Faith and Love Have Carried Me

The first memory I have is my grandmother getting up—while I was still in bed, of course. I would hear a fire going, then I’d wake up.

My grandmother used to wake up early in the morning and make a fire. I was just a little girl and I’d get out of bed and go out and check on breakfast. I don’t know why; we hardly had anything.

Nohkom (Grandmother) would make her tea first thing in the morning. She would soak dry bannock in the tea and that was my breakfast.

When I was very young, I lived with my grandparents. I remember my rabbit blanket. I would take the whole thing and cover myself—so warm! She made a weaving tool herself from a piece of wood and weaved the blanket, weaving like this and that.

My grandmother instilled a lot of things in me, but mostly what she planted in my life was a love for God. As a child, I used to go in the forest alone to pray.

My grandparents prayed every night before they went to bed. They would pray in Cree.

We really didn’t have a home where we lived, and my own family didn’t live on the reserve. With no status, we were not allowed. But my uncle and auntie lived there, and my grandparents lived across the water from Pukatawagan part of the year.

My grandparents used to have a little house across the inlet from the Indian reserve. It was their tradition to live in the forest and move around to fish and hunt. They boarded this place up when they were ready to leave, and when we came back, they took the boards off the windows. We lived all over the place.

Dad worked out of several train stops. He worked for the Canadian National Railroad (CN) for the longest time. In fact, there were times when my parents and my grandparents would be living together and those were the times when I would finally see my mom.

At Pukatawagan, everyone spoke Cree. There was no English. I never heard English until I heard it when the train would come. The men who worked repairing the tracks lived on trains in a caboose or train car.

When my cousins came back from the residential school, I remember they would go check these men out. We were going to pick berries and they were trying to sneak up to these trains and see who was there, see who lived there, and that’s where I first heard English from the men repairing the railroad.

My mother lost her status when she married my dad who was Metis. We didn’t have a number and I wasn’t wanted at residential school in the 1950s. I can remember I asked my granny, “Why can’t I go to school?” She would say, “You can’t go to school. That’s it.”

I didn’t understand why and I don’t think she even knew herself, really. As an adult, I got status through Bill C-31 when my mother and all of us—her children—got status back too.

In later years, I went to a day school run by nuns and priests on the Pukatawagan Indian Reserve.

Winter, spring, summer, and fall—all the seasons seemed to run together. I didn’t pay attention to other seasons because I organized my life around only two seasons: summer and winter.

In summer I was outside all the time and I remember going swimming. There was a lot of swimming and there was good fishing and hunting and we would go to a place where we could catch the most fish. My grandparents would pitch the tent there and dry the fish. I would try to help my grandmother, and I would just get in the way but I tried to help anyway. If we didn’t catch anything, we would move to another pace.

We moved a lot all the years I was a child but when we finally moved to Channing, Manitoba, it was devastating for my sister Theresa and me. Channing was like a city to us because we had never lived around a lot of people, and now they were everywhere. Channing had only two Native families and they were both Merasty families. The rest of the community was white. When we moved there, I remember thinking the white community was so strict. Now we were in this big house, but we were not allowed to go anywhere. We couldn’t go into the neighbors’ yards and my dad couldn’t hunt anymore.

I remember it was so hard for my dad. I don’t know what happened with his job. He was working for CN, but he had a really hard time because he had to pay rent on a big house. My mother would make extra money plucking ducks for white people. She would get paid per duck and I remember a whole bunch of us kids helping pluck those ducks. I didn’t mind doing it.

My mother also made extra money sewing for people. She tried to help pay the rent, but sometimes it was so hard. We had a really hard time when it came to food. We had to buy our food now because my dad was not allowed to hunt anymore. He had to get a license and follow regulated hunting seasons. It was not like that when we were living in a tent.

I wasn’t yet 15 when I went to this school with my sister. I felt sorry for her. I was really smart and I tried to look after my sister to protect her. Theresa and I rode the bus with the other teenagers but we’d get off where the handicapped children got out, and I remember being ashamed. The other kids would tease us.

Riding the bus was pretty scary for Theresa and me. Maybe a few other Native kids were on the bus too, but it was scary when you couldn’t speak English. This was our home too, but when I spoke Cree to my sister, the other students would stare and say things to one another about us speaking Cree, like it was a foreign language.

We stopped taking the bus and started walking every morning from Channing to Flin Flon on the railroad tracks. Whatever distance it was, it didn’t seem so far to me because I was used to walking. We’d rather be walking alone than take the bus. At least people didn’t see us.

During that time, my little sister Harriet died. She died in my arms when she was only six months old. I remember it so clearly. Her little eyelids were fluttering. She had pneumonia. There was a doctors’ strike, and I remember taking her to the hospital in Flin Flon, and they wouldn’t treat her because of the strike.

“Oh, we can’t take her,” they said. “We can’t take her.”

“But my little sister’s dying!” I pleaded but they still wouldn’t take her.

They sent me back home with her—twice. She would never had died if they had helped her. I was so upset that this happened all because doctors were on strike.

Harriet is buried in the cemetery in Channing. My dad was a good dad until we lost Harriet and he got mixed up with alcohol. I think that’s why my parents started drinking.

I got pregnant at age 15 and had my son Sherman in Winnipeg and took him back to Channing. I was hoping I could go back to Sherman’s dad, and that was the one reason I went back home with my baby. But Sherman’s dad was not there for me. He just said, “That is not my child.”

I looked out the window one day in Channing and saw Sherman’s dad pushing another baby in a stroller. He had another family. So I didn’t pursue that relationship further; I just went on living my own life.

At this point I was pretty lonely because I was still young and I wanted to meet someone. My son Sherman was eight months old and I wanted him to have a father. I wanted to get married.

I heard my mother was in Cranberry Portage so I decided to go looking for her. I found her in a bar. I saw my mother sitting with all these Frenchmen, and I said to her, “You need to come home and look after my brothers and sisters.”

I looked over these guys she was with, and they were all looking at me. One of them—his name was Ivan—was really charming. My mother told me “Watch that guy there. He says he can get anybody he wants.” Because of what she told me, I didn’t befriend Ivan right away.

Later I went to a party with my mom. There was drinking going on and I ended up with Ivan.I was in Flin Flon later with my little boy and for some reason I called my mother again at Cranberry Portage. Ivan answered the phone.

“Come down and visit me,” he said. “Bring your son.”

So I did.

Ivan had his own small house in Cranberry Portage and I stayed there with my son for a while. He treated Sherman like his own, taking care of him, carrying him around and loving him. Then Ivan asked me to go with him to Grande Prairie, Alberta.

“I’ve got a job there,” he said. “You can come if you want. Bring your son.”

All of a sudden we were driving to Alberta. I’d never been out of Manitoba! I was turning 18 and Sherman was about two. What have I gotten myself into? I thought.

Ivan got an apartment in Grande Prairie and bought new furniture and everything. I must admit he did impress me. Nobody had done so much for me before.

It was a bit rough because I was alone after he left to work in the bush and I became very lonely.

I started to go out and I would stroll with Sherman down to a restaurant. One day I went in and spotted some Native girls sitting at a table. I heard them speaking Cree so I went up to them.

“I’m new here.”

They invited me to sit and one of them became my best friend.

I was so lonely that I started to drink. I would go out and get something to drink and then invite Gertrude over, and she would play her guitar and sing gospel music. She never drank but she put up with me and she would sing I Saw the Light and Amazing Grace and other songs. I’d never heard them before and I just loved them.

This woman, my friend, was so patient with me. I wasn’t a Christian and she didn’t tell me she was a Christian. I just noticed her actions. She would sit with me until one or two in the morning and sing gospel music for me. When she sang Where the Roses Never Fade and How Far is Heaven, she made me cry. I’d say, “Sing it again! Sing it again!”

One day she invited me to go with her to the Teen Challenge Coffee House.

“What’s that?”

“Well, we sing and play music there.”

I was thinking, Coffee house? I don’t even drink coffee, but I agreed to go with her.

We walked into Teen Challenge and I saw young people singing gospel music, lifting hands in praise, and sharing their love for the Lord. I really enjoyed it. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Wow! This is so good, I thought.

Gertrude and I went there every Saturday. Then one day she said, “We’re having a gospel band play at church. Would you like to come?”

Right away I was thinking like a Catholic. My dad told us not to go to different churches.

“Okay, I’ll come with you but I’m going to stay a Catholic.”

I walked into this church, and people were singing, and Gertrude asked me “Do you want to accept the Lord Jesus?”

“What’s that?” I said as I watch my friend praising the Lord. I was laughing at her. I saw my friends go forward and accept the Lord. I was sitting by myself, looking around. I was alone and the preacher said, “If you want to accept the Lord Jesus, you just have to come forward.”

When they started singing Amazing Grace I was listening closely to the words. God convicted me just when I had finished laughing at Gertrude. I’d never experienced anything like this. I went forward and accepted the Lord as my Savior even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I had done.

I was invited to a Bible study so I went. Everyone was so excited and they said, “Oh, Angelique became a Christian last night. Yesterday, she accepted the Lord into her heart.”

As I continued with the ladies’ Bible study and started to learn more about God, I started to feel different. I really wanted to learn the Bible. Now that I had become a Christian, I want to make everything right because I started to feel different. I was 19 when I accepted Jesus into my life.

I knew things were changing in the way I was thinking. I quit drinking and started going to church. Gertrude was all excited that I had become a follower of Jesus.

I started praying for Ivan. When he came back from the bush, I told him I’d become a Christian. He wasn’t too happy but I continued. “We’ve got to get married. Now that I’m a Christian, we can’t live common-law.”

Not too long after we moved from Grande Prairie to Mackenzie Junction, British Columbia. Ivan got a trailer for me and again he went to work in the bush. I was pregnant with Derek who was born in Mackenzie. I hardly ever saw Ivan. No wonder we stayed married for so long!

I went on to learn the art of birch bark biting and with the help of my mentor, Angelique Merasty (yes, we had the same name and we’re in fact related), I was able, with God’s help to continue on this cultural tradition. God was good to me and opened up many doors and my birch bark artwork is found around the world in different galleries and in the homes of people like comedians Bill Cosby and the late John Candy. I now have my own Native crafts store in Prince George, B.C., and God has richly blessed me and I give Him all my praise.

Unfortunately, my marriage didn’t last. I ended up leaving Ivan because he was unfaithful to me and abusive.

That was many years ago and it has been a long journey to get to this place in my life. It’s a long way from camping in the bush and picking berries, and sometimes the road has been hard to follow. But my faith in God has carried me and I want to share some of my favorite Bible verses.

First Corinthians 13:4-7 says that “Love does not give up. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. Love does not put itself up as being important. Love has no pride. Love does not do the wrong thing. Love never thinks of itself. Love does not get angry. Love does not remember the suffering that comes from being hurt by someone. Love is not happy with sin. Love is happy with the truth. Love takes everything that comes without giving up. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love keeps on in all things.”

You can read Angelique’s complete story in her new book GOD OPENS DOORS. You can order this book from Indian Life.