MEET KAAREN OLSEN DANNENMAN OF TROUT LAKE

Real Name: Kaaren Olsen
Nicknames: Ma’iinkan
From: Anton Beach, Trout Lake
Occupation: Mother/Grandmother/Activist/Leader/Teacher/Student/Trapper/Doula/Healer
Hobbies: Photography, crafts, construction, walking, canoeing, skiing, snowshoeing, hard physical labour

I come from a land where the wind blows freely and cleanly and smells of balsam fir. I drink the water from the lake and it feeds me and takes care of me. The shores are full of the stories of my people and the land teaches me how to live.

How this Insight Portrait of Trout Lake came to be:
Article: “Trout Lake trapper wants to educate not litigate”.from (Ontario Birchbark: Special Section providing news from Ontario)(Kaaren Olsen Dannenmann)

The mobile made out of the dew claws of the caribou hangs over the table in the cabin on Trout Lake, a cabin that has become the focus of a struggle between the Ontario ministry of natural resources (MNR) and the Namekosipiiw Anishinaapek, the descendants of the people who once lived on this land in northwestern Ontario.

The caribou was killed during one of the summer gatherings that bring growing numbers of people of Trout Lake together every year, to “remember” themselves, in the words of Kaaren Olsen Dannenmann, who teaches traditional skills and the ancient ways of living in the forest and on the lake. The mobile made out of the dew claws of the caribou hangs over the table in the cabin on Trout Lake, a cabin that has become the focus of a struggle between the Ontario ministry of natural resources (MNR) and the Namekosipiiw Anishinaapek, the descendants of the people who once lived on this land in northwestern Ontario.

This Insight Portrait was painted by Sandy with syllabics added by Kaaren as part of her awareness campaign to tell the story of Trout Lake.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE TROUT LAKE FOREST?

A note from Kaaren:

I am beginning this… with a letter that my late brother Harald Einar Olsen wrote to MNR

almost 9 years ago. The letter summarizes for me what the land means to us as individuals

and as the community of NamekosipiiwAnishinaapek.

April 30, 1998

My trap line encompasses an area north, west and through Namekosipiink (Trout Lake);

its boundaries are, to the west, along a ridge we call Pinesiwachiink, north around

Kiishaanisaaka’ikan and Pipoonisaaka’ikan and then easterly around Teshkanisaaka’ikan

and Waapisheshiwisaaka’ikan as far as Waapamikosaaka’ikan and then southwesterly

through Makwanii’ikanikaank and across the lake, back to Pinesiwachiink.

This area is only a small part of the territory traveled and occupied by my mother and her

people. My grandfather Tetipayaash had an overland trail from Chiipayisaakiink (Jackfish

Bay) to Memekweshisaaka’ikanikaank (Mamaquash Lake). This was part of their family

winter and trapping area. The extended families traveled, hunted and trapped along every

creek and river system along the way, a corridor of at least 20 kilometers in width. All

along the shores of these rivers and lakes are sites of villages that usually numbered

about 25 people. One site at Kaaminitikwaashkiikaak, for example, where my mother

was born in 1922, the numbers were over 100. The people moved about, the village

membership ever-changing, the numbers fluctuating with the seasons.

My great-grandfather Kiishik, who negotiated the Trout Lake Treaty, called the area of my

trap line, RL#58, his home. He buried his father Chiiyaan on the shores of Shkaantakaa’osaaka’ikan

(Nungessor Lake). He and my great-grandmother are buried in the cemetery at

Kochichiiwaawankaank on Trout Lake, as are my grandparents and my father.

My great-grandfather belonged to the Caribou Clan. He had eight sons, one daughter and 50

grandchildren, one of whom is my mother, one of three still living. In my own generation,

I know more that 127 cousins, brothers, and sisters, with more and more finding their way

back here from all over North America, having been adopted out during the 50’s, 60’s, 60’s.

The next generation already numbers more than 244, and it is these people and their children

that are coming out to Trout Lake to learn their history.

My summers are spent on the waters of Namekosipiink; the fall, winter and early spring months

are spent in the forests and inland waters on my trap line. Every year, I use different trails – trails

hundreds of years old, medicine taps on ancient tree stands, birches still standing with the bark

peeled off, mounds where camps once stood and flourished. When I relate my findings to my mother,

she verifies it all and tells me a lot more.

In the cast storehouses on the memories of my mother and other Elders and sacred teachers is

information that is more valuable to us that any other. Every square foot of the land was known

and occupied. The foods from balsams, birches, ashes and other hardwoods, from the shrubs and

water plants are plentiful in this forest area. Some medicines can only be found in certain swamps

here, some only in the old growth spruce forests. These places are sacred to us.

My time out here is more than for economic reasons in hunting and trapping and fishing. It is time

of constant spiritual renewal, growth and rebirth, through, not only my daily activities, but in personal

rituals and the sacred ceremonies of my people.

My family’s history us firmly entrenched and rooted in this area that you call the Trout Lake Forest.

On the basis of our hereditary rights, which are confirmed by Treaty, recognized and protected by

the Constitution Act, I want NO CUTTING on my trap line.

With this letter, I am requesting that the LCC and MNR take the necessary steps to ensure the

protection of this forest area from any timber harvesting plans.

Yours truly,

Harald Olsen

Trout Lake, Ontario

Quote:

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children. Sitting Bull