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Norval Morriseau

Norval Morriseau had an exhibition in Thunder Bay on April 4 and 5, 2002. The exhibition was located in Victoriaville Mall in the Creative display area. Norval Morriseau is a world renowned artist known for being the founder of the Woodland Painting school. For more of a biograhy look here.

Helping with the exhibition were his family members Christian Morriseau (son), Eugene Morriseau (son), Christie Kakegamic (grand-daughter), Tammy Morriseau (grand-daughter), Kyle Morriseau (grandson), and Joshin Kakegamic (grandson). This show is Norval's first exhibition since a show 3 years ago in Toronto. He will be doing another in Winnipeg during the month of May, 2002. All the paintings show in the exhibition were the result of his work in the past year. This series of paintings also have an black print of his thumb alongside his signature.

Christian Morriseau, Norval Morriseau, Eugene Morriseau, Christie Kakegamic, and Kyle Morriseau in front

There were approximately 60 paintings in the show ranging in size from 5x7 to 48x36. The prices for his paintings range from $200 for the 5x7 to $6,500 for the 46x38. Norval has been living in Thunder Bay for the past 6 weeks and was previously living in Keewaywin First Nation, Sandy Lake First Nation, and in Nanaimo B.C.

See more of his pictures in our Photogallery. If you would like to reach Norval about his artwork you can contact: Lisa Meekis Band Administrator Keewaywin First Nation tel. (807) 771-1210 fax (80) 771-1053 email: lisameekis@knet.ca

The dog sled expedition arrived in Keewaywin just this morning. They will be camping here overnight and tomorrow the kids at the Keewaywin School will be getting a special treat. They also did a little rescue as my cousins were leaving to go to Sandy Lake by skidoo, their machine broke down almost half ways. They were stranded. Then they saw something coming over the horizon. At first they thought it was wolves running in packs but upon closer inspection they saw that it was the dog sled expedition. They were rescued and brought home by dogsled. Now that was something quite unexpected and also a little adventurous.

The Keewaywin winter road is now open. People who were travelling from town going home to Keewaywin were left waiting for the road to open. The equipments were constantly gettting stuck, breaking down or the fuel just ran out. About seven vehicles travelled home, the going was not easy and had to rely on each other to pull each other out. Today is the first day it is open, the road is still not complete but they made a one way lane for the seven vehicles that were stranded, so they can get home. And we are also thankful for the people of Weagamow for helping with the clearing of the winter road from their end and Koocheching. It was a joint effort to get the winter road open.

Keewaywin winter road is progressing very slow due to the machinery getting stuck in the high snow and the equipment breaking down. The winter road crew is working on the portage near the Weagamow Lake junction. The road is very steep with snow and only has a one way lane. On the other side of the portage on the ice, it is very slushy. There were vehicles parked on the ice, due to the fact that the winter road is not opened yet. Most of the Keewaywin people who were stuck on the other side had someone from the Keewaywin community pick them up by skidoo and traveled to the other side of the portage where they are picked up by vehicles. We are anticipating the road to be finished by this Friday. One person got stuck in the high snow going to Weagamow Lake. He didn't make the trip and got stuck on the ice. He stayed there for hours and his battery gave out too. He had no winter clothing and almost froze to death. It was a good thing someone was driving around, checking up on the road. Remember to take warm clothing when travelling on the winter road. Take a lighter, matches, and warm blankets with you. A little axe would be great to put inside your vehicle for protection and also for survival.

The Keewaywin First Nation clinic will be closed for the duration of the week due to the fact that there is no running water. The clinic will be closed by the order of Health Canada. The community has been having difficulties with their water. The treatment plant needs to be replace due to the fact that there is hard water and most of the community residents have been complaining of stomache aches. The clinic has their sewage backed up and there is no pressure in the taps. Only a trickle of water is available for most houses. We must rely on buying bottled water from the community store for our drinking water. Due to the hard water, when we tried to boil tea or make coffe, some thing from the hard water floats to the surface, lime deposits are ruining all coffee makers all over the community. I personally have bought two coffee makers due to the fact of hard water. Someone will be coming from Balmertown to check up on the water situation today. They will be conducting tests and will try to remedy the situation.

About a week ago Allan Kakepetum's cable connection stopped working shortly after the cable modem was installed. I went there numerous times to figure out what was going on. All we knew was that the connection wasn't getting through to the house. On Friday we (Raymond, our community volunteer Joseph Meekis and myself) went out to the house to see if we could get it going again. First Raymond went up to the cable box on the telephone pole and connected a cable line to the adapter. Then we connected the other end directly to the cable modem which was plugged into the house with a long extension cord running outside. The cable modem wasn't recieving any data. Raymond then called Blair Electronics and told them about the problem. Blair suggested that we connect to another adapter on a nearby telephone pole. We found the nearest adapter about twenty feet away. I connected a cable to this adapter and ran the cable over to the connector at the house. When we got inside, to our delight (smiles all around ) the connection was once again established. It was a great feeling to have the connection going again because we had a hard time with it. I actually got a fever while doing this job but on Friday I was feeling better. The pictures were taken of the three of us, Raymond, Joseph and myself, by David McKay. I asked David who was busy at work if he had time to get these pictures posted and he was very much pleased to do so. This is what good team work can aspire to, big smiles and shiney faces all around. See the pictures

Dr Edye, a psychiatrist from Winnipeg MB arrived in Keewaywin Monday morning on March 4th. She is working with the Northern Chiefs in the telehealth project which is a new program to improve health services to the northern communities. She will be working out of Winnipeg and will personally meet with the individuals before she actually starts seeing patients via teleconferencing. She has worked with the Nodin Counselling Services visiting other remote communities and as a consultant for Northern Chiefs. She was also involved with the Northern Chiefs in a pilot Mental Health project with Poplar Hill and North Spirit Lake. People from these two communities were able to access professional services through the use of video conferencing. Community people did not have to leave their communities to get some professional counselling. This technology that has come into the communities enabling the people to stay in their communities avoiding all the stress involved in taking a trip out of town. This project will commence sometime in April for Keewaywin. The Mental Health Worker will keep the community updated via the local E-center and the K-Net news. Check out the photos

Keewaywin is getting their cable system hooked up to the hydro poles this week. The work began last week (Feb 1) and the crew from Blair Electronics are still hooking up the cable lines. It is amazing to watch how they attach the cable lines and use the telephone cable to piggy back on. I have been following them around and am being trained to hook up the houses and get internet access into the homes. I have been taking pictures to show you how they are doing this. We have our Computer Technician follow them around and another Band employee to see how they are hooking up the cable lines. Each of us are taking part in the training so there is always someone available to hook up the next new building to this broadband service. See the pictures of the cable system installation in Keewaywin

Keewaywin has finally started their winter road. The weather seems to be going against the completion of the winter roads this year. The road had to be made to hug the coast line as the ice is not yet thick enough on the lakes. In some places the ice is so thin that cracks form and slush forms on top of the ice. This just makes it harder for the completion of the winter road. I dread to think what will happen if there is no road this year. Imagine if the road is not completed, there will be no oil for the generators to produce our electricity, the oil for the homes will have to be airlifted. The prices of food will certaintly almost double. I went to see the progress of the road and it doesn't look too good. But considering the weather it is progressing. One of the loaders went through the ice this past weekend. The other loader is there to try to get it out. It is getting tougher every year for the road to be completed as so much depends on it. I took some pictures of the tractor half of it in the ice - for everyone to see.

Dr. Adams the Optometrist from Dryden is here is Keewaywin examining the students and the community members' eye sight. With him is his trusty assistant Mary Goodman who came here with him from Sandy Lake. They have the use of the clinic's conference room for the eye examinations. We are thankful that he is able to come here. I also took the liberity of taking some pictures. So if you want to take a look click EyeDoctor