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Richard Van Camp
I like listening to the elders. They’re quiet and don’t yell or get
excited. I bring them strawberries when they’re ripe in July, or rab-
bits for stew. This one lady I go see, her name is Seraphine Evans.
She is Cree. She told me a story about a man who grew up in town,
they called him Skinny, He was real ugly and nobody wanted to
hang around with him cuz he had a gimpy leg, he kinda wobble
around town and every body steer clear of him. Well, I guess some-
thing happened to him that made him handsome and he got lots of
women. Seraphine say women would follow him around in packs
and he was good at cards. He’d win almost every time and that’s
how he made his living, he didn’t have to trap or hunt, he just played
cards and laughed with the ladies. Well one day, Seraphine told me,
this man, all sharp looking, came to talk to him and say two words.
He say, “It’s time.” and Skinny, he get all sick right away and fall
down. That sharp man, he just walk away and Skinny start wailing,
“NO! NO! NO!”
Well the nuns had to look after him at the Hostel and Skinny
died that night, but before he died, he asked to be blessed by the
Bishop and when the Bishop give him his last rites, he say Skinny
get this look in his eyes, like he was looking into hell and he throw
up lots and lots and he throw up frogs and these frogs hop up the
Nuns’ legs and they run around the room til the Bishop opened the
door and Skinny, he died.
“Poor poor Skinny,” Seraphine say over and over. “Poor poor
Skinny.”
I show Seraphine my pictures and tell her I’m gonna draw Skinny
one day seeing Hell and puking frogs and she wink at me and thank
me for the rabbits.
It’s stories like that keep me going: It keep the Dene going too.
Everyone has time for a story and once you tell one, you usually get
a storytelling party going and that’s just fine with me. It’s better
than tv and it makes me feel good.
1 got a book from the school library. It’s called When the World
Was New. It was written by a Slavey elder named George Blondin.
He’s from Fort Franklin, that’s way up north, real cold and the trees
are so skinny, look like they were burnt and are trying to make a
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I like listening to the elders. They’re quiet and don’t yell or get
excited. I bring them strawberries when they’re ripe in July, or rab-
bits for stew. This one lady I go see, her name is Seraphine Evans.
She is Cree. She told me a story about a man who grew up in town,
they called him Skinny, He was real ugly and nobody wanted to
hang around with him cuz he had a gimpy leg, he kinda wobble
around town and every body steer clear of him. Well, I guess some-
thing happened to him that made him handsome and he got lots of
women. Seraphine say women would follow him around in packs
and he was good at cards. He’d win almost every time and that’s
how he made his living, he didn’t have to trap or hunt, he just played
cards and laughed with the ladies. Well one day, Seraphine told me,
this man, all sharp looking, came to talk to him and say two words.
He say, “It’s time.” and Skinny, he get all sick right away and fall
down. That sharp man, he just walk away and Skinny start wailing,
“NO! NO! NO!”
Well the nuns had to look after him at the Hostel and Skinny
died that night, but before he died, he asked to be blessed by the
Bishop and when the Bishop give him his last rites, he say Skinny
get this look in his eyes, like he was looking into hell and he throw
up lots and lots and he throw up frogs and these frogs hop up the
Nuns’ legs and they run around the room til the Bishop opened the
door and Skinny, he died.
“Poor poor Skinny,” Seraphine say over and over. “Poor poor
Skinny.”
I show Seraphine my pictures and tell her I’m gonna draw Skinny
one day seeing Hell and puking frogs and she wink at me and thank
me for the rabbits.
It’s stories like that keep me going: It keep the Dene going too.
Everyone has time for a story and once you tell one, you usually get
a storytelling party going and that’s just fine with me. It’s better
than tv and it makes me feel good.
1 got a book from the school library. It’s called When the World
Was New. It was written by a Slavey elder named George Blondin.
He’s from Fort Franklin, that’s way up north, real cold and the trees
are so skinny, look like they were burnt and are trying to make a
249
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