The first day of our Orientation was interesting and we were
warmly welcomed by the Chief and Council something that has never happened at
any previous jobs, so it was nice to have the people say they are so glad you
came. We sat at the front table with about 40 other people locals and outsiders
alike, and everyone seemed to be like old friends, even for those of us who
just met. The Vice principal for the elementary school was a man named Ralph,
who for obvious reasons to myself I thought was a white guy from Sault Ste.
Marie. Well yes Ralph is from Sault Ste. Marie, but he is Ojibwa. I know as you look at his photo I bet you
thought the same thing.
Ralph is also married to a local woman and has been happily married
and living in Sandy Lake for over 30 years. He is one of the deacons at our
Catholic Church here in Sandy and is the kindest and most generous man you will
ever meet. He and his incredible wife Areeta have children that are grown, but
they opened their home to two girls who needed a Foster home. The girls are
treated like they are their own. Ralph was telling me they took the girls all
over the US last summer.
As a Vice Principal he never gets angry, he always tries to
get to the bottom of the issues. Being a member of the community he knows about
the home situation of just about every child here so he can be very
understanding. Now you may think that it isn’t hard to know all the kids in the
community, in my last posting there was probably a total of 45 kids in the
school, in Webequie may 120. Well let’s put that into perspective. We have 3 classes
for each grade. Yup 3 Grade 1 classes, 3 grade 2 classes, 3 Grade 3 classes...and
so on. With approximately 20 in each class that close to 500 students (JK-6) we
still have Grade 7-11 at the High School. If they are not his kids, or grand kids then
they are likely his Godchildren.
From the moment of arriving he has been very open sharing
the information about student so I also can be aware of what is going on with them,
another refreshing change where you don’t find out anything until there is a
major problem.
Ralph has also been good about getting us included in many
of the community activities. During Hunting Week I chose to go home for the 9
days, and Ralph offered to include me in his charter. It cost me a total of $350
from Sandy to Red Lake, and return (Ralph has a vehicle in red lake that we
then drive to Thunder Bay.) It was an awesome deal as a ticket with Wasaya is
$768 return, and with the Charter we could bring back more than a mere 100
pounds of cargo. I was able to bring back a few totes and 2 sets of skis.
Ralph is also the head of the Running Club which I joined
and have now taken part in 4 road races here in sandy Lake, and this is extreme
cross country running if you remember the conditions of the roads here. The
hardest race was the 10 mile , yes mile not kilometer, I truly thought I was
going to die, but when I crossed the finish line ralph was there to give me a
hug and congratulate me. I did not place except in my age category 45-60 so
that felt good, I was just happy to finish.
So I have to say just with Ralph’s influence I have done
more at this reserve in 4 months than I have done in 4 years in the Web. The
people do make all the difference.
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