Michipicoten First Nation is an Ojibwe community with reserve lands along the northeast coast of Lake Superior, as well as in the interior, with reserve lands at Dog Lake at Missinabie, and at Chapleau.
Published in Chapter:
The Hauntings and Heart of a Place: Reconnecting to Grandmother Lands
John-Paul Peter Joseph Chalykoff (Michigan State University, USA & Michipicoten First Nation, Canada)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-3729-9.ch014
Abstract
This autoethnographic research presents personal stories from the author, connecting family, land, and music. He recounts stories his Ojibwe grandmother shared about her time in Franz, a small railroad village in northeastern Ontario that is now a ghost town. The connection to Franz is established through memories from his grandmother. Inspired to write a song, the author aimed to reconnect to Franz itself. The study follows the author's personal journey to visit his grandmother's land for the first time, making new connections and stories along the way. The research utilizes Indigenous autoethnography, Indigenous storytelling, and arts-based methods, such as a/r/tography, to link his stories to those of his grandmother, resulting in a reflection of storytelling, community history, and (re)connection to land, woven together by stories from the family matriarch.