Takla First-Nation Reserve

On Friday morning we left out early and headed to the Takla Lake First-Nation Reserve. We had a full truck with the two of us, Michael (our guide) and the three boys. They were excited to be headed home for a few weeks!!

After 4+ hours of hard travel on dirt logging roads, we were excited to see this sign….

A few minutes later we arrived at Takla Lake and the center of the Takla community……

There are around 800-900 people in the Takla Nation and about 275 actually live on the Reserve.

Our first stop was to drop Tye off and we had the joy of meeting his grandmother, Cecile…..

Isn’t her face expressive??

We had brought some bear meat for her, and Tye got it out of the truck….

She immediately asked if there was any fat on it…..

When we answered “Yes”, she excitedly said that she would use it to make medicine!! Wouldn’t that be fun to watch!!

She pointed to the stretcher bars at the side of her smoke house and longed for the days when she would use it to prepare moose!

She pointed to her flower garden and I discovered this beautiful bush there….

The next stop was to Derek’s Grandmother, Nancy….

She was so sweet as she talked about her grandson and how proud she was that he was part of the youth program that Michael runs.

She was also pleased when a bucket of bear meat was delivered…..

While here, we also met Larry….

….and Darnell…..

Darnell was selling raffle tickets to raise money for the Takla baseball team. We now have a square in the raffle…..

Finally, we headed to Mason’s house. He grabbed his possessions and headed into his Dad/Grandmother’s house…..

…..of course, remembering his fish that he caught last night….

Mason lives next door to the Takla school so we went across for a visit…..

The school houses grades 1 thru 9. First, second and third grade are in one classroom, 4th thru 6th in a second, and finally, 7th thru 9th in the third classroom. If the student wants to study longer they have to travel to Prince George and attend a school there. It is a hard decision for some parents because it means uprooting their lives!

The school has the motto of “Every Child Matters” and that showed in the faces of all of the administrators and teachers!!

We spent some time talking with Sabrina who is the Assistant Principal…..

She is currently working on her Masters in Education and wants to pursue a career as an administrator. She felt that the hardest thing for the school kids is that they don’t have consistency in their teachers. Many teachers will come for a year or maybe two, but often go elsewhere, leaving the kids in limbo.

I enjoyed walking around the school and seeing the kids happily in class. Many of them knew Michael (our guide), and gravitated toward him. You can tell that this German man has found a way into the hearts of these people!!

I loved this poster outside of the library area…..

…especially that the book is “How To Fish”!!

Our final stop for the day was to the Trading Post…..

…. a store, diner and hotel all in one!!

We were careful to NOT park here….

Our dinner that night was cooked by Desmond…..

…..a graduate of Michael’s apprenticeship program. During his time in camps with Michael, he learned to cook and found that he truly enjoyed it. He is now working at the local cafe and is planning to attend a culinary school.

We met his Mom, Lucy, at the school….

….and she also expressed her excitement for Desmond (Dizzy Des)’s newfound passion.

And believe me, he cooked a GREAT meal for us. It was so good that I forgot to take a photo!!!

Afterwards, he sat down and talked to us about what he learned in the program….

…. to be on time, respect others and work hard for your dreams!!

You can’t do better than that!!!

We are about half-way thru our tour of the Takla Lake Reserve…..come back tomorrow and we will meet a few more people…..

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Michael and I love to travel and see new parts of the world and then I love to take those memories and turn them into quilts!!! I hope that you enjoy traveling along with us!!

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