Gwynn Scheltema
The first blizzard of the season descended a few weeks ago, but it didn’t matter. I was in the company of heart-warming people from all over the world and their stories.
We were gathered at the Art Gallery of Northumberland for the official launch of 150 Stories and Images of Arrival. This book of immigrant stories and photographs was a Canada 150 project undertaken by Northumberland County, Ontario and I was privileged to be part of it.
The call for submissions asked for first- or second-generation immigrants in Northumberland County to identify a memento brought to Canada from the immigrant’s birthplace that represented the intersection between a former way of life and a new beginning as each individual integrated into a new community. Then to tell the story of that memento’s symbolism in the transition.
A gift from the past
The objects chosen by the contributors ran the gamut of wooden carvings to a chess set; from a mason’s picks to a hand-made hammered brass coffee pot; from a document of Settlers’ Effects to a framed record of a family tree going back seven generations to 1730.
Some of the accompanying stories were tragic, some amusing, some incredible. But all of them spoke to the importance of connection and family and an overwhelming gratitude for the chance to live in Canada.
It wasn’t the object itself that had value, but its connections to the past—and the present. For the people in that room, the opportunity to live here in Canada was the greatest gift.
A little green frog
I am a person deeply affected by landscape. I need a connection to the earth wherever I go. So for my memento, I chose a small green frog sculpted by my mother.
My mother is an artist, so a piece of her art became a connection to family left behind. The frog sculpture also represented a connection to the African landscape as well as the new Canadian landscape I have come to love.
A humbling experience
The whole process of choosing my symbolic object and then writing the story of how it had formed a transition from one period of my life to another was humbling. I was forced to strip way so many layers, to decide what was important to me—then and now.
It confirmed, as I said before, the importance of family and connection. It confirmed that my decision to leave what I knew and loved for the unknown was a good decision. It confirmed that Canada has indeed become my home. And it confirmed that safety, hope and peace trump any item that you could possibly find under a Christmas tree.
The Canada 150 year has had its controversy, but it has also sparked a lot of creative efforts and brought a lot of people together. And hopefully, it has reminded all of us what a wonderful country we live in. As Joni Mitchell so rightly said, “You don’t know what you’ve got. Till it’s gone.” So this Christmas perhaps give a thought to gratitude not so much for what is or isn’t under the tree, but for what you already have.
DID YOU KNOW
The exhibit ‘When We Came From Away’ is being featured from November 10th to December 31st at the Art Gallery of Northumberland, located in Victoria Hall, 55 King Street West, Cobourg. For more information: www.ArtGalleryOfNorthumberland.com.