The
first time Sarah left Fort Severn it was in a Cesna 185 with skis. It took off
from the river Severn just in front of the where the Northern Store was at that
time. The plane didn't travel very fast so Sarah, who was pregnant with Tommy,
stayed over in Big Trout Lake. She arrived in Sioux Lookout the following day.
She spent more then a full month there, having left in January and returned home
on March 9th. It was very hard for her, not only; was she far away from her family
for a long time, she was also in a completely new environment.
When she
arrived she didn't know anything about Sioux Lookout. She didn't speak any english
and there was no interpreter working at the hospital. To make matters worse, she
didn't know anybody in Sioux Lookout then. Peggy Sanders would visit her often
and helped her to understand what was going on. Eventually she got back to her
home in Fort Severn with her newborn son Tommy. When she came back the second
time, she knew a little english and knew what to expect in the hospital. By her
third trip she had learned enough that she was relatively comfortable when she
came to give birth to her third son Angus. When she went to Sioux Lookout to give
birth to Angus she flew down in late September and was there for fifteen days,
much less then she had been the first time. Her son Tommy did a lot of
hunting, even when he was very young. He loved to be out on the land and to be
out of doors. He did go to school, although he always enjoyed being near nature
rather then books. He finished up until Grade Eight while living in Fort Severn.
He went to a residential school in Poplar Hill around 1986, he finished Grade
Nine here. The following year he went to Pelican Falls near Sioux Lookout, he
didn't like being away from home and returned to Fort Severn near Christmas time.
The year after that he went to Queen Elizabeth district high school, he left within
the first month and has stayed around Fort Severn ever since. He got his Heavy
Equipment operators licence and he works seasonally. He does the winter road in
the winter and drives the School bus and works for MTO in the summer. He got married
in 1994 and has two children, with a third that is coming without a doubt. He
is still very nature and hunting oriented, something which keeps him near Fort
Severn. Angus also hunts quite a bit, though not as much as Tommy did.
Also like his brother he finished grade eight in his home community of Fort Severn.
He was doing grade nine in fort severn at the same time that his brother was married
in 1994. After grade Nine he took a year off so that he wouldn't need to leave
his community so early. In 96 and 97 he attended Queen Elizabeth District high
School finishing grades 10 and 11. He took another semester off at the beginning
of the 98 school year, though he returned and did the second semester that year.
His first child was born then too, in 1998. The year after he graduated from QEDHS
and returned to Fort Severn with his child. Once back at home he worked in two
different fields, he was a guide for tourists and he also worked as the computer
technician on and off. In the beginning of 2000 his daughter was conceived and
she was born August 2000. Just before that he accepted a full-time job with K-net
doing computer type things. This is what he has been doing ever since, though
he does get out hunting now and then, and acts as a guide when the opportunity
presents itself. Fort Severn is on the tree line, meaning that the people
who live there can hunt either below it, for things like moose and muskrat or
above it for caribou and seals. Although the Fort Severn from the Hudson Bay Company
has existed for two and a half centuries, the people of Fort Severn were semi-nomadic
until very recently, around 1974. There is still a lot of game around the area
so hunting remains an important way to supplement the diets of the residents.
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