Gord was all smiles now and seemed very anxious for what was to follow.  It soon became apparent that there was going to be a very noisy exit from the church.  Most all the men had their high power rifles and a few shotguns with them!  When the bride and groom finally emerged form the church there was a blast of firing guns that sounded like the start of World War Three.

Gord’s wife, Isabelle told of one wedding that she did not attend but was at the local Royal Mounted Police Station on some business, talking with the new Mountie in town.  Suddenly, from across the river, all the shooting started.  She said the Mountie reached for his pistol and wondered what all the shooting was.  He was relieved to find it was just a local wedding celebration.  I think the custom also provides a lot of incentive for the men to attend these weddings.

Back on the town side of the Churchill River we waited for the local “feast” to start.  During this time, Isabelle and Gord escorted us on a tour of their new school and hockey facility.  The school had been open only one year and was as modern as any school in the States.  Gord’s mother had been a councilor for the Stanley Mission Band for 25 years and obviously very well thought of in the community, for they had names the school after her.  Gord then took us on a tour of their new hockey rink.  Again, as fancy as any in the States and better than most.  The whole community had donated for this facility, averaging over a thousand dollars per family.  They really love their hockey in Canada, even the Indians.

At the feast, Harry and I were seated at the guest of honor table with other out-of-town relatives.  We were treated with so much courtesy.  We met Gord’s father.  After his wife had died he had remarried a younger woman.  It was interesting to find that he was a Chippewyan (now Dene) from up around Stony Rapids.  He had come south and married a Cree woman and made Stanley Mission his new home.   A hundred years ago the Cree and Chippewyan were bitter enemies and just as likely to shoot one another if by chance meeting in the wilds.

The main course was (what else??) moose meat and was quite good.  The orchestra played and especially the women would dance solo jigs.  Although Isabelle is a very stout lady, no one could match her jig dancing, she was incredible agile.  A couple elderly drunk Indians wandered about the hall, a stark reminder of the significant alcohol problem among the Indians.  No fuss was made over them and they eventually disappeared and probably served a good purpose for the younger folks to see how bad alcohol is for them  The community is by law, “dry”, but obviously there is not 100% compliance.

We departed Stanley Mission feeling we had just experience something very special!!!  We stayed the night in Prince Albert and had an uneventful trip back to Boulder.  That is, if you do not count having a deer dart out of the ditch and crash into the side of the truck.  Stopping to survey the damage, we were surprised to find not a dent anywhere, but I was missing a hub cap that we never could find.  The deer disappeared as well.