Ndilo woman's shrine survives fire
"If you believe in something it will work for you," she says
Mark Rendell
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 23, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
When she saw a photo of her shrine near Chan Lake, untouched by fire and with a green path curving toward it through a mass of scorched earth and blackened trees, Violet Martin said she began to weep.
A shrine marking a spring near Chan Lake Territorial Park remains "miraculously" untouched by a forest fire which raged around it. - photo courtesy of Violet Camsell-Blondin |
"I was so excited, I was crying. I couldn't believe it, it's too hard for me," she said, voice trailing off with emotion.
The shrine, located off the highway about halfway between Behchoko to Fort Providence, was photographed by Violet Camsell-Blondin last week while driving past in the wake of a forest fire.
Martin's daughter saw the photograph on Facebook and sent an image to her mom who lives in Ndilo.
"It's too powerful," said Martin. "I still can't believe it."
Martin built the shrine in 2008 after visiting a nearby spring on the advice of an elder from Behchoko.
"I had a knee problem," she said, "I'd been going to doctors ... walking like a duck."
"Finally, this elder told me, '10 minutes from Chan on your right hand side there's a spring. You'll kneel down and pray to it and you'll feel different.'"
"Not long ago," she recalled the elder telling her, "one elder was really sick and he had a vision about that water, he couldn't even walk so he told his kids to bring him there, and he's walking around
now."
Martin drove the 200 kilometres to the spring, and after praying for a few minutes by the water, she said her knee felt much better and hasn't bothered her since.
She brought her husband to the spot a little while later, she said, and she claims the frequency of his chronic headaches have decreased since washing his hair in the water.
"If you believe in something it will work for you," she said.
With these "miracles" in mind, she decided the spring needed some adornment.
She found a small aquarium at the Yellowknife dump and placed the statue of an angel she had painted inside, sealing the aquarium with duct tape and Styrofoam.
At first the angel and the aquarium stood alone on a small plastic table, she said. Since then, she and a number of other people have
added to the shrine.
Her husband built a wooden table carved with scallop shell designs and the angel has been joined by statues of the nativity, said Martin.
"Every time I go to Edmonton, I put a statue there," she said.
Martin says she collects several big bottles of water from the spring every spring and autumn.
When you drink it, she said, "you feel way different."
The shrine's seemingly uncanny survival of the forest fire solidifies in Martin's mind that a higher power is at work in that place, she said.
Judy McLinton, a spokesperson for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, confirmed that firefighters were not involved in saving the shrine.
However, she said that several of the department's fire personnel assessed the photo and suggested a number of scientific explanations for the apparent miracle.
"From the photo, it looks like it was a boggy area and probably a spongy wet trail people walked on," said McLinton. "The moisture content in the disturbed area is what likely stopped the surface fire from advancing towards (the path)."
She added that there didn't appear to be "ladder fuels" close to the shrine to help the fire jump from the nearby grass to the shrine.
Whatever the reason for the shrine's survival, Martin says she plans to make a pilgrimage to it sometime this week.
"I'm going to stop and I'm probably going to cry again," she said.
