The river and the land

Courtesy: Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center

Story told by Stephen Silverbear McComber

When I was born, the seaway had just opened. The water at the river was still clean. I don’t think you could drink it at that time, but the water was clear. It was different. You could see fish. 

My family would talk about how the land looked before the seaway came. My grandparents on my mother’s side, their family home was near the train bridge. We call it the black bridge, that part. Their home was there. They’d talked about going there in the spring, the summer, going into the water and the way big ice floes would be in the springtime, stuff like that.

Courtesy: Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center

They’d talk about how the land was different, how there were many, many farms with horses and cows. Even when I was a boy, you didn’t see that - you rarely saw it. There was a section of farmland in the community that they called Tennessee Road. Now they call it the 207, but when I was a boy it was called Tennessee Road, and that area, that was the last of farms or some animals, but all the areas were gone, pretty much.

Courtesy: Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center