Marie Kochon remembered as spiritual leader in Sahtu region

Marie Kochon was travelling back to Colville Lake, N.W.T., on a snowmobile when something strange appeared, hovering just above her in the frigid air.

"She opened her mouth," Kochon's daughter Snowbird Kakfwi recalls her mother telling her, "and something went in her mouth and went down to where her heart is," she said.

"To this day she can't explain it, but from that day on her life changed."

The vision left Kochon with a deep sensitivity to the wellbeing of others, especially her children and grandchildren, says Kakfwi.

That integrity and spiritual guidance is what she'll be remembered for most. The respected elder died last week. 

Friends and family are remembering her as soft spoken but profound, rosary always in hand as she shared her thoughts and prayers at community gatherings across the Sahtu and further afield.

"A few times I've been in distress and she knew about it already. She was gifted in that way," Kakfwi said.

'She shared whatever she had'

Kochon was born on the land near Colville Lake, says Kakfwi.

She lived most of her life on the land, raising 13 children in tents and only moving into a cabin in Colville Lake later in life. The family got much of their food from hunting and trapping. 

"She shared whatever she had, but our freezer was never empty," recalls Kakfwi. "It was like a magic freezer, always full.

And Kakfwi says her mother wanted her children to live the same way. 

"She keeps reminding us: teach your children to pray, teach children not just about praying and the bible, about spirituality, but about how important the language is, living off the land, your culture.

"To her last days, she's the perfect example of teaching what she wanted to." 

The travelling teacher

Kochon would often travel overland to different communities as well.

In 1994, filmmaker Dennis Allen captured her and her husband's week-long journey from Colville Lake to Fort Good Hope on film.

She made the journey "because nobody was really doing it any more," says Kakfwi. "She wanted to be able to show that it is important to her also, keeping these traditions alive, continuing to use these roads."

During her travels, she made many friends, says Marie Adele Rabesca, from Whati.

Rabesca became close friends with Kochon in the 1990s after Kochon stayed with her during a spiritual gathering.

"Whenever there is a gathering around those regions, she will go with her husband and maybe her kids will come along as well," remembers Rabesca.  

"When she talked to people, she always had a cross with her and a rosary and a book, the Bible, and then she holds up the crucifix, and she'd start explaining the word of Jesus to the people, and she encouraged the young people mostly to pray all the time."

She also encouraged them to stay in touch with their culture, says Rabesca. 

"At one time she mentioned that there are so many things happening in this world, so many things coming to our country, our land, and she says, sometimes this is a distraction for the people [who would like] to hunt and to trap."

She liked to make us laugh

While she took her role as teacher seriously, both Rabesca and Kakfwi remember Kochon as playful.

"Sometimes she would come up with different kinds of jokes, to make you laugh, that's what she was like with me," Rabesca said. "And sometimes she'd say, 'I just say stupid things, my words just come out.' That's what she would say, and she'd just laugh about it." 

Kakfwi says her mother made her laugh more often than anyone else — even if it wasn't intentional. 

"Because her hearing was going.... If she didn't hear you, she would repeat what she thought she heard, and it was always something funny," Kakfwi said.