The time may come when I may ask you to lend me one of your daughters and one of your sons to live with us; and in return I will lend you one of my daughters and one of my sons' to teach what is good.
- Lac Seul Chief at Treaty Signing, 1873

Ninety one years later, Operation Beaver fulfilled the Chief's prophecy, with twenty-two volunteers from across Canada and overseas pitching in beside eighty Split Lake Crees to build a new church in the northern Manitoba community. Since the church's opening service in August 1964, thousands of volunteers have teamed with kindred spirits to make come true the dreams of disadvantaged citizens, mainly for new, safe, warm homes. They've also worked on schools, community, recreation and training centres, and overseas on a full range of development projects, especially in Haiti and Bolivia.

As this is written, the world is celebrating D-Day, with thousands of hours of replayed gory war footage on TV. As one who personally remembers those terrifying bloody years only too well, it is important to note the seismic difference in service opportunities open to the young citizens of all nations. In the forties, you had the option of either shooting, shelling, bombing, or torpedoing your fellow human beings – period. Now you can go out with the weapons of mercy and peace: construction tools, medijet guns for immunization, food for the hungry, irrigation plans and pumps, potable water systems, solar and wind power for the powerless, heavy equipment for road building, schools, desks and books for the illiterate, hospitals and medicine for the sick. Now we can fight the battles that have needed to be fought since Cain killed Abel, against the enemies of the whole human race: famine, drought, homelessness, disease, poverty, and the demons that feed them: the criminal pride, anger and greed, not just of individuals, but of nations.

So it has been an overwhelming satisfaction to see and to know over forty years hundreds of young Canadian, German, British, Japanese, Italian, American, Jamaican, Nigerian, etc, etc, volunteers working and building together – fighting the world's problems, instead of killing each other.

Another great satisfaction has been the towering and healing effect of the representatives of the world community/global family in our volunteer selection. As a young clergyman living on a Cree Reserve in northern Manitoba I became quickly aware of the gulf separating Native and non-Native Canadians. In 1962, the visit of young Zambian medical student Rev. Dr. Rod Chinto to the area touched off a realization of the bridge-building potential of 'Third World' friends. The Crees had never before seen a 'mukutao inninu', a black person. They have another word for a white man “mistikusuo" meaning wooden boat, referring to the York boats of the early white traders. The point here is that Rod was welcomed as one of them, rather than as a dollar-motivated stranger. So it was that Operation Beaver developed, 'Third World' volunteers like Jim Chigwidere of Zimbabwe, and Musty Besar of Borneo played very effective leadership roles in racially sensitive project communities. The only problem with Jim was that all the female volunteers fell in love with him: "Charles, why did you have to give us a leader who looks like Sidney Poitier and sings like Harry Belafonte!"

Although we caution all prospective volunteers not to join us with the notion of finding a mate, Cupid has played a role ever since the first Beaver project in 1964. We have been praised and/or blamed for well over a hundred marriages, like those of Stuart and Nancy Smith, who fell in love at Split Lake in 1964 and are now proud parents and grand-parents.

As "Beaver" grew, the Lac Seul Chief's idea of reciprocal sharing "to teach what is good" through work rather than words has evolved into many forms. At Mattawa in the nineties, our volunteers worked with local hosts, partners, and Algonquin Metis trainees on five new homes and fourteen renovations over several years. The trainees ALL finished their onsite training and went on to permanent jobs or further education. At Batchawana Bay, over the past 15 years, the native residents used their own sand and gravel, their own standing pine and spruce and two of our portable sawmills to complete forty-two new or dramatically rebuilt homes. They also supply our annual Toronto breakfast with fresh pickerel and trout for a hundred and forty guests.

Just weeks ago, Steve Barrie's new R2000 home in Almonte, Ontario, was completed, replacing a derelict old shack that neighbours were willing to pay Steve to leave, so that they could destroy it! Now they rejoice, since Steve and his mother Laura's new home is the 'best in the subdivision' and has significantly raised their property values.

Our Arctic educational and recreational work, separately reported, has made a significant contribution toward the advancement of Aboriginal youth in Canada.

Finally, the umbilical connection from Frontiers Foundation, Inc., to New Frontiers Aboriginal Residential Corporation (NFARC) should be noted. NFARC's Project Amik in east Toronto, an affordable residential housing complex, accommodates 75 singles, couples, and families, half of them Aboriginal. In 2004, with 250,000 homeless citizens, Canada cries out for "a thousand Project Amiks!"

Thanks and well done, Beavers!

[Photo 1: Jason Polson cuts branches from felled trees, Rapid 7, QC, 1999. Photo 2: Felling a tree, Snowdrift, NWT, 1980.]

Charles R. Catto is the Frontiers Foundation Founding Director.