Stanley Mission Church, est. 1860
Pictographs near Stanley Mission, SK
Pale afternoon sun perfectly backlit Joe's exhaled smoke as he paused in conversation beside a dying fire. "Yep, I'm going to be buried here...when I go," he said. Silhouetted in the dusky light cast by brown awning, he took another drag, flame temporarily obscuring his features. "Just my ashes. I want to be cremated. Religious people 'round here say, 'Why would you wanna do that!' I tell 'em 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust', says so in the Bible. They dunno what to say!" he laughed, flicking a butt into smouldering coals.
Joe is a Stanley Mission success story. After completing a college education down south, he returned to the town where he grew up. He has a secure job. He's a young grandfather, and his partner has similar training in healthcare - her position is based out of La Ronge, SK. He is well-liked, quick to laugh. He owns an monstrous truck and a jet boat—northern essentials. His story will not be told in the intermittent news coverage written by southerners, who focus almost exclusively on the various tragedies that affect the hamlet: suicides, murder. He's an ordinary guy with an ordinary life. The sort you'd take for a beer.
As we surged from the mud lot that serves as the local boat launch, crisp air infiltrated my woolen neck warmer, toque. It was an odd day—mid-November—to go for a boat ride.
Unbidden, Joe pulls up at a large rock face. Immediately apparent are several pictographs in warm terracotta colouring. He explains the illustrated scenes - a large thunderbird, a possible hunt, and a moose - along with the fact that the two differing sections were created at different times in history. We sat in relative silence as the weight of an Aboriginal presence in the area for thousands of years settled on our collective consciousness.
The purpose of our trip was to head to Nistowiak Falls, which we reached in a timely fashion. Joe had been intrigued by my interest in photographing the local church the week prior, and offered to ferry my husband and I across to the nineteenth century church, as well as the Falls, when we returned. The church cannot be reached by land, so I happily agreed; the Falls were a welcome edition just further afield. The four of us chatted congenially as we trudged up the trail in winter boots and clothing. I took the requisite pictures, and we commented on the interesting perspective a trip in winter provided. Then we headed off.
Part way back to the church Joe stopped the engine in a bay covered by a skiff of ice. An eerie trill sounding more animal than something inanimate tinkled across the water's surface—the consequence of tiny panes of ice jostling edges.
Back at the church, Joe admits that the embers are still warm because of the previous day's funeral; a woman had succumbed to a long battle with cancer. Ravens (in slightly disturbing numbers) flit back and forth in the church's attached cemetery as Joe points out the shed that used to house bodies until spring, before the advent of jack hammers and electrical cords. The graves are neatly kept, with brightly coloured plastic flowers and a mixture of Cree and English epitaphs. Several of them are covered with clear tarpaulin until the freshly disturbed earth underneath settles. It's a pleasant if stark place to have one's ashes spread, just across the way from Stanley Mission's newer location on the south side of the Churchill River where the Hudson's Bay Company set-up their post.
Close-up of Nistowiak Falls
Cree epitaph, Stanley Mission churchyard