Earthquake? Moose Factory?

There's been an earthquake in southern Ontario, and for some reason Moose Factory and Moosonee have come up in the talk. I don't know why because. But this brings back memories, and here they are:


Through marriage (my oldest sister's) I'm "related" to Jonathan Cheechoo (NHL hockey player). My brother-in-law Roy (same last name) is his uncle (something like that). I've been to Moosonee and Moose Factory twice on family visits (they've since moved to North Bay). We'd park the car at Cochrane and ride the Polar Bear Express (train) up to Moosonee. It was a different world for a painfully white Mennonite family. We'd go to "Chilly Willy's" for ice cream, sing hymns in the full gospel church, and have boat rides in these crazy long and wide cedar canvas square back canoes powered by Johnson outboard motors (Some guys would put two 20 hp engines side by side to get more zip - it was a pretty big summer tourist industry, boating people across the Moose River from Moosonee to Moose Factory and back again.). My brother-in-law took us up the river to the mouth of James Bay in his blue canoe with the new 20 hp Johnson. My mom hung on - white-knuckled. We picnicked on the rocks up there. Roy told us stories of the Spring Goose hunt, and about bears. Mom was happy to get back into the boat and head back. Good times. 

I bought the coolest leather headband with the letters M-O-O-S-O-N-E-E on it. You'd have to walk around me to read it. I thought it was so cool. It'd probably be a little inappropriate to wear it today, but for a white kid in the 70s a headband made by an Indian in Northern Canada ... whoa! I'm going to go hunt for it right now I think. That and those crazy pictures of me and my 'fro. (No pictures of this exist. I'm sure of it ... where's my lighter?)


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