Kettle & Stony Point First Nation History Culture Stories
Research Story
by Shelly Bressette
“When I started looking for stories about our history and culture, of course I went to libraries and stuff. Going, ‘Well, there must be something in these books.’ And of course, there wasn’t -- because we hadn’t written any books and our history and our contributions in this area were basically over looked in the existing history texts that were available.
So I ended up talking to my mom and dad and they said, ‘Well, you have to go back and talk to the older people in the community because you’re not gonna find any of that in the libraries.’ So that’s what I did.
I started writing a list of the Elders in the community. Back then we had Lottie Shawnoo, was the one who I spent a lot of time with. And she lived up on top the hill there where I’d say Carl George lives now. That was her little house and right next to her was Jack Johnson.
And Alfie Greenbird lived back on the Greenbird trail, and he was like a little old farmer dude. And my own grandma Hilda, my great grandmother Laura, like they were still all here. And you know, try to get as many different stories about family history through these ladies. Lena Henry on the side road, Aunt Grady we called her. I spent a lot of time with her. After a while, they just became friends, like, you’d just go and have a cup of tea with them in the evening and see what they were doing.”
