Oh Kanata: How my family wrote a Mi’kmaq translation of the national anthem [audio/video]

Editor’s note: This personal essay by Manny Simon was developed as part of an ongoing series of media production workshops organized by the NB Media Co-op in Elsipogtog, where we also recorded video of Manny sharing his recollections and audio of Jolene Sock singing in Mi’kmaq.

Around 1990, I went to visit my mom’s nephew in Listuguj, Quebec. My cousin, the late Manny Metallic, was the author of the Metallic Migmaq-English Reference Dictionary.

One evening, I was humming “O Canada.” My cousin heard it and asked what it was. I told him it was the national anthem and mentioned that broadcasters signed off daily with it, and that it was played at hockey games.

Then I said it would be really cool to see it written down and to hear it sung in Mi’kmaq.

I told him that it would be good if Canada had three national anthem songs: English, French, and Mi’kmaq. The idea sat with him.

Mi’kmaq is the language of this land. If the anthem is about respect for the country, then the country’s first language should be able to hold it too. So my cousin picked up a pen and wrote the words down in Mi’kmaq.

Listen to Jolene Sock singing the national anthem in Mi’kmaq

My cousin later came to Elsipogtog, also called Big Cove, for a visit. During the visit, he turned to me and said, “Do you remember that song you were humming when you were at my place?” I said I sure do. He told me he had written it down in Mi’kmaq.

My late brother-in-law, Emerson Sock, had a young daughter, Jolene Sock. She was a young singer in the 90s with a strong voice and a lot of heart for our culture. My cousin gave the written Mi’kmaq anthem to her.

Jolene took my cousin’s Mi’kmaq version of “Oh Canada” and sang it at our community’s first Indian Summer Games. She sang it at hockey games, too. People heard it and felt it. For many of us, that was the first time we heard our national anthem in our own language, on our own territory.

Other versions of the national anthem may exist in Mi’kmaq but this version is ours. Other Mi’kmaq communities also began singing the anthem in our language. You started hearing it in Nova Scotia, in P.E.I., at gatherings and sporting events. Every time I hear it now, I think of that visit with my cousin in Listuguj and how proud we all were.

Manny Simon is a St. Thomas University student who lives in Elsipogtog.