Part of the intentions which initiated my project is to start looking at perceptions held by people in my life surrounding work with and on Native land. My father is / was an oil man, and reserve negotiations were his main area of focus for many years.
As a kid, he once brought back a pair of moccasins and some pemakin. This has stuck out a lot in my mind and am interested in exploring the relationships these gifts were born of. Below are excerpts from some emails with my father about this community. They are pretty brief.
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Dad:
The Grand Chief of the Moberly in NE BC was John Dokey, and his wife Catherine. In my experience, Chiefs are not puppets of the government and really have nothing to with them except on a low level bureaucratic way to collect the money coming into reserves. Chiefs are very often figureheads for their families, as the Chief position tends to rotate through the most important and powerful families, so they could be held in suspicion by many of the community and act only as puppets for their family.
In terms of development, things have not changed much. Well meaning companies pour money into native employment and a lot of that money gets siphoned into big native contractors (often backed by white contractors) and does not reach the grass roots very often.
xxoo Dad
From: Miss Nesbitt [mailto:miss.nesbitt@live.com]
Sent: March 18, 2010 4:53 PM
To: John Nesbitt
Subject: oil, land
hey pa
wondering if you have any images you could send me of oil rigs on the prairies?
also, could you send me the name of the chief you worked with, the one who's wife gave me the moccasins. You mentioned their names but I forgot them and am lazy to go through the tape recording right now.
Also, you know how its often the case that the chief is simply a figure head, even a puppet for the government, or has been in the past at least.. in certain communities. did you find this, or were they genuinely connected and respected/ respectful of the community?
also, have you been in touch with what has happened there with development, what the long term effects were?
ahhh! end of year is falling in.. its kind of intense!
love u.. xo
