A care package with goods from the prime minister’s hometown in the N.W.T. is on its way to Ottawa — and the woman who put it together just hopes it’ll make him smile.
“It was not a political gesture,” said Patti-Kay Hamilton, of Fort Smith, N.W.T., but rather a way “to say thanks for making me happy.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney was born in Fort Smith and lived in the southern N.W.T. town until his family moved south when he was about six years old. Hamilton said that when Carney mentions his birthplace in speeches and in interviews, he seems proud.
Hamilton recalled watching a broadcast of Carney’s visit to Iqaluit in March when she noticed he was shivering.
“He just looked so cold and I yelled at the television, ‘give the man a hat!'” she said.
That’s when it struck her that sending a fur hat is something she and others from Carney’s hometown could do. Once others in Fort Smith got word, Hamilton said people were dropping all kinds of things by her house for the new prime minister.
There’s no fur hat in the care package that’s now in the mail, but residents sent a recipe for bannock, a loppet toque, CDs from Fort Smith musicians, a broach carved from buffalo horn, a tiny boat to commemorate Fort Smith’s history as the largest shipyard in the territory, and a book about the historic 1968 landslide in Fort Smith that would have affected some of the children Carney went to kindergarten with in Fort Smith.
The federal government’s website includes a section on gifts and items sent to the prime minister, and it says some items can’t be accepted for security reasons, like perishable goods. That’s why Hamilton couldn’t send the jam or honey or spruce salve that some residents dropped off.
The bannock recipe in the care package is from Barb Mercredi and she had important advice to make sure the prime minister gets it right.
“One important thing when making bannock is, don’t over knead. Only knead 10 times [and] make sure the oven rack is in the middle,” she said in a Facebook message.
The package also includes a beaded infinity symbol from the Fort Smith Métis, a stained glass hanging, and a small tumble stone — a unique kind of rock that gets shaped by the swirling river, also called concretion rocks.
Hamilton said she now has a good collection of tumble stone.
“Little kids in the neighborhood found out and they started dropping them off at my back door,” Hamilton said. “Finally we found a little small tumble stone that might be something he might remember from his childhood when he was here.”
Also included in the care package is a book Hamilton wrote, chronicling the life of trapper and bush man Pi Kennedy. Hamilton said it was Kennedy’s idea to send it, suggesting Carney might benefit from some of the book’s lessons.
“A trapper with a dog team is a lot like a prime minister …you have to keep trying even if you fall off the dog sleigh,” Hamilton said Kennedy told her.
“[Carney] should remember that if he ever gets cornered by a pack of wolves, stand your ground, don’t back down, and never turn your back on a hungry bear — those were [Kennedy’s] messages.”
