People: The Mi’kmaq of Eel River bar make Games history
by Deborah Nobes
for CBC Sports Online

Never let it be said that people in Eel River Bar First Nation dream small.

Tucked between the Eel River and the Bay of Chaleur on New Brunswick’s northeast coast, this reserve of approximately 350 is working steadily toward financial independence.

The band has built an impressive aboriginal heritage garden reclaiming the Mi’kmaq relationship with herbs and plants, purchased a sleek ferry to bring tourists to its nearby eco-park at Heron Island, and is poised to open the mother of all truck stops on Highway 11 constructed almost entirely of hand-hewn spruce logs and employing more than 100 local residents.

“We’re women, doing all this. We don’t know anything about fencing, or sports, even. But we got it done.”

— Band financial officer Brenda Martin

Now the band has another feather in its cap: it’s the first native reserve in the history of the Canada Winter Games to host an event, and even that fits into the fortunes of this community. When the Games are over, a section of the $2.5-million building, constructed especially for the amateur fencing competition, will be converted to a daycare.

“With everybody working, we need babysitters for our kids,” says band financial officer Brenda Martin, who is also venue coordinator for the fencing event, and happens to be married to the band’s chief, Everett Martin.

On Day Two of competition, Martin is understandably tired. Her husband has been busy overseeing progress at the new Osprey Truck Stop, while she’s putting in 15-hour days making it possible for Canada’s fencing teams to compete on her reserve.

“I’m a woman,” she jokes. “We’re women, doing all this. We don’t know anything about fencing, or sports, even. But we got it done.”

It almost didn’t happen. The building is barely finished. The final financing agreement for construction was approved just 10 days before the Games were to begin. The practice room, where the fencing teams are getting ready for competition, still has a poured concrete floor and bare gyprock for walls. Martin says the contractor didn’t hand her the keys to the building until 10 p.m. on Saturday -- barely 12 hours before all 10 teams were scheduled to arrive for meetings and practices.

A severe winter storm blew in the next morning, cutting off power to the building three times as Martin and her small army of workers scrubbed floors, dusted and swept the building clean to get ready for Monday’s start to competition. Somehow, it was ready on time.

“We are a laid back people here,” she says. “But when there are deadlines they are met. If we have to bring in extra people, that’s what we do.”

Martin hopes the building, which holds a large gymnasium, several meeting rooms, lockers, showers and saunas, will also serve as an athletic centre for the area’s youth. She is director of the local boys and girl’s club, and believes the building would be perfect for young people from Eel River and the surrounding English and French communities to play organized sports and dance – an ideal legacy for the Canada Winter Games.

“Our people here are very sports-minded. Especially our youth, with basketball, volleyball, hockey, dance,” she says. “We have some of those things going here now but the rooms they practice in are so small. We will develop a sport program that will be open to kids from all areas.”

Martin is optimistic, but her hope is tinged with realism. Eel River Bar has much to overcome. Unemployment is high. The band has accumulated millions in debts to finance its business ventures and social programs. Some homes on the reserve are in disrepair, with peeling paint and drooping foundations. One home, in plain view of the sparkling new recreation centre, has the words “condemned” and “rot” sprayed in green paint across its white clapboard siding.

Many here hope the new truck stop will be a cash cow to improve the quality of life for everyone who lives on the reserve. The band council will earn money from sales and a portion of the tax it collects for gas and cigarettes. It’s the biggest roadside gas/restaurant in the region catering specifically to truckers. A cargo ferry service to Newfoundland is about to begin sailing from Belledune, adding to the approximately 300 transport trucks that already travel the lonely road between Bathurst and Campbellton.

Eel River Bar band member Jody Simonson is the truck stop’s accounts manager, and says the band’s slow but persistent focus on economic development has inspired the community to believe in itself.

Hosting a Canada Games event, she says, is just proof of its newfound confidence. Simonson’s teenaged son and daughter are both volunteering at the events while she sorts through piles of receipts on her desk at the truck stop. Her 13-year-old daughter Shauna performed a traditional Mi’kmaq dance at the Games’ opening ceremonies, and is collecting recyclables at the athlete’s village in nearby Dalhousie.

“It gives them a little bit of pride, you know? And it teaches them about how important it is to give, to volunteer your time to do something,” she says. “It teaches them that life isn’t only about them – that you have something valuable to give back.”