the 3rd annual meeting of First Nations economic development officers. Dawn Madahbee and her Waubetek Business Development Corporation crew from Birch Island played a key coordinating role in an event which attracted 150 participants from across Ontario.

The conference opened with a presentation by Whitecap Dakota First Nation, a 4900-acre community located 26 km. south of Saskatoon. Whitecap is a textbook case of what First Nations can achieve when they use good governance and visionary leadership to build onto a firm cultural foundation.

Leveraging partnerships with neighbouring First Nations and corporate interests, Whitecap operates the Dakota Dunes Golf Links, casino, and hotel complex that attracts 1.4 million paying customers into the community each year. Not bad for a First Nation with an on-reserve population of just 308!

The creation of an $80-million economy and 700 jobs has resulted in unemployment diving from 67% to 18% in the past 15 years. In 1993 there were 87 social assistance cases in the community; today there are 20.

In this kind of economic environment, residents don’t object to paying property taxes for their private-ownership homes.

I took some teasing when I asked organizers to provide me with an old-fashioned overhead slide projector for my presentation about the importance of communication in promoting First Nations economies. “That’s an antique!” the conference emcee quipped.

I chuckled to myself when he had to hum a tune to fill in the agenda gap created when a keynote speaker’s powerpoint presentation crashed.

One of my vacation highlights was a chance to spit in public near Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Browsing in the Peller Estates Winery gift shop, I decided to purchase a highly-recommended bottle of “Ice Cuvee” – they’re not allowed to call it Champagne for fear of another French Revolution. I wanted to have some idea of what it tasted like, but I’m a teetotaler.

No problem, said the polite young gentleman pouring free samples at a kiosk in the centre of the shop. He offered me a flute-glass full of the chilled bubbly, and handed me a sterling silver beaker. I swirled a mouthful, then discharged it into my shiny spittoon.

For some reason this ritual reminded me of former U.S. president Bill Clinton. He confessed to smoking marijuana, but not to inhaling any; I can now admit to drinking wine without swallowing a drop.

Speaking of politicians, most of us across North America are in the midst of one of those silly seasons we call election campaigns.

I urge you to get involved – research party platforms, pose questions to candidates, then vote early and vote often!

Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He serves as director of communications for the Union of Ontario Indians and editor of the Anishinabek News.