by NOEMI LOPINTO

Last Saturday, Aug. 7, on the outskirts of Mascouche, Chief Daniel "Black Feather" Berndt sat semi-clad atop a horse, fist held high in the pouring rain. A song called "Honour" blasted through the loudspeakers. Berndt circled the sputtering fire and threw his fist in the air again and again. That gesture began the two-day long Friendship Party, an event put together by the Native Alliance of Quebec (NAQ).

Berndt, who is half Huron, half Mohawk, is the president of the recently revived Montreal branch of the NAQ. Known as Local 012, its mandate is to reach out to the approximately 3,000 non-reserve, non-status natives living on and around the island of Montreal. The local had been closed for five years, he says, due to a lack of volunteers willing to take the time to sit on its board.

Berndt dreams of opening an office for the NAQ with a big hall for parties and a gymnasium for a wrestling school. For now, however, headquarters are in the vice-president's living room. And on Saturday, as the rain poured onto the tent, soaking the cardboard boxes someone had thoughtfully put down on the grass floor for the native dancers, he worried the event might not break even. The karaoke equipment, country singers, dancers, the tent, chairs and tables had not been donated.

"When I approached people for help with this event, they told me, ‘You don't need money, you're native!' Our members are people left alone to suffer without any kind of safety net, which is why we need a home. We need a place to be."

Roots rediscovered

Berndt, 40, is extremely proud of his heritage now, but says he didn't discover his roots until he was almost a teenager. "People denied who they were in order to work," Berndt muses. "The saying when I was growing up was, if you want a job, dress like a white man. There was a lot of shame to being a ‘savage.' But I was different from my family. I was in my element when I was out in the woods, it was where I was most comfortable with myself. I had a lot of rage, there was like a volcano inside me."

Berndt never knew his father. His mother struggled with alcoholism. He left home at 12, and lived on a farm in New Glasgow, Quebec, with a Polish-Ukrainian man who became his mentor. "He let me go into the woods as long as I'd like," he says. "I learned to hunt and to survive, and it came to me who I was and what I was. He listened to me, and let me know myself and what I wanted. Without him, I would be a mess."

Wrestling with government

Berndt eventually became a professional wrestler, spending 20 years as Black Feather, travelling all over the world beating people up. "I didn't have much contact with the community during that time," he recalls. "But I got used to a better treatment. I represented native traditions and I was treated with real honour."

In 1998, he injured his spine and wound up spending seven months in traction in Puerto Rico. Back in Montreal, he got a job as a longshoreman at the Old Port. In September 2003, he became chief and president of Local 012.

Founded in 1972, the NAQ has about 82 branches across the province, representing almost 25,000 non-status, non-reserve natives and Métis. Their mandate is to negotiate with government and try to improve the living conditions of their members through fundraising.

"We don't get money from the government," Berndt notes. "No tax relief, no land claim, nothing. Alcoholism and drugs are still a big problem in our community. The government gave us the reserves to control us - ‘Stay here, don't bother us' - but you can't put all humans in the same cage. Some of our ancestors wanted to work. So our members are spread all over, and they need food, access to services, a place to stay, and sometimes help getting into detox."

Despite the cage reference, Berndt would like to return to Oka, where he was born. But his family has lived off-reserve for four generations. To return, he needs special permission from the government and people on the territory, and a sponsor within the community. He says letting the non-reserve natives back in means less money for the people already living there. "Everything in life is about politics, power and money," he says.