Grape Island & the Methodist Legacy

                                              Rice Bed at Grape Island -- photo: Ruth Mundy

 After a poor night's sleep on my part this had the potential to be a do-nothing day. Then Ruth proposed that we tie on the kayaks and head over to Big Island off Prince Edward County and do some exploring in the Bay of Quinte. That's what we did on what proved to be a calm and quiet morning on the Bay. We ended up paddling across to Grape Island which was the site of a Methodist Mission 200 years ago, sponsored by Bridge St. Church, the final congregation I served before retirement. Today it is owned by a single family but back then there were more than 200 Mississauga Ojibwe people who were established on the island to be taught agriculture, and to read and write. The experiment didn't last long and the residents left to become part of what is now the Alderville First Nation near Rice Lake. 

We have paddled to Grape Island by canoe and kayaks  before and I've written about the experiences, including during Bridge St.'s 200th anniversary year. The island is not large and once we arrived today we circumnavigated it in less than half an hour. It's hard to imagine 20 people living there, let alone 200+.

                                                            Dave Mowat Alderville First Nation 

During the Bridge St. 200th anniversary Dave Mowat from Alderville, a First Nations historian and conservationist and current chief, took part in a play about the early history of the congregation. I was so impressed by Dave's contribution I invited him to return for to take part in an Anniversary Sunday dialogue.On the Alderville website we find: 

The creation of Upper Canada and its colonization, and later the War of 1812, were events much larger than the Mississauga and other related groups could contain. Eventually, by the 1820’s, they found themselves forced to adapt and during this period a number converted to Christianity, primarily Methodism, from the Bay to the Western end of Lake Ontario. By 1826 the Methodists at the Bay had convinced the Mississauga to take up the development of a mission and attempts were made at teaching the people a new agrarian economy. On tiny Grape Island, the people learned to read, write, and to worship in a different manner, becoming a major target group of the early assimilation policies of Canadian church and state.

This morning at Grape Island was magical in many respects. Blue herons and ospreys flew from the island and a beaver scurried into the water and swam near our kayaks. There are magnificent trees, including huge cottonwoods. We paddled through a bed of wild rice, a probable food source for the residents 200 years ago. 

It was also sobering to be there in light of the grim news about the discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at a residential school n Kamloops BC recently. Upon our return I read that another 100 graves have been discovered near a residential school in Manitoba. As we sat on the water Ruth wondered aloud whether there are graves of those who may have died while living on Grape Island. I said a prayer, repenting of what the church has done, supposedly in God's name. I hope our contrition as a nation and as Christian denominations will result in an honest reckoning and action.