We were never hungry

Dorothy grew up in the Fisher River Cree Nation and lived there until the age of 22 when she left to get married. Now 72 years old, Dorothy lives in Winnipeg where her activities include sewing, cooking, story-telling and teaching Cree in schools. At the age of 65, Dorothy decided to go to university because she was curious about Cree grammar. Although Dorothy now lives in the city and buys most of the things she needs, her life was once very different.

When she was younger Dorothy spent a lot of time helping her mother and grandmother in their gardens. "We used to be so sick of picking bugs and weeding but we had to do it," she says. As a result, "We ate good all winter." Dorothy's family grew cucumbers, radishes, pumpkins, beans, melons, peas, marrow, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, turnips, beets, cabbage, and corn. They also went out and picked cranberries, raspberries, blueberries, moss berries, Saskatoons, and strawberries, and made jam and pickles. Each fall Dorothy's father would kill a cow so all winter, whenever they needed a piece of meat, they would just go out and cut one from the carcass hanging in the log warehouse. They used fresh cow's milk to make butter, cream, and cheeses, and raised chickens for eggs and meat at least until the weasels beat them to the chickens. Sometimes they'd have treats like baked muskrats, baked rabbits, homemade noodles, or rabbit stew and dumplings. Dorothy's childhood was filled with lots of very good food.

In their life they found a way to use everything. Dorothy's mother would boil the head of the cow and make head cheese. Without a TV or many toys, they made their own fun. They'd get cardboard boxes from the store and go sliding in the winter. Dorothy's mother made slips, panties, sheets, and pillowcases from old flour and sugar sacks. Their house was a log house and it was heated with wood cut down from the land around them.

One of Dorothy's favourite memories is summer trips with her grandmother. They would canoe and camp along Lake Winnipeg for up to a month at a time. "These days when we go to the lake we take so much stuff but then we hardly had any food but we weren't hungry," Dorothy says. She and her grandmother would pick roots and moss berries and Labrador Tea and one time Dorothy remembers collecting seagull eggs and eating fried eggs for supper. When Dorothy thinks back on her childhood she says, "We were never hungry, I can say that."

These days Dorothy isn't hungry either but her food doesn't come from the land around her anymore. Nor do most other things she uses in her daily life. "Today we buy everything." Although she eats many of the same kinds of food she ate when she was a girl her food travels a lot further to reach her. "Before we were able to go out to the garden and make radish, cucumber and boiled potatoes sandwiches with raw onion. Now I'd have to go to the store to get that. When I was young my mother even had to make the bread because you couldn't go to the store and buy it."

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