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Henry Muminawatum 
Renowned Northern photographer Murray McKenzie travels this month to Germany for an exhibit of his work at the Westfalisches Museum fur Naturkundle. The Museum has been preparing an exhibit of Native Art since 1993 and Mckenzie's will be one of the key features. This week we bring you the first of a series of McKenzie's insights in Northern life.The man behind the York Boat Twice this summer we've printed a picture of a York Boat. Although the pictures were different, they were coincidentally of the same boat the "Henry Muminawatum". When Murray came in to discuss the photos series he commented, "I've got a picture of that man." "You mean the boat?" we asked. "No, not the boat," replied McKenzie. "The man the York Boat was named after and I can tell you a little about him." "Henry Muminawatum's last name means 'wind is calm'," commented McKenzie. "A good name for a York Boat man. This picture was taken at Norway House around 1980. He was watching the York Boat Days festivities on the lake. I was amazed by his big hands (from years of rowing, as a young man) he'd paddle from morning daylight to evening twilight and think nothing of it. He had worked as a York Boat man for 75 cents a day." Muminawatum, one of the last professional York Boat men, was a key figure in the revival of York Boats at Norway House. In his youth the sails of the York Boats covered Lake Winnipeg like gulls, and for the better part of a century they were the principal means of transportation in Northern Manitoba.  The "Henry Muminawatum" is one of a dozen or so York Boat replicas pain stakingly recreated by the people at Norway House to recall the historic Fur Trade. The boats, a hybrid of scandinavian techniques and native canoe designs, were built and maintained by communities along the great interior water routes in the hundreds. Today only a score of replicas and a handful of museum pieces remain to remind us of a time when Lake Winnipeg was white with the distinctive square sails of these craft.
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