Katy bikes or walks to work at the Sioux Lookout Anti-Racism Committee. She will soon leave her small cabin behind to travel through South America working on organic farms.

KATY’S CABIN IN SIOUX LOOKOUT . . . 7:00 p.m.

Beans and Chipatis with Vanilla Ice Cream and Raspberry Sauce

THE CONVERSATION

Katy Quinn has travelled many places, but she knows she will miss Sioux Lookout when she goes.  She has been interning at the Sioux Lookout Anti-Racism Committee, but will soon be travelling to South America to work on organic farms and to reconnect with some of the people she met while studying in Ecuador.

Many of the Indigenous people Katy met in Ecuador wanted to know what the situation was in Canada. Katy was not happy with the answers she was able to give. She says, “I came back with a resolve to change that. I wanted to be more knowledgeable about the issues in our country. I realized an immediate need and responsibility to respond.”

She has certainly valued what she has learned in Sioux Lookout. She says, “I really love the community here. I love the wilderness. I love the way people really rely on each other. There are things you have to make happen yourself or else they won’t happen.”

Katy is no stranger to small towns. She grew up in rural Quebec, south of Montreal.  She explains, “It’s a totally different situation when you’re in the North and it’s isolated, not that there aren’t more isolated places than Sioux Lookout. You connect pretty intensely.”

These connections are important to Katy. She left high school in grade 9 because “it was a little hick school. It just didn’t really have anything I was interested in. The sports program was huge and I was into music. It really just wasn’t the right place at that time. It felt really confining.”

She can laugh now. “I think I really just wanted to be in the city at that point, leave the valley. I felt like I had things figured out. I felt like people were really close minded. I already had big plans to travel.”

When she realized she needed to complete her high school diploma to study music at CEGEP, Katy began working on correspondence courses. She remembers, “It’s pretty satisfying when you’re teaching yourself and you get the concept. It’s a total feeling of triumph.”

Katy is very grateful for her time a CEGEP because it helped her realize that she did not want to go into music professionally. Her realization crystallized while she was travelling in West Africa. She laughs, “When you’re studying to be a classical pianist, you can’t be away from a piano.”

She also admits that “Classical piano seems like such a small little part of the world. I needed to branch out if I wanted to make that connection across musical traditions. You can’t play with an African percussionist.”

Of her learning in Africa, Katy says “I’d never encountered that kind of cultural difference. It was hot. The food was different and I was in an overcrowded suburb. It was just overload.” When she began working on farms through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), she began to feel more comfortable.

She says, “You’re working really hard so you sleep really well and the food starts to taste better. That’s one of the places I felt safest because there are people out at all hours of the day and night, of all ages. It never felt like the darkest streets of Montreal.”

As for where she is now, Katy is honest about her “love-hate relationship with the climate. There was a funny song, I don’t know if it is very well known. It’s ‘Rocks and Trees, Trees and Rocks, Rocks and Trees’. Harsh, but it also has its own beauty.”

The cabin Katy shares with Ed is very close to the rocks and the trees, with just some plastic over the windows as winterizing. Ed is a teacher at the local Native high school and it is his turn to hall the water.   While they both like knowing that they can live with a lot less, Katy says, “[People] think you’re kidding when you tell them you have an outhouse.”

Katy and Ed are not kidding when they talk about the challenges of caring so much about their work. Katy wonders, “If you could just shut off yourself a little bit.” They know that is not possible for them or the people they are learning from.  “There are so many people that care so deeply. You kind of feed off each other.”

This dynamic is clear with the two of them. Ed says, “Coming in I think I’m going to make a big difference on First Nation issues. No I’m not. I’m going to make a difference for these kids and they’re going to make a difference for First Nation issues. Maybe they’re not going to, but they might change their families.”

Katy adds, “It’s not an abstract thing. People that you know have gone through these immediate struggles. You sort of enter the social justice world and there are endless issues that you are concerned about and want to make change on, but this is something so immediate.”

“My university degree was almost a hindrance. You have to talk to people. I see things from an intellectual standpoint and you’ve got to get out of that in a small town. It’s critical. You’ve got to bring it to real life.”

“In a small community there are no options. People aren’t going to up and move. We all have to get along. Change will be gradual. You can’t force people to change, but you can convince people.”

“There are times when radical action changes things, when you are talking about systems. When you’re trying to work things out with your neighbor, it’s different.  Here even when you’re dealing with systems, you’re dealing with people, with individuals.”

It is the work of individuals in the community that inspires them. Ed marvels that “somehow organizations keep going, even though they’re on the verge of collapse.”  Katy adds, “what’s really nice about the non-profit sector is you’re not trying to make a profit so you get to work on some pretty meaningful stuff. It’s nice to be free of being driven by the business model. “

They confess that it is hard not to get “all go-go-go” with so many things to get involved in; it is also important to avoid cabin fever. The fact that they do not have a phone allows them to just come home and disconnect when they can.

Katy says, “It is really different when you’re going through the motions of something or if there is someone who is deeply rooted in it. There’s a whole new depth and meaning.” Katy and Ed are in perpetual motion, but whatever the compass direction, they are committed to going deeper as they explore the things that mean the most to them.

STILL DIGESTING

Katy and Ed are honest about needing to leave home to make the kinds of changes they dream of for the world and for themselves. Katy wonders about what draws people to Sioux Lookout, while Ed points out that some people are just as motivated by what they want to leave behind.

Ed is very aware that he has had to leave his close knit family. His siblings live near his parents and he has become very familiar with the difficulty of carrying on an emotional conversation in a public phone booth. While Katy also cares about her family, it is more common for them to travel far from home and it is not as expected that everyone be at home for every family event.

We all agree that you can find some unusual people at the end of the road. Both Katy and Ed take pleasure in the eccentricities of some of the people they meet. They seek out new experiences from an understanding that you can become too comfortable and, as a result, too complacent.

For now, they are bright young people becoming at home in the world. What they encounter is not always easy, but they can get excited about what they have learned and what might be possible. They are creating their own vision of themselves and the world they want to live in, free of the expectations of their hometowns.

If there is one thing that might draw Katy and Ed home, it is the desire to make people more aware of northern and First Nations issues. They are appalled by the ignorance that exists. By the time they get home, they will have an even deeper understanding to share.  And if they remain visitors, you can be sure that they will bring the value of all they seek to experience and will carry away even more learning.