There’s something evocative about being in the forest at night. Rooted in Indigenous Teachings, the First Nations Garden in Montréal’s Gardens of Light 2024, is a contemporary poetic experience from September 1 to October 31, 2024. Through Indigenous Storytelling – the words and recordings of Innu poet Joséphine Bacon and Métis musician Moe Clark, create an immersive light path that honours Mother Earth. With an original concept and art direction by Felix Dagenais and Louis-Xavier Gagnon-Lebrun, the First Nations Garden is a collaboration with the artists and ATOMIC3, a multidisciplinary creation studio, and 20k, a firm specializing in design and technology consulting.
Encounter the moon, spirits of the forest, the river, fire and the wind in Montréal’s First Nations Garden at the Botanical Gardens. The journey encourages viewers to harness their inner wolf, and sing out to the sky to make the moon rise. Howling into several illuminated orb-shaped microphones, this interactive experience causes a full moon to appear in the canopy trees, fusing technology, nature and the human voice. As we become our own wolves, the moon grows bigger and rises higher, marking the beginning of a pivotal lunar journey.
Walking through the Japanese Gardens, bewitched by the trees, flora and the colourful pond, there is a sense of transcendence in the darkness. Deeper into the botanical woodland, approaching the recently designated First Nations Garden, I hear Innu poet Joséphine Bacon’s voice drifting over a smoky crescent moon. Bacon is a revered writer, translator and Innu poet in Quebec. When I lived in Montréal between the years of 2017 and 2019, I had the opportunity to read with Bacon at Le Salon du livre des Premières Nations in Wendake, Quebec. I remember after our reading, she urged me to speak louder, and be proud in my heart and voice whenever I read my poems. At the time, I was struggling, and she encouraged me to be more confident, helping ease my positionality as a Mi’kmaq-settler poet. Years later, it seems fitting that on my first visit to the Botanical Gardens, Bacon would not only be guiding me, but carrying us all forward as moved through twilight. Her poetic voice is steady and wise like the treeline.
As a group gathered in front of the smoky half-moon being birthed by the earth, Bacon reads poetry in French and Innu-aimun. A sculpture rises from the earth, almost like an eclipse, or an archway as smoke drifts off into the sky. As an Elder, translator, curator, filmmaker and researcher, Bacon is an Innu poet born in 1947 in Pessamit in Quebec. She spent the first five years of her life out on the land with her family until she went to boarding school in Maliotenam. She moved to Quebec City in the 1960s, and went to secretarial school in Ottawa run by the Office of Aboriginal Affairs. Bacon moved to Montréal in 1968, and became a translator and transcriber for anthropologists who were interviewing Innu Elders and Knowledge Keepers in Labrador and Quebec. In 2023, she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada and continues to live and work in Montréal. Her publications include: Désobéissons! Eka pashishtetau! Tinqueux (Éditions du Centre de créations pour l’enfance 2019), Uiesh |Quelque part. Montréal, (Mémoire d’encrier, 2018), A tea in the tundra = Nipishapui nete mushuat, translated by Donald Winkler (Bookland Press, 2017) and more.
Wandering further along the blue lit path, just passed the lunar installation, a teepee appears in the woods. Exiting through the backdoor of the teepee, a clearing opens up to a tall tree, and a story unfolds charting life cycles, seasons and becomes a fire through a narrative of both light and shadows. A trail leads towards the figurative sweat lodge, where a recording of Elder prays in Kanyen’kéha, and half a dozen flickering light bulbs make up the fire. A sound piece recreates the crackling fire while the pendant light bulb flames dance.
A drum beats in the distance, and I hear Clark, a Métis musician and artist, serenading into the night. Clark created the sound design and musical compositions for 4 out of 6 of the gardens, including the accompaniment for Bacon’s gorgeous poetry installation. Also, Mohawk Elder Sedalia Fazio, who is a local Elder and custodian, gave the thanksgiving address. Further along the journey, things become even more curious with a series of Indigenous baskets, drums, a cradleboard, cranberries, pinecones, regalia and even a canoe artfully displayed and encased in several glass exhibition cases. Suspended and artfully lit, these baskets, drums and berries embody the many nations who call Montréal home.
It grows darker by the hour, as a drum beats louder and Clark’s voice grows stronger. Wandering back along the path, another series of pendant light bulbs flicker like fireflies in the forest. The night bugs diffusers move up and down in the trees almost like a magic trick, which deepens the enchantment. The art and light installations provoke my curiosity. I wander a little further along the path, arriving at a circle. A spotlight pours light onto a mirrored cauldron, which reflects into the trees like glitter. People gather from all four directions in the First Nations Garden, recognizing Kanien’kehá:ka Nation as the custodians of these lands and waters. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations; including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg, and continues to be home to many Indigenous and people from all over the world.
