Waubgeshig Rice - Moon of the Crusted Snow

The long oak table was surrounded by twenty black leather chairs. The band council and senior staff held their executive meetings here, and it was always where they hosted visiting dignitaries and potential business partners — a government official coming to tour the results of a funding announcement, or a corporation looking to invest in resource extraction. But this informal gathering was unusually silent. The sun outside began to set, bouncing pink radiance off the snow and into the room.

Evan had briefed Terry and Walter. Kevin had told Tyler and their mother, Joanne, more at home. Nick had confided in his older sister Amanda, one of the councillors, and his parents. All of them were here, along with the four remaining council members and Isaiah.

Eventually, the leadership took their seats on one side of the table, while Kevin and Nick sat together on the other side with their parents. They wore nearly matching wool sweaters in slightly different shades of blue.

Terry cleared his throat. “Alright, we know why we’re here.” His bright red snowmobile jacket was undone to reveal a denim shirt underneath. The band councillors sat to either side of him, and Evan and Isaiah remained standing. “I just want to say we’re really happy you boys made it home. We want you to know you’re safe here.” He looked down at the table and sighed. “It looks like it’s a lot worse than we thought. I know it’s gonna be hard for you to talk about this, so take your time, but we need to know what you’re able to tell us. Just share what you feel comfortable sharing.”

Nick and Kevin looked at each other. They were both nineteen years old, barely men. They had grown up in families that believed in teaching their kids how to live on the land and they knew how to hunt, fish, and trap. They knew the basics of winter survival. Those experiences had hardened their bodies and helped them mature, but they looked at each other now, fragile as small children. All that training could not have prepared them for what had happened.

Nick brushed his straight black hair out of his eyes. Kevin looked to his friend and scratched the back of his head. “Okay, I’ll start. I guess about a week and a half ago — I’m actually not even sure how long it was now — there was a blackout,” he began. He looked down at the table, not making eye contact with anyone in the room. “I was in the welding shop at school, and it all went dark. It’s in the basement of the main building and doesn’t have any windows, just a big garage door that leads to a ramp outside. We waited around a bit for the lights to come back on, but then our teacher dismissed the class. So I walked across campus back to the residence, and there were a few other students waiting outside. Our keycards weren’t working but security eventually let us in.”

All eyes were on Kevin.

“The power came back on a couple hours later, but when I woke up in the morning, it was off again. I tried to use my cellphone but it wasn’t getting any service. So I went down the hall to check on this guy.” He motioned to Nick. “No one in the building really knew what was going on. We knew classes would be cancelled. We didn’t go anywhere that day.

“The next day there was still no power, and no phone service. Some of the other kids in the residence started freaking out because nobody knew what was going on. The floor supervisors tried to calm everyone down, but they didn’t really know what was happening either. So me and Nick left the building to see if we could find out anything.”

“I think we were getting a little stir-crazy,” interjected Nick. “You can’t keep us Nishinaabs cooped up all day!”

Everyone laughed in a mild murmur, and Kevin continued. “The cops were at most of the big intersections, directing traffic. We asked one when the power would be back on but he didn’t know. So we kept walking downtown. There were big lineups of cars and trucks at this one gas station we passed. But the pumps weren’t working without the power. People were getting real mad and yelling at each other and the people working there. It was kinda ugly.

“There were also lots of cars in the parking lot of the grocery store, but it was closed. Some people were banging on the windows. The cops were there too, trying to get people to go home and wait until power came back on.”

“We thought it was kinda funny,” added Nick. “The blackout was only two days, but it seemed like some people were already freaking out a little bit. I was just like, ‘Come to the rez, this shit happens all the time!’”

“We didn’t feel like sticking around to see what would happen, so we went back to the residence,” Kevin said. “When we got back there, we couldn’t get in, and the security guys seemed pretty uptight about everything. When they finally let us in, we saw dozens of people sitting in the cafeteria, waiting for something. We found out it was an emergency assembly. We sat down at a table with mostly white kids. No one had been able to take showers or nothing. Everyone looked pretty bush.” Kevin chuckled again. “They had sandwiches and apples and juice and that kinda stuff for us. Then someone from the college stood up and told us there was a blackout and asked us to be patient and to stay in the residence. He said the networks were down too. Some kids started getting angry, yelling that they wanted a shower or hot food. There were some security guards at the front and they sorta stepped forward to try to calm everyone down. We thought it was all pretty dumb, so we just went back to our rooms.”

The more the young men opened up, the looser the others in the room became as they reconnected with them. Terry leaned back in his chair. Walter uncrossed his arms. Evan and Isaiah moved away from the wall and joined everyone else at the table. The sage had burned out but its smell lingered. It was getting dark outside.

“The next two days were more of the same,” Kevin went on. “We waited in our rooms. We went down to the cafeteria for sandwiches. Every time, we pocketed an extra sandwich to save for later, just in case. We didn’t want to go outside because we were worried that we wouldn’t get back in. We even read books!”

“I never read so much in my life,” said Nick.

“There weren’t any more assemblies or updates, though,” said Kevin. “Once in a while, our floor supervisor, Lance, would come by and check in on us, or tell us that someone was working on the problem. And then he stopped coming. They kept feeding us sandwiches in the caf so there was still some staff around, probably because they were hungry too. But the fruit ran out. So did the juice and milk. It was just meat on white bread. By then, it was pretty obvious that whatever was happening was really serious. So me and Nick decided to go back outside and check out what was happening.

“We had to make the security guy at the front desk promise to let us back in. But he was on edge too. He was a big white guy, looked like a football player, but his face was real pale and his eyes were bloodshot. He had a big winter coat on because it was really cold in the building by that point. It looked like he wasn’t all there. I felt bad for him.

“Outside there was no one around. It looked like the campus was dead. Out on the street, the cops were gone from the intersection. There were hardly any cars out there too.” Kevin paused to reach for the water bottle on the table in front of him. He twisted the cap, and the cracking of the seal was Nick’s cue to pick up the story.

“It was pretty spooky,” said Nick. “We heard voices from near the grocery store. We saw a whole bunch of people out front — like, hundreds. They were yelling and banging on the front door. We stopped to watch, making sure we didn’t get too close.