Exercising the spirit

North Star: The Legacy of Jean-Marie Mouchet
by John Firth

Altona: Friesen Press, 2024
$19.99  /  9781039194328

Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes

*

Whitehorse author and Yukon Story Laureate John Firth has a track record as a chronicler of northern outdoor pursuits, from his account of the commemorative 1997 Dyea to Dawson traverse in River Time: Racing the Ghosts of the Klondike Rush to Yukon Quest: the 1000-mile long dog sled race through the Yukon and Alaska. But with North Star: The Legacy of Jean-Marie Mouchet, Firth makes a departure of sorts, by not only addressing settler/Indigenous relations but also describing the difference made by a Catholic priest who connected Indigenous youth to the land via the European import of skiing, and with spectacular, inspiring results.

This story belongs to the People of the North. The Tahltan. The Gwitchin. The Dene. The Inuk. The non-Indigenous. Those whose destinies Jean-Marie helped to change. Whose lives he saved.

It belongs to Canada’s cross-country skiing community. To Canada’s Olympic and World Cup competitors. For it is upon his legacy that their success is built.

It belongs to Canada’s social justice and reconciliation advocates. For he was a trailblazer before the words took on greater meaning.

Dedications often do strike a tone prior to embarking on reading a book, but this one addresses the multifaceted mandate of this book, one that begins by addressing something of a prejudice. Much writing of late, although noting the abuses of power by some individuals, has tarnished the reputation of men of the cloth working in Indigenous communities. Firth’s telling of the life story of Jean-Marie Mouchet, who was a Catholic missionary, but one who, through his efforts in developing the Territorial Experimental Ski Training (TEST) program, gives credit to those who contributed positively to First Nations communities. Mouchet is credited as having saved the lives of many Indigenous young people by reconnecting them to the land in outdoor physical exercise and competitive sport. In fact, his noble pursuit did more than that: in the case of two Indigenous participants, sisters Sharon and Shirley Firth, it propelled them into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2015, the first Indigenous women to be admitted.

However, author Firth does take the opportunity to critique Mouchet’s approach. “One Indigenous former skier indicated that he felt the ski program had the feeling of an old-school ‘missionary saves the savage’ type of project – which may have an element of truth in it.” Firth’s ability to conscientiously see many sides is a credit to him as a biographer. What is not a credit to certain publishers he approached was demonstrated by their own prejudice, or perhaps an overriding opinion generated by recent writings. “That I was writing this story at all ignited an intriguing debate,” writes Firth. “Four non-Indigenous publishers contacted me, believing it was important that I know why they weren’t taking on the project. It was, they all told me, because it was about a Catholic priest.”

Firth’s tenacity in completing this work, rising above that prejudice, is also a credit to him. And the value of the story makes it well worth a read, even if all the reader takes away is the possible gains of settlers and Indigenous peoples working together for mutual benefit.

Mouchet grew up in eastern France, influenced by the writings of Jack London glorifying “survival, adventure, and death in the far North of Canada’s Yukon.” He would later define himself as being “more liberal” than others practicing the Catholic faith. It’s clear early on that Mouchet did not believe in ‘The Doctrine of Discovery.’ As Mouchet told Firth in an interview: “If you don’t believe in something, then you can’t be forced to believe it.” Mouchet joined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate “primarily because part of their mission was in Canada’s remote North – the land of Jack London.”

Despite Mouchet’s liberal, and adventurous, approach to missionary work, Firth does point out the overall goal was a competitive domination, a quantitative gathering of the Oblate order in “Canada’s remote regions locked in a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all struggle with the Anglican Church to harvest Indigenous souls for their respective flocks.”

This was far from Mouchet’s underlying drive as a missionary. From celibacy to church bureaucracy, he early on picked and chose what he thought would be of benefit from the Church’s paradigm. He saw himself not as a ‘Man of the Cloth’ but as a ‘Man of God’ and after his service in the Second World War he was ordained and, after some time with family in Malbuisson, shipped off to the Great White North – “a mythological land of perpetual winter, endless nights, a midnight sun, and prehistoric peoples.”

A year spent in Lower Post was followed by a stint in Telegraph Creek, BC, home to many Tahltan, “the only permanent settlement on the Stikine River and, in 1947, was home to approximately 250 people.” This was in the days prior to the existence of Highway 37.

There was a rough truck and wagon road that ran from Dease Lake, a community 112 kilometres further east. However, there was no link from Dease Lake to the ‘outside’ world until 1972, when a road built to service an asbestos mine at Cassiar, BC in the late 1950s was extended south through Dease Lake to join up with other road systems in Northern BC.

Isolated there, “with nothing missionary-like to do,” Mouchet decided to head out on the land and hunt. He “sought out the Tahltan hunters.” Hunting with the local First Nations community brought him to know those hunters, and them to know him, bringing him further in to the community, allowing him to learn traditional knowledge, but also teaching him “to study the habits of the sheep to predict and understand what it was going to do next.” Navigating the terrain became a physical, mental, and spiritual process. With his new Tahltan friends he learned to fish “to feed his newly acquired dog sled team.”

“In winter, two Tahltans, identified in his journal only as Harold and Larry,” writes Firth, “acted as dog sledding guides and travel companions for trips to the more remote communities. They showed him their traditional trail networks through the mountains and took him to Caribou Hide – a camp on the Spatsizi Plateau from which all the Tahltan hunted in the fall.” Mouchet learned the boundaries between First Nations and put on moccasins or mukluks to protect toes in frigid temperatures. He would travel to BC communities such as Iskut, home of “a small, nomadic group of Tahltan called the ‘Bear Lakers,’ who spent summers near Telegraph Creek and winters at the head of the Iskut River.”

It was while participating in building a flume from a water tank that Mouchet found himself sweating up a hill and noted: “When I took a close look at it, I saw we could come down there on skis.”

Firth excels at allowing the reader to connect the dots, chapter by chapter, as Mouchet builds his approach to skiing as reconnection with the land. But he also cuts through the detachment and dogma of the Church, having the reader see this remote world through Mouchet’s eyes, increasing his understanding of Indigenous people. “[Mouchet] had been sent by the Church to help these people find their way to faith, but his experience told him they didn’t need any help from him – at least not in that way. There was more than enough spirituality in their culture.”

Firth further draws in the reader showing the crux of Mouchet’s rebellion from Church interference in First Nations culture, and a wish to see a people dwindling through settler encroachment thrive actively on the land. “In the Catholic tradition of education, you were always supposed to put the individual first. It’s through the intellectual and moral development of that person that you create a better spirituality. But if you put the dogma above the development of the individual, then it becomes a sect or cult – where they force everything on you – and that was what the Church was doing.”

His time on the land, working with his Tahltan friends, brought him to a realization:

Many Indigenous Elders who converted to Christianity found sufficient commonality between the two forms of spirituality and were able to weave a kinship between them rather than abandon one for the other. It was that archetype of successful integration that Jean-Marie decided to try and duplicate. Working with the Elders, he would strive to unlock the potential of the people, which could assist them in blending the richness of their culture with the best of western society.

Rather than impose colonial views on Indigenous peoples, something Christian institutions had done through games and competitions, Firth establishes Mouchet “decided to use skiing to enhance the physiological, cultural, and spiritual merits of the Indigenous people, provide them with a bridge to living alongside colonial ideals, and develop their confidence to choose their own direction in life.”

This sense of purpose would fuel Mouchet for the rest of his days in his development of skiing programs for youth, and Firth not only chronicles those days but, impressively, and with great persuasiveness, illustrates and argues in favour of their benefits. Firth points out the programs’ success with Indigenous youth, brought by this ‘Man of God’ who brings out the best in kids, showing “that sport should be as much a connection with traditional values and history as it was an agent for social and cultural change.” Mouchet’s developing of the Stikine Ski Club for skiers at Telegraph Creek led to further programs such as the Old Crow Ski Club and TEST, but it’s the testimonies of participants peppering the book that build upon Firth’s argument: Mouchet’s approach was having a positive effect on Indigenous youth. ‘Part III: The Skiing Priest’ launches with the following report from Mary Frost, Old Crow skier and two-time Canadian national junior cross-country champion:

There are no words to describe the relationship the people of Old Crow had with Father. He was more than a mentor. He became our father. It was the most beautiful feeling a child could be raised with, when you see so much love. He was always there to encourage you, to see your own potential, to grow.

Throughout North Star, Firth critiques colonial impositions, including how low self-esteem among Indigenous youth is created from dependence for food and housing, undermining their sense of value. Firth has created a story of one life’s span, true, but one influenced by experiencing the culture of an Indigenous people, by a man who moves forth in opposition to the prevalent assimilationist views of his time, to bring out the best in youth, on the land, knowing the land, and benefiting from physical fitness and achievement.

*

Trevor Marc Hughes wrote a great deal about the inner spirit as it pertained to outdoor physical pursuits in his latest book The Final Spire: ‘Mystery Mountain’ Mania in the 1930s.  He is the author of an account of the first ascent of Canada’s tallest peak, Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925. He is currently the non-fiction editor for The British Columbia Review and recently reviewed books by Richard Butler, Wade Davis, David Bird (ed.), Ian Kennedy, and John Vaillant.

*

The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster