Birch bark canoe building fosters knowledge of traditional Algonquin culture
If you walked through the college library at any point between Nov. 3 and Nov.14, you may have noticed an unexpected sight — a man working on a birchbark canoe.
That man is Chuck Commanda, knowledge keeper and master canoe builder. Commanda is Algonquin from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation outside of Maniwaki, Que.
The canoe, completed on Friday after almost two weeks of work, was built in the traditional Anishinaabe method using birch bark. Commanda was commissioned to build the canoe to coincide with the launching of two new Indigenous studies programs at the college.
Commanda has built dozens of canoes over his lifetime and is involved with the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ont. The experience has helped him see the canoe as an important symbol of how Canada was founded, acting as a bridge between Indigenous Canadians and Europeans.
He believes that without the canoe, Canada would have developed at a much slower pace.
“When Champlain got here, he took a ship and he came up the St. Lawrence,” Commanda said.
“But he couldn’t get any further than what they refer to as the Lachine Rapids, which was just east of Montreal. And so, how do you explore more in the country? By befriending the Algonquin people, because it would have been the eastern part of our territory. And they had the canoes. And because he (Champlain) was able to do that, well, that’s kind of what started the Hudson’s Bay Company.”
For Commanda, who already has eight more upcoming canoe builds that he has been commissioned for, upholding this kind of traditional knowledge is one small step in reviving parts of Algonquin culture that were lost through historical assimilation policies such as residential schools.
Commanda’s grandparents, who spoke Algonquin, raised him until the age of six and so he had been fluent in the Algonquin language from a young age.
When Commanda started going to school in town, he had to quickly learn to communicate in English and French or else face ridicule. He eventually lost the use of the Algonquin language over time.
“It wasn’t considered cool to speak the language, and there was fear of beatings passed on from older people, so that’s how you lost it,” said Commanda.
Besides traditional canoe building, Commanda is aiding in the restoration of lost customs in other ways. He’s an executive board member of the Ginawaydaganuc (pronounced Jin-away-dag-a-nuk) Village, a non-profit organization aiming to promote and restore historical Algonquin knowledge.
The organization has plans to build a full “village” just outside Ottawa, with an elders’ teaching lodge and an educational/tourist centre, complete with accommodations and academic spaces for classes on everything from canoe building and social entrepreneurship to traditional cuisine and building methods.
Commanda sees events such as this, along with the opening of new Indigenous studies programs at the college, as a solid step in reconciling the harms of the past.
“I think the biggest client for canoe builds is the Catholic school board at this point,” Commanda said.”
“You can only assume the reason why that is, is maybe they’re trying to right the wrongs.”
The canoe will eventually be put up for display inside the college once a location is determined for it.
