Movement and communication are the inter-connected themes of this chapter and are the basis of my reflections upon how people, ideas and things move into and out of northern places more generally. Whereas the planes physically move people and things (weather-permitting) to and from communities with no land access, new communications technologies are transforming communications possibilities in the remote reaches of Canada as much as airplanes changed transportation when they first arrived. More specifically, I reflect on twenty-first century technologies of communication in a remotely situated community in northern Canada through the lens of a much older form of communication. This chapter emerges out of current and past work that I have done with the people of one small community and reflects upon a single turn of phrase that was so vivid and alive with metaphor that I felt compelled to write about it. I will describe and expand upon that metaphor below but, first, let me begin with the village and the Cree people, or Iiyiyu’ch, of Whapmagoostui, Québec.
