Skanadariio
When I look out my (new) office window, I can see a sliver of the lake, Lake Ontario, and observe its many moods. Today it looks cold and metallic, silver blue and wave-capped in the wind. I think about the lake a lot. It’s a focal point to my people, part of the territory that we have always considered ours. Skanadariio, beautiful shining water, some days as calm and placid as a mirror, other days dark green and angry, surging and powerfully mean. Due south of Toronto is Rochester, originally a Seneca town, launching point of our northward trading and warring ventures. We used to control the waterways in our part of Anowara (Turtle Island) in giant war canoes made of elm bark, massive and menacing. The Ojibway had those sleek little birch bark canoes that were fast and agile, but we had elm bark canoes, made to hold war parties and transport goods and people over long distances. I think a lot about the military tradition of my people. I read once that to observe the Iroquois in battle...