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Like a Razor Slash Podcast

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Based on the acclaimed graphic novel anthology, This Place is a 10-part journey through one-hundred and fifty years of Indigenous resistance and resilience. Through dramatizations and interviews, along with your host and time-guide storyteller Rosanna Deerchild, the series reveals the heroes, battles, triumphs and traditions which live outside and beyond the national story we have been taught ... to learn, to share, and to heal the future of "this place" we call Canada.

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Based on the acclaimed graphic novel anthology, This Place is a 10-part journey through one-hundred and fifty years of Indigenous resistance and resilience. Through dramatizations and interviews, along with your host and time-guide storyteller Rosanna Deerchild, the series reveals the heroes, battles, triumphs and traditions which live outside and beyond the national story we have been taught ...

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Buffalo is the New Buffalo story

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Opening chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass

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The We Wai Kai Treaty Society We Wai Kai First Nation (Cape Mudge Band) Our territory includes the east side of Vancouver Island from the Qualicum River in the south, to the Tsitika River in the north. Then on the mainland, from Toba Inlet to Jackson Bay, and all of the islands in between. … Continue reading Home

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Gather documents the growing movement among Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty.

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Canada, I can cite for you, 150 #Canada150

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In the third episode of season two, editor Michelle Kelly sits down with author David. A. Robertson to discuss his essay about cultural appreciation versus appropriation that appeared in the June/July 2021 issue of Cottage Life magazine. Listen here or visit cottagelife.com for access to all of the episodes.
Some of my best and earliest memories are of the lake. Starting when I was a baby, I went with my family to Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba every summer and stayed at a little resort with housekeeping cottages. When my wife and I had kids of our own, we continued the tradition, bringing our kids to the lake in August and staying at the same place. The cabins encircle a communal area where there are picnic benches, firepits, and a lamp post that I broke one year with an errant Frisbee. There's a play structure for kids with a few slides and a sandbox. The swimming pool is always warm-it's never the wrong time for a swim, whatever the weather.

At the front of it all, a totem pole stands facing the road.

I remember eating fresh cinnamon buns from Whitehouse Bakery and Restaurant first thing in the morning. I remember having contests in the pool with my brothers, seeing who could swim to the end of the pool and back without taking a breath. I remember going out on the pedal boats, looking down at the water and being able to see the bottom. I remember going for ice cream on Wasagaming Drive, playing checkers by the tennis courts, seeing bear poop in the middle of Ominnik Marsh Trail, eating dinner for a treat at the Wigwam restaurant in town, and going to The Park Theatre to see movies that had already come out weeks ago in the city. My father, brothers, and I would golf first thing in the morning at Clear Lake Golf Course.

At the end of the week, all the Robertsons would line up in front of that totem pole for a picture.

My memories of the lake are good ones. I cherish them, and I always will. Now that my father's gone, they mean even more to me. But as I got older, and became aware of my Cree heritage, I began to question some of the things I grew up with at the lake. I thought about Wigwam Dining & Lounge, and I looked at the totem pole standing tall behind us while we lined up for our annual family photo.

None of it sat right.

At first, I couldn't define why. These things-the names, the structures-gave me a nagging feeling, like when you've gone on a trip and wonder if you left the stove on. I tried to put my finger on it as each passing summer it troubled me more and more that Indigenous cultures were being portrayed as though they were nothing more than tourist attractions-curiosities at best, empty and meaningless at worst. (It's apropos that Grey Owl lived in the area at one point.) As I worked to educate myself on issues that Indigenous people face, that undefinable feeling became clear, and the question I kept coming back to was, "Is this cultural appropriation?"

That question alone is a good starting point. We should make a habit of asking it more often, especially once we've been made aware that a name, a monument, a piece of jewellery, an item of clothing, or even a watercraft such as a kayak, might be problematic. Inquisitiveness indicates a desire to learn. A simple willingness to know can help shift an act of appropriation into one of appreciation.

The distinction between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation is relatively straightforward: it's an act of appropriation when someone uses an aspect of a culture that's not their own without understanding or respecting it, especially when it's a historically oppressed group and when it involves personal gain or profit. Appreciation, on the other hand, sees people genuinely trying to learn and understand about another culture in order to broaden their perspective. It builds relationships across different cultures, and involves asking permission and giving credit and fair compensation.

Profit doesn't necessarily mean monetary gain. The other day, I was scrolling through TikTok, and I came across a video of a dancing model wearing a bikini, a headdress, and war paint. Ostensibly, this individual was trying to get "likes." If you're borrowing elements from another culture that is not your own to get attention on social media, that's appropriation. Even taking a picture at a powwow of a dancer without their permission and posting it on Instagram can be an act of appropriation because the purpose of social media is to draw interest, usually to yourself or to your business.

Profit. Attention. Personal gain. If you're borrowing from an Indigenous culture for any of these things, it's an act of appropriation, and it doesn't have to be deliberate or malicious. In most cases, nobody's trying to do harm. Putting an inukshuk on the front steps of your cottage. Buying dreamcatcher earrings from the shop in town because they look nice on you. Going out on the water for a paddle in a kayak.

On which side of the line does each of these fall? The inukshuk was never intended to be decorative; it had, and has, an important function. If you're buying an authentic dreamcatcher made by an Indigenous artist, that's great. But if not, if they are thrift store knock-offs, then the store is benefiting from an Indigenous culture, which is appropriation. (And your dollars are encouraging them to do it.) As for kayaks, they, like inukshuks, were invented by Inuit people and have a history that spans thousands of years. Now, I don't think that going out on the water with a kayak is an act of appropriation, but nonetheless, it's an opportunity for appreciation.

It's not always black and white-one thing or the other. When you're out on the water, surrounded by the beauty of Mother Earth, maybe take a moment for quiet reflection. To acknowledge that Indigenous people have had elements of their cultures stolen for centuries-even as the country we now call Canada has made numerous attempts at stripping those cultures away entirely, as though there's no value in them. Ironic. The truth is, much has been taken from Indigenous people, but they've given Canada a lot, and not only kayaks.

"What's the big deal?" That's another question I get a lot in my line of work as an author and public speaker where I write and present often on the subject of appropriation. Do you really have to get bent out of shape when you see a white dude wearing a Chief Wahoo baseball cap? When you watch Peter Pan and have to listen to "What Made the Red Man Red?" When you see "Indian warrior" or "pocahottie" costumes at the local party supply store? When you see elements taken from various Indigenous cultures decorating cottage properties?

Well, yeah, because the stakes are higher than it seems. Addressing appropriation is necessary if we're genuinely going to work towards healing as a community. It's an integral part in the process of reconciliation. Healing requires us to listen to, learn from, and understand each other.

So what does it look like to address appropriation? While working on this article, I discovered that the Wigwam Dining & Lounge recently changed its name to 1929 Dining & Lounge, 1929 being the year it was built. I spoke to the owner, Rhonda Murray Cabral, who explained that she and her family had owned the restaurant her entire adult life, and that she'd grown increasingly uncomfortable with the name. "When you know better, you do better," she said, and when she took over control of the business, she decided to make the change. There's now a land acknowledgement on the menus and on the main page of 1929's revamped website, explaining that the establishment is on Treaty 2 territory. She asked my opinion on a heritage wall she's considering, which could reference 1929's former name and explain what a wigwam is. Rhonda is confident in her decision to change the name. She isn't concerned about getting the sort of backlash sports franchises see when they change their appropriated names and mascots. In fact, she says that the vast majority of her patrons have embraced the move.

When you know better, you do better.

I like that. It's a great example of consideration and respect, and if a small business is willing to make a significant change like this, we are all capable of doing so. We just need to be willing to do the work.

If you've placed an inukshuk on your property, do some research. When you have a guest over and they notice the beautiful structure on your doorstep, you can thank them and explain that inukshuks are used in the north by Inuit people for a number of reasons, including as a navigation tool to guide people across the tundra, a signpost to mark a cache or a good hunting or fishing spot, and as a message board to communicate something such as a change from an intended route. When you buy those dreamcatcher earrings, take the time to ask about the meaning of that particular piece from the person who made it. Learn enough about it so that you can articulate its meaning to somebody else.

What about totem poles? They're typically made out of red cedar and represent ancestry, histories, people, or events. They display beings or crest animals that mark a family's lineage. They are visual representations of kinship. If your cottage has one, at least know that, and let others know it too. Otherwise, an important structure to the Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest might be looked at as no more valuable than a garden gnome.

I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I ate at the restaurant formerly known as the Wigwam without thinking of how actual wigwams, semi-permanent cone-shaped or domed dwellings, were used by many First Nations before colonization and are still used for ceremonial purposes. I've smiled while taking pictures in front of the totem pole at the lodge without consideration for how problematic it is. When my eldest daughter was two or three, I even dressed her up as an Indigenous person for Halloween, as though her heritage is a costume.

Everybody makes mistakes. The key is to learn from them.

Asking yourself whether or not something is cultural appropriation leads to other questions that will help guide your decisions or put an issue that might not seem that important into a different context. Reconciliation is an act of healing. It's reaching out to learn from a place of truth so that we can become truth-tellers ourselves and create stronger communities.

My best and earliest memories are of the lake. So were my dad's. He loved the calm of being near the water; it reminded him of his childhood on the trapline. Maybe your memories are of the lake too. My dad used to say that we're all human beings, and we share far more than we think we do. Let's move forward together with that in mind, and ensure, as much as we can, that the time we spend, the memories we cherish, don't come at the expense of somebody else's culture.
David A. Robertson (he, him, his) is the author of numerous award-winning books for young readers including When We Were Alone The Barren Grounds Read more: Featured Video Waubgeshig Rice's top reading picks for cottagers . Dave is a member of Norway House Cree Nation and currently lives in Winnipeg.
This article appeared as "Navigation Tools: How to make your way in Canada today without getting stuck on the shoals of cultural appropriation" in the June/July 2021 issue of Cottage Life.

Read more: Indigenous-led tourism adventures in Canada

Related Story Waubgeshig Rice's top reading picks for cottagers

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The difference between cultural appreciation and appropriation

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In the third episode of season two, editor Michelle Kelly sits down with author David. A. Robertson to discuss his essay about cultural appreciation versus appropriation that appeared in the June/July 2021 issue of Cottage Life magazine. Listen here or visit cottagelife.com for access to all of the episodes.

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Running seems to be popular subject in the world of short film and we've seen many different takes on this particular form of exercise over the years - my personal favourite being 2014 Short of the Year winner The Runners. In Amar Chebib's (Joe Buffalo) heartfelt and honest short doc we follow a story of resilience and endurance as we're introduced to 20yr-old Darius Sam as he shares his struggles with his mental health and prepares to run a 100-mile ultramarathon in freezing temperatures.

A layered narrative that tackles themes of addiction, community, depression, family, loss and more, with his latest short Chebib presents another inspiring story, told with his usual filmmaking flair. Introducing us to its main character through a quick 30-second montage - where we see Darius being blessed in a traditional smudging ceremony and running through the Nicola Valley of BC (Nlaka'pamux territory) where he lives, his voiceover describing his challenges and how people perceive him - we're instantly immersed in the on-screen world and given an indication of what this storyline holds.

With the opening seven-minutes dedicated to his prep, we join this young man as he trains, both physically and mentally, for the almost unthinkable task of running 100-miles in the harsh subzero climate. As we get to meet his family, his mentor and, of course, Darius himself, he explains what drives him to attempt such a feat of endurance. As the following half of the film is dedicated to following him on his run, from mile 0 to mile 100, not only do we get to join Darius as he pushes himself to his very limits, our bond to him grows as he details how close he came to ending his own life and what he hopes to achieve from completing this challenge.

Having only heard about Darius' attempt two weeks before he was set to start to his run, Chebib found himself motivated to reach out after being impressed by what such a young man was setting out to do to raise awareness around mental health and addiction. "I had never heard of anyone running 100 miles before nevermind in the middle of winter and someone that young with relatively little training", the director reveals. "I was also really inspired by the cause, that it was about something bigger. Upon reaching out to him, we immediately connected and I sensed a certain maturity and clarity about who he was and what he was going to do in his life. From that moment I knew I needed to make a film about him".

"For the run itself, we were basically just winging it"

With Chebib now convinced that Darius was the subject of his next short and with such little turnaround time - they arrived in town three days before the run was set to start - the filmmaker had to work fast to ensure he was as prepared as possible to capture everything he needed. "I usually would've liked to scout locations", the director reveals, "particularly for the run itself. But knowing that our time with Darius was backed into the run, I wanted to shoot as much controlled imagery with Darius as possible as well as the interviews with him, his mom and his coach. So for the run itself, we were basically just winging it - alternating between our ground camera and the drone and trying to stay out of each other's way".

Discussing the shoot, Chebib recalled how they would cover the run in shifts, returning to a hotel to rest for a few hours, before rejoining Darius on his route. As already mentioned, most of the filming was improvised, although the director did give his drone operator a few specific shots to capture and had a specific montage in mind, where it was the middle of the night and Darius would be battling his inner demons. "It was about 4am and about -6 C / 21 F when I asked Jason, our cinematographer, to put on a 120mm lens with a double fog filter on it and run alongside him on the highway", Chebib explains. "He looked at me like I was crazy but obliged as he struggled to capture eyes, hands, feet, coming in and out of focus. It was amazing he captured as much as he did given the circumstances and he was pulling his own focus. In the end I'm really happy with how it came together."

Despite Chebib not having all the prep he would have preferred before going in to shoot The Runner, it's an impressive short to watch. The cinematography is striking without ever feeling gimmicky and the edit pulls the story together perfectly - a story about a runner has to have good pacing and Chebib, who edited the film himself, absolutely nails it here. 17-minutes is a long-time in the world of short films, but the director ensures things never drag, raising and lower the tempo at keys moments and allowing his audience to bask in Darius' triumph alongside him. It's a long journey, but you leave it feel elevated, refreshed and inspired, never overwhelmed.

Released in time for Indigenous Peoples' Day on The New Yorker, Chebib is Syrian-Canadian filmmaker who spreads his talents working on documentaries, branded content, and commercials. For his next project, he's working on "an experimental narrative short exploring the dual potentialities of humankind through the lens of Islamic mysticism and eschatology :)". Sounds fascinating.

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The Runner - a short documentary by Amar Chebib

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Running seems to be popular subject in the world of short film and we've seen many different takes on this particular form of exercise over the years - my personal favourite being 2014 Short of the Year winner The Runners .

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Dogrib Midnight Runners - Richard Van Camp

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Dogrib Midnight Runners - Richard Van Camp

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Running seems to be popular subject in the world of short film and we've seen many different takes on this particular form of exercise over the years - my personal favourite being 2014 Short of the Year winner The Runners. In Amar Chebib's (Joe Buffalo) heartfelt and honest short doc we follow a story of resilience and endurance as we're introduced to 20yr-old Darius Sam as he shares his struggles with his mental health and prepares to run a 100-mile ultramarathon in freezing temperatures.

A layered narrative that tackles themes of addiction, community, depression, family, loss and more, with his latest short Chebib presents another inspiring story, told with his usual filmmaking flair. Introducing us to its main character through a quick 30-second montage - where we see Darius being blessed in a traditional smudging ceremony and running through the Nicola Valley of BC (Nlaka'pamux territory) where he lives, his voiceover describing his challenges and how people perceive him - we're instantly immersed in the on-screen world and given an indication of what this storyline holds.

With the opening seven-minutes dedicated to his prep, we join this young man as he trains, both physically and mentally, for the almost unthinkable task of running 100-miles in the harsh subzero climate. As we get to meet his family, his mentor and, of course, Darius himself, he explains what drives him to attempt such a feat of endurance. As the following half of the film is dedicated to following him on his run, from mile 0 to mile 100, not only do we get to join Darius as he pushes himself to his very limits, our bond to him grows as he details how close he came to ending his own life and what he hopes to achieve from completing this challenge.

Having only heard about Darius' attempt two weeks before he was set to start to his run, Chebib found himself motivated to reach out after being impressed by what such a young man was setting out to do to raise awareness around mental health and addiction. "I had never heard of anyone running 100 miles before nevermind in the middle of winter and someone that young with relatively little training", the director reveals. "I was also really inspired by the cause, that it was about something bigger. Upon reaching out to him, we immediately connected and I sensed a certain maturity and clarity about who he was and what he was going to do in his life. From that moment I knew I needed to make a film about him".

"For the run itself, we were basically just winging it"

With Chebib now convinced that Darius was the subject of his next short and with such little turnaround time - they arrived in town three days before the run was set to start - the filmmaker had to work fast to ensure he was as prepared as possible to capture everything he needed. "I usually would've liked to scout locations", the director reveals, "particularly for the run itself. But knowing that our time with Darius was backed into the run, I wanted to shoot as much controlled imagery with Darius as possible as well as the interviews with him, his mom and his coach. So for the run itself, we were basically just winging it - alternating between our ground camera and the drone and trying to stay out of each other's way".

Discussing the shoot, Chebib recalled how they would cover the run in shifts, returning to a hotel to rest for a few hours, before rejoining Darius on his route. As already mentioned, most of the filming was improvised, although the director did give his drone operator a few specific shots to capture and had a specific montage in mind, where it was the middle of the night and Darius would be battling his inner demons. "It was about 4am and about -6 C / 21 F when I asked Jason, our cinematographer, to put on a 120mm lens with a double fog filter on it and run alongside him on the highway", Chebib explains. "He looked at me like I was crazy but obliged as he struggled to capture eyes, hands, feet, coming in and out of focus. It was amazing he captured as much as he did given the circumstances and he was pulling his own focus. In the end I'm really happy with how it came together."

Despite Chebib not having all the prep he would have preferred before going in to shoot The Runner, it's an impressive short to watch. The cinematography is striking without ever feeling gimmicky and the edit pulls the story together perfectly - a story about a runner has to have good pacing and Chebib, who edited the film himself, absolutely nails it here. 17-minutes is a long-time in the world of short films, but the director ensures things never drag, raising and lower the tempo at keys moments and allowing his audience to bask in Darius' triumph alongside him. It's a long journey, but you leave it feel elevated, refreshed and inspired, never overwhelmed.

Released in time for Indigenous Peoples' Day on The New Yorker, Chebib is Syrian-Canadian filmmaker who spreads his talents working on documentaries, branded content, and commercials. For his next project, he's working on "an experimental narrative short exploring the dual potentialities of humankind through the lens of Islamic mysticism and eschatology :)". Sounds fascinating.

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The Runner - a short documentary by Amar Chebib

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Running seems to be popular subject in the world of short film and we've seen many different takes on this particular form of exercise over the years - my personal favourite being 2014 Short of the Year winner The Runners .

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Dogrib Midnight Runners - Richard Van Camp

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Dogrib Midnight Runners - Richard Van Camp

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Tom Longboat, Indigenous self-determination and discrimination in sport

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A new book remembers famed the Onondaga distance runner and explores how Canada uses sport to police Indigenous bodies and identities

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American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL)

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Designed to help readers develop a critical eye about representations of American Indians in children's and young adult books

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My father used to say that he took jobs that enabled him to help people. I've tried to do the same thing during my career as an author. It's a career that's gone beyond writing books and now includes advocacy and activism.

I educate youth and adults about the Indian Residential School System and its ongoing impact. I raise awareness for the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) epidemic. Lately, I have spoken about the importance of accurately representing Indigenous people in literature. Representation might not seem like a big issue, but it's just as important as anything else.

When I was a kid, books like The Barren Grounds or When We Were Alone or On the Trapline or any book by one of many incredible Indigenous authors available today never found their way into classrooms or on the shelves in bookstores. They weren't even published. But it would've made a big difference, and not only for me - for many kids.

Read David Robertson's piece on talking to kids about the National Day For Truth And Reconciliation which recently received an Honourable Mention for Best Service Feature from the 2022 Digital Publishing Awards.

Growing Up Without Indigenous Representation

I graduated from high school not knowing that the Indian Residential School System existed, and I'm an intergenerational survivor. My grandmother attended Norway House Indian Residential School in the 1920s and '30s. There was a residential school building down the street from Kelvin High School, my alma mater, that I never knew existed. Assiniboia Residential School.

"I graduated from high school not knowing that the Indian Residential School System existed."

I would've known about these things, and I would've been better for it.

But the problem wasn't just the absence of a significant piece of Canadian history. Indigenous people were ignored entirely in books and the classroom or grossly misrepresented. I remember reading comics in the '80s that had Indigenous characters that fell into pervasive stereotypical representations, creating a negative self-perception. I saw all of these awful depictions and thought: Is that me? Is that who I am? Many non-Indigenous people learned to perceive Indigenous people a certain way too.

All of it was damaging.

Kids Today Know More

Fast forward more than 30 years. Things have changed. If I ask any kid in school, across Turtle Island, about Indian Residential School History, they can tell me about it. That's incredibly encouraging.

I visit with thousands of kids every year. They have learned so much, and our future as a country is in good hands. Kids are ready, and our job is to put truth into their hands. They are good leaders, and they will continue to be. They will undoubtedly make better decisions than have been made in the past.

I've been using a phrase lately: The more you know, the better you do.

Even Canadian Schools Pull Books

It seems we've taken steps backwards over the last few years, even as things have improved. In 2018, Alberta Education and Edmonton Public Schools had a "not recommended" list and a "books to weed out" list full of Indigenous literature, including several of my titles. Their reasoning? One of my books required pre- and post-conversations. Does any teacher introduce a book in the classroom and then not discuss it? It was an example of educational leaders and administration making unilateral decisions that affected teachers and, most importantly, kids.

"Recently, Durham District School Board pulled my book, The Great Bear, from their libraries and classrooms."

Recently, Durham District School Board pulled my book, The Great Bear, from their libraries and classrooms saying it was too cultural, has too much ceremony or somehow harms Indigenous students and families. Up until the time of this article, they haven't given a clear answer or elaborated. And so, even though The Great Bear has been put back on shelves, which was a good step, I'm still looking for answers. I have asked for transparency and applying a clear and consistent policy. And, you know, to not soft ban books.

As parents, community members, teachers and librarians, I don't want us standing for this behaviour. And in this case, I'm proud that we didn't. As hurtful as it was to have my book pulled from libraries and classrooms while "under review," it was amazing to have so many people standing with me to ensure that we don't go in that direction. It's happening in the United States, and I need us to have the courage to stand up and say, "Not here."

I believe we're better than that.

We all have the ability to recognize the value of truth. To have faith that kids can make this world a better place to live in when armed with knowledge if we just let them.

If we don't let them, then why not? What is there to be afraid of?

If you're looking for Indigenous stories to share with your children, this list of 12 things to watch, read or listen to is a good place to start.

A friend of mine, Tasha Spillett, an inspiring and talented afro-Indigenous author, was recently uninvited by a school in the Ottawa Catholic School Board. The principal reasoned that the kids weren't ready for her book, Surviving the City. Here's the thing. When an adult says that kids aren't ready, I think it's usually because the adult is not ready. Kids have their minds open, and they're ready to learn. I don't want to see truth ripped away from them just because we didn't have access to today's essential and meaningful books, just because we aren't comfortable.

The truth can be uncomfortable. But it's also necessary.

Kids have the right to learn from a place of truth. They deserve it. And they will do great things if we let them. The way I see it, as a parent and a teacher, there is nothing more important than handing a kid a story and watching their eyes light up.

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I'm An Indigenous Parent And Author Who Has Had My Books Pulled From School Shelves | CBC Parents

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My father used to say that he took jobs that enabled him to help people. I've tried to do the same thing during my career as an author. It's a career that's gone beyond writing books and now includes advocacy and activism. I educate youth and adults about the Indian Residential School System and its ongoing impact.

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X̱wi7x̱wa Library is a centre for academic and community Indigenous scholarship. Its collections and services reflect Aboriginal approaches to teaching, learning, and research. Everyone is welcome to visit X̱wi7x̱wa Library.

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X̱wi7x̱wa Library is a centre for academic and community Indigenous scholarship. Its collections and services reflect Aboriginal approaches to teaching, learning, and research. Everyone is welcome to visit X̱wi7x̱wa Library.

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Fewer than 15 Nuxalk-language speakers and storytellers are left in Bella Coola, B.C. This thoughtful film explores what is lost from a culture when a language threatens to go extinct.

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Fewer than 15 Nuxalk-language speakers and storytellers are left in Bella Coola, B.C. This thoughtful film explores what is lost from a culture when a language threatens to go extinct.

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Saw northern lights last night. Nice and big across the sky: 1:30. Green.

We saw baby ones trying to swim like little faint feathers so we helped them by rubbing our fingernails together and whistling and they swam, boy. Swam and reached across the sky and it was the stairway to heaven kind, the kind where you can see the spirits of those who have passed on walking up, up.

We now walk around town with our baby pictures taped or glued over the pictures of the saints with leather ties around our necks and so when you see someone with the leather necklace you take your baby pic out and show it to them and they marvel at how beautiful you were when you were new, and you do the same.

and then we praise each other:

- Oh you were such a beautiful baby.

- Look at the dreams in your eyes.

- Oh look at your hair. Just like a bear's pelt in spring.

- Oh you are so beautiful. So so beautiful. Have a lovely, lovely life.

That's how it is now. I am proud to say I started this after everything fell apart. It just happened. I woke up and I was in a bad place with bad people and there was little hope for me and there was my grandfather's leather necklace that the priest gave him with a saint I didn't know and there was my favourite baby picture of me on top of the fridge covered in lint and dust and so I cleaned it and took some glue (that we had been sniffing) and I glued my face over St. What's His Hump's and I wore that necklace, tucked under my shirt over my heart.

Two nights later I got rolled and as Franky and Henry were going through my pockets and were holding me upside down they pulled the necklace out.

Henry stopped and said, "What's this you? "

Franky squinted and dropped me. I told them it was a pic of me when I was a baby. They looked at each other and shook their heads. They weren't mad. They were just, well . . . I don't know.

They let me go and threw my money back at me. "Go home, Richard," they said. "You're not a man anymore."

"I'm trying to be!" I yelled and walked home, rubbing my jaw, stuffing my pockets back in. I'm trying to be . . .

Two days later I was walking around looking for smokes when they came up to me with goofy grins on their faces and then Franky and Henry showed me theirs. They did what I did and had bivouacked saint necklaces to show their baby pictures. Oh they were ugly babies. Maybe this was why they turned out to be such arseholes, but I showed them mine again and we were just so happy to see each other like that.

"Sorry for the other night," Franky said. "It's okay," I said.

You were ugly babies, I thought, and we shook hands.

Then Harvey and his wife came up to us and said, "Hey what you're doing? "

And we all turned and showed them our baby pics and grinned.

"How cute!" Cynthia said. "Is that you? "

We all nodded like gomers and beamed.

"Oh that is too precious," she said. "Let me take a picture."

So we waited while she dug through her purse. Cynthia's trying to be a reporter so we all helped out. Harvey offered us smokes and we took a break. "Thanks for dancing with my wife," he said and I blushed a little. Harvey doesn't like to dance but his wife can't get enough so when I go to the bar she comes up and we two-step around and holy cow she's a great dancer. She keeps her right arm up and holds my hand just barely and boy we just glide and float around that dance floor like butterflies and Harvey keeps his eye on me like a bull moose and I always go up and shake his hand after and he nods back, not too happy that I can dance like I do with his wife but all the same he's pleased that she's happy and enjoying herself.

I know when I hold her on the dance floor I can honestly tell how much she loves him, how she keeps her wedding ring polished just shiny and I can tell how when she moves that she moves for him and that she is the best thing that ever happened to Harvey.

So Cynthia came back and took a picture of us and it ended up in the paper; then, two days later, people came up to me and showed me their baby pictures around their necks on those leather necklaces and we ooh'd and aaah'd each other and we just could not stop laughing.

- Oh you were chubby - wah!

- Where did all your hair go, eh?

- Even then you were a heartbreaker!

Whites, Natives, Inuit - oh we all laughed together when we saw each other and there are just so many beautiful babies inside us all. Well now after I got hurt at work everybody who came to see me at my house showed me their baby pics and I just left mine out on the coffee table and we laughed and laughed, passing them around. That pic of our little pictures in the paper really won the heart of our town so that's what we do now. And to my surprise Shawna came to see me. I had no idea she was back in town. I really missed her. How sad: when I'm with someone she's single and vice versa.

So now we finally got our timing right and I held her hand and we walked down to the rocks and we saw the baby northern lights trying to swim and she showed me how to call them.

- You can do it!

- Give'er!

- Go go go!

And those baby lights, they swam out little by little and Shawna and I rubbed our fingernails together and whistled and soon we had shadows because the northern lights were so bright. Soon it was like rolling rainbows across the sky.

"You are so beautiful!" she called and then looked to me. "Did you know it's the exact opposite in Nunavut? "

Even though she had a new kind of haircut, she still had fox eyes. "What's that? "

"They rub their fingernails to send them away."

"Hunh," I said, looking up, starting to shiver but not because I was cold. "Maybe they're just glad that we remember halfway what to do." "As long as we honour them, hey?" she said. I could tell she was going to be a great teacher. I could tell after she said that, and we walked across town holding hands back to my place. I wanted to tell her that sometimes the night was all I had left of her but didn't. I shaved so I could be soft for her while she sang in the shower and we made beautiful love.

We took our time. We laughed and giggled and joked and kissed and caressed and then we told each other about our lives and how hard it has been these past few years. We both wondered why the lovers we chose all turned out so mean. I noticed she still took the right side of the bed and had a few new moves but we didn't need to talk about it.

"I missed your hands," she said.

"Yours too," I said. I told her to stick around, to quit leaving town. "You could be the love of my life," I said and she went quiet, running her fingers through my hair. I traced my finger along the scars across her arm where that half-wolf bit her. I'm the only man who's allowed to do that. The birds started to sing so I lit her a smoke and we sat up together. I was about to get us some ice water for Round Two and she said, "Wait."

Then she took her beautiful baby Cree picture and held it up and I put mine facing hers and we kissed . . .

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Saw northern lights last night. Nice and big across the sky: 1:30. Green. We saw baby ones trying to swim like little faint feathers so we helped them by rubbing our fingernails together and whistling and they swam, boy.

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In his book, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Daniel Heath Justice explores just that - what Indigenous literatures are. It also looks at the importance of understanding and valuing them in all their forms.

"I always do the plural because our literatures take a lot of different forms," said Justice, a professor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and English at the University of British Columbia.

"Basically, for me, Indigenous literatures are those embodied, expressive traditions that communicate our understandings in the world."

This includes texts, books, stories and poems, but also mediums such as carvings, basketry and wampum belts, to name a few, said Justice, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

"There are all kinds of ways that we have inscribed our realities into other media."

Literary expression before and after colonialism

The term literatures, instead of literature, reflects the multitude of forms which literary expression can take, he said, which date back to long before the arrival and settlement of Europeans.

"I think that we have to get out of the rupture idea that because a rupture has happened in our histories, that somehow everything before then is lost to us and everything that came after is inauthentic," said Justice. "I think that's a very impoverishing view that just isn't reflected by reality."

While Indigenous literatures are getting more attention, Justice said they still are less respected in Canada than they should be.

"I think especially those texts that really challenge settler colonialism in Canada; the literature that really questions the multicultural ethos of a liberalized Canada," he said.

Justice addressed the term settler in his book, describing it as a word that can cause discomfort for non-Indigenous people.

"It is agitating for a lot of people and I think that's OK. I think we can be disturbed by some of this terminology. I don't use it as an insult," said Justice. "I do use it as a way of foregrounding the ... violent histories of settler colonialism."

The term is often criticized for grouping all non-Indigenous people together. "There is a danger in collapsing all of these distinctive experiences into on," Justice explained. "Under settler colonialism, the arrival of so many communities has ensured that Indigenous peoples have lost lands."

One of the questions his book sets out to answer is in the title itself. Why Do Indigenous Literatures Matter? The answer is simple.

"Because we matter," said Justice.

Click the Listen button above to hear his full conversation with Rosanna Deerchild.

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'Our literatures matter because we do,' says Indigenous author Daniel Heath Justice | CBC Radio

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In his book, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, Daniel Heath Justice explores just that - what Indigenous literatures are. It also looks at the importance of understanding and valuing them in all their forms. "I always do the plural because our literatures take a lot of different forms," said Justice, a professor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and English at the University of British Columbia.

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It's a depressingly common experience for Indigenous people in this country. It happens on a daily basis: At work with colleagues, in encounters with strangers, in news commentaries, in social media exchanges and at parties when we just want to relax.

It's almost a guarantee that any time an Indigenous issue receives public attention, we will be subjected to the pronouncements of Settlers with Opinions.

Recently we have had to deal with the misinformed public opinions of a Canadian senator who celebrated Canada's assimilationist policies in an open letter and who in the spring cited fake news in her defence of residential schools. She is just one of many with inaccurate and distorted opinions, including editors of influential Canadian media and men serving in the Canadian military.

Settlers with Opinions are far from those fair-minded non-Indigenous folks who bring generosity and humility to their interactions with Indigenous peoples: thoughtful professionals who do their research and build meaningful connections, curious and committed students in my Indigenous Studies classes, sincere strangers with challenging questions and friends who trust that their gaps in knowledge won't be shamed.

Regardless of political affiliation - whether sneering Conservatives or head-patting Liberals - Settlers with Opinions are of an entirely different type. It's attitude, not identity, that distinguishes the two. Mostly white and often - though not always - men, these apologists for colonialism can be readily identified by their relentless, resentful Certainty, detached from informed understanding or even empathy.

Opinions without knowledge

The Settler with Opinions doesn't just have thoughts about these matters: He has important Opinions, and he insists on subjecting us to them. He is generally not trained in any relevant profession or scholarly discipline that would give some credibility to his assertions, nor is he even a particularly careful or selective reader. When more academically inclined, he typically adheres to long discredited 19th-century pseudo-scientific theories.

Nor does he have meaningful personal experience or relationships that might provide understanding of Indigenous matters. Maybe he lived near a reserve or worked with an Indigenous person once. Maybe he's among the growing ranks of settlers who has found an anonymous Indian in the family tree that seems to magically authorise commentary on all things Indigenous without accountability to a living community.

The Settler with Opinions believes herself to be above critique or even questioning, as she is The One with All the Answers. She assures us she knows our problems better than we do. Her lack of knowledge is no obstacle: She claims her ignorance as a badge of honour, for it confirms that she's Objective.

Her solutions are a tiresome regurgitation of devastating imposed policies that have failed time and again. But because she doesn't do any careful research, because she feels no need to actually engage with people who've experienced these things firsthand, she's unfamiliar with this long and ugly history.

We've heard the exact same vacuous Opinions and ill-formed stereotypes a thousand times before. Our parents and grandparents and many generations before us heard them, too, and they resisted them as best they could. They had to deal with Settlers with Opinions in their times, too.

Reconciliation without truth

There's nothing the Settler with Opinions won't opine upon, no matter too intimate or too painful for him to intrude.

He loves to weigh in on matters of Indigenous identity. He knows next to nothing about the complex internal processes of belonging or the ongoing and destructive legacies of colonial intrusion into these most private matters. Yet this never stops him; it seems the less he knows, the more confident he is that we've got it all wrong no matter where we stand.

He has no investment in Indigenous women's issues of any kind and no particular concern about their well-being. But as a firm advocate of patriarchy and its values, he's quick to offer a blaming assessment of their sexualities, gendered expressions and even their bodies.

He's rarely, if ever, read a book by an Indigenous writer. Yet he can explain, in detail, how much they're lacking in literary quality, scope, sophistication and universal appeal.

The Settler with Opinions is allergic to all but the most partial context, and only that which justifies her pre-existing biases. She dismisses cultural appropriation, but is the first to defend her intellectual property rights.

She insists Indigenous land activists should be held accountable to Canadian law but is unfamiliar with Indigenous legal orders that predate those of Canada. She's predictably silent about the centuries of legalized racism that continue to strip us of our lands and imperil our relations. And she has no clue of the obligations we have to one another or to our other-than-human kin.

She dismisses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a guilt-inducing waste of time and money. She waxes poetic on the "good intentions" of those who empowered this system of child-theft and abuse and rape. She's not particularly concerned with the horrors that were visited upon little bodies, hearts and minds as long as their souls were saved by their charitable Christian tormentors.

She says we shouldn't judge the past by today's politically correct standards. But she refuses to acknowledge the contesting voices of the past, and she refuses to see the privileging of only non-Indigenous perspectives as a political decision with real consequences for real people.

She's fine with talking reconciliation as long as the status quo doesn't change. It's the Truth part of the TRC she simply can't abide and won't take any effort to learn.

Conversations without exchange

When we do counter his shallow stereotypes with voluminous evidence alongside personal or familial experience, when we complicate his simplistic savage and civilized binaries with more accurate and more complex realities, the Settler with Opinions shifts tactics.

He's a master at dismissal, tone policing, derailing and evasion. When we actually want to have a real discussion, the Settler with Opinions changes the topic. A real conversation or thoughtful exchange is the last thing he wants. He prefers an audience for his singular settler monologue locked on generational repeat.

For years he's insisted that we didn't have the professional or scholarly credentials to legitimately respond to his Opinions. When we earn them, he sniffs about the academy's diminished standards, the insularity of the Ivory Tower elite, the decline of traditional journalism. And he certainly has no patience with community-based knowledge holders whose deep expertise comes from enduring relationships and experience with the land.

He's quick to condemn terms like "settler," "colonialism," and " genocide," insisting that they're uncivil and ill-applied. He insists the bloody reality thus named is too alienating. Such forthright language makes people like him feel uncomfortable. His comfort is the most important thing when discussing the oppression of Indigenous peoples.

We discuss the complicated relationships and emotionally challenging entanglements of belonging and kinship; she responds with simplistic soundbites about blood quantum and identity policing.

We critique the power inequities in appropriation; he condemns our delusional fixation on cultural purity.

We confront the devastating impacts of colonial policies on our nations' diverse and complex languages, literatures, technologies, political structures and social systems; she gives us a treatise on how her ancestors so generously dragged our benighted ancestors into civilisation.

And it's not just the past: The Settler with Opinions finds invalidating fault in every facet of our 21st century being. Raised outside of community? Illegitimate. Raised in community? Anti-modern romantic. Of mixed heritage? Inauthentic. Phenotypically Indigenous? Retrograde.

Racism without accountability

He may be peddling the ugliest, most antiquated ideas and beliefs about Indigenous peoples, but if we dare to even hint that these are racist he'll rage about how he's the victim of reverse racism. He insists that his perspective is unjustly marginalized, that Indigenous people are the real bigots causing racial strife, that we need to stop being so unreasonable and just embrace his rightness - no matter how wrong it may be.

And, oh, if we have other things to do than respond to him, beware, because the Settler with Opinions insists on being the focus of every bit of our attention at all times.

He insists that we not only listen to him but we also give him all our time and energy to reply to every single point he brings forward, address every tired argument, every snide comment, every sloppy stereotype and demeaning insult with servile adoration.

When we fail to appreciate or acknowledge his self-evident brilliance, he hurls insults about our substandard intellectual capabilities and rails about our bubble mentality and inability to engage contrary voices.

It hardly matters that we've been responding to such voices for a long, long time, to little evident effect, and that we have busy lives that don't always include being his audience. But when we point that out, he gets mean.

We grow tired of the condescending dismissals, the racist epithets, the physical threats, the demeaning insistence that we're subhuman and beneath contempt, the hypocritical evasions, the gleeful celebrations of our pain and loss, the relentless goading, the refusals to consider that we, too, have perspectives on our own being.

When we fight back with experience, facts, and rightful anger, the Settler with Opinions feigns shock and quickly turns petulant. He's every bit as comfortable in the position of whinging martyr as righteous crusader.

Generations of resistance

He wails about our violation of his free speech, our cruel mob mentality, our animalistic swarming of his supremely rational self. He dismisses us as irresponsible, unhinged, sociopathic: Savages in all but name.

The Settler with Opinions becomes a remarkably sensitive soul when he's the focus of public criticism. But he regularly turns a blind eye to the tidal wave of vitriol that Indigenous commentators experience on a regular basis - especially Indigenous women and transfolk who are regularly targeted with rape threats from his trollish supporters. It takes a particular level of courage to be an Indigenous person in Canada's public sphere, especially online. He's never been subjected to this kind of violence and bile, no matter how angry or frustrated we get.

Ultimately, it seems that Settlers with Opinions can only see Indigenous peoples through a lens of inherent deficiency. Their driving, desperate need for us and our ancestors to be not only inferior but utterly inhuman doesn't actually have anything to do with us. It's entirely about their fragile self regard. But knowing this truth doesn't make them any more pleasant to endure.

It doesn't matter whether the decree comes from Beyak, Black, M. Wente, Blatchford, Kay, Gilmore, Widdowson, Murphy, an anonymous social media troll or that uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, the message is always the same: Shut up and assimilate.

This is an old message and one responsible for incalculable misery. It was forced on our ancestors by churches, soldiers, policy makers, and everyday settler subjects who insisted they knew better and who insisted we should hate ourselves as much as they did. And it continues every day.

For those like me, who were raised outside of our nations and have spent the better part of our lives working to undo internalised family shame and trauma while trying to learn our responsibilities to kin and community from afar, this message is particularly painful. We know its deep generational consequences all too well.

Like all living human cultures, Indigenous peoples are fully part of the 21st century, but that's not enough for Settlers with Opinions. They've decided we can't be both Indigenous and part of the modern world. They insist we abandon the legacies, lands, languages, relations, commitments and complexities that have always rooted and sustained our nations. They insist we stop trying to rebuild what was destroyed, to give up restoring what's been lost, to let go of what remains.

They want us to simply shut up and disappear as distinct peoples with values and perspectives of our own. They give us a single option: to accept settler claims to cultural superiority no matter how illegitimate or false the justification may be.

Worst of all, they expect us to turn our backs on generations of principled Indigenous resistance, the immeasurable sacrifices of our ancestors, and the continuing struggles of our nations and extended kin.

And for what? For the dubious benefits of assimilation into an exploitative, murderous mainstream that has for generations so relentlessly insisted on and worked toward our nations' disappearance.

Then, at last, they would get to be right. Then there would be no one left to challenge the false mythology of settler sanctity or its ongoing devastations. Then there would be no one left to take up the hard work of righting relations with this wounded world.

Thanks all the same, but that's an offer we must continue to refuse.

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It's a depressingly common experience for Indigenous people in this country. It happens on a daily basis: At work with colleagues, in encounters with strangers, in news commentaries, in social media exchanges and at parties when we just want to relax.

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No Reservations - A Pipeline Comedy [Short Film]

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In The Mountain of SGaana, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter spins a magical tale of a young man who is stolen away to the spirit world, and the young …

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Stop-Motion Storytelling

Spotted Fawn Productions (SFP) specializes in innovative, multi-layered projects with compelling visuals, characters and stories that challenge historical narratives of Indigenous peoples.

Upcoming Projects

A graphic novel and a new feature-length film – both collaborations with acclaimed Indigenous author Leanne Betasamosake Simpson– are among SFP’s upcoming projects.

Digital Expertise

The SFP team has a range of expertise in illustration, stop-motion animation, 2D & 3D digital animation and interactive media.

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Spotted Fawn Productions (SFP) specializes in innovative, multi-layered projects with compelling visuals, characters and stories that challenge historical narratives of Indigenous peoples.

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James Whetung is reclaiming his Indigenous right to cultivate wild rice on Ontario's Pigeon Lake, but local homeowners are furious about large-scale changes in the waterways - so there's going to be a dust-up.

Drew Hayden Taylor is an award-winning author and humourist who lives on Ontario's Curve Lake First Nation. For generations, it was a peaceful place where residents managed to avoid conflict with "settlers." But in recent years, that's changed.

Hayden Taylor's friend James Whetung has been cultivating wild rice on the Trent-Severn Waterway. A wild renegade in a fanboat, he has also sown discontent in the area. The Indigenous grandmothers whom he feeds, the water scientists with whom he consults, and those who buy his commercial product love the rice.

The cottage owners, whose waterways are becoming clogged with plants, have concerns about the scale of his seeding. And as their property values dive, they're getting louder. Their reluctant leader, Larry Wood, is happy to tell Hayden Taylor about the compromises they seek.

There are big issues to consider: food sovereignty, property rights, restricted access to capital on reserves, racism, privilege, contract law and Indigenous poverty. These matters go far beyond Pigeon Lake, touching the lives of Indigenous people and non-Indigenous landowners across Canada.

Hayden Taylor embarks on a cross-country journey to investigate how these groups might coexist. He travels to an isolated reserve on the lake that has provided the city of Winnipeg with pristine drinking water for a century but has left the First Nation with a boil-water advisory for more than 20 years. He samples the finer things in life with the chief of one of Canada's most prosperous Indigenous bands. He meets an Indigenous chief and small-town mayor who both think they should have ownership of one of Canada's most popular beaches.

It's a journey filled with laughter, tears, joy and anger as Hayden Taylor meets with the adversaries at Curve Lake, hoping to be able to find a solution ... or at least foster some peace. It all leads to a climactic conflict that he could have never imagined.

Related Content

Next Episode Recent Features

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Cottagers & Indians: Trouble brewing in Ontario's cottage county over wild rice and water rights

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James Whetung is reclaiming his Indigenous right to cultivate wild rice on Ontario's Pigeon Lake, but local homeowners are furious about large-scale changes in the waterways - so there's going to be a dust-up. Drew Hayden Taylor is an award-winning author and humourist who lives on Ontario's Curve Lake First Nation.

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Indigenous Education | Carolyn Roberts | British Columbia

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Carolyn Roberts Indigenous Education, Resources and Keynote Speaker

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Secret Life of Canada | CBC Radio | Podcasts

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The past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the number of Indigenous texts. The First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) and the First Nations Schools Association (FNSA) have developed tools, Authentic First Peoples Resources for Use in K-9 Classrooms (Updated 2021) and Authentic First Peoples Resources for Grades 10-12 and Adult Learning (2021) to help educators in British Columbia (BC) make decisions about which resources might be appropriate for use with students.

Using authentic First Peoples voice is one part of helping to address colonial legacies, ensuring that First Peoples' cultures and perspectives are portrayed accurately and authentically, and providing opportunities for diverse First Nations, Métis, and Inuit voices in Canada to be recognized and celebrated.

The inclusion of authentic First Peoples content into classrooms supports all students in developing an understanding of the significant place of First Peoples within the historical and contemporary fabric of this province and provides culturally relevant materials for Indigenous learners in British Columbia.

For a hardcopy of this resource, please use our publications form to order. Quantities are limited.

We welcome your feedback on this resource.

Resources

What Are Authentic First Peoples Texts?

Authentic First Peoples texts are historical or contemporary texts that

are created by First Peoples or through the substantial contributions of First Peoples

depict themes and issues that are important within First Peoples cultures (e.g., identity, tradition, role of family, importance of Elders, connection to the land, the nature and place of spirituality as an aspect of wisdom, the relationships between individual and community, and the importance of oral tradition - see Common Themes in First Peoples Texts later in this Introduction)

incorporate First Peoples story-telling techniques and features as applicable (e.g., circular structure, repetition, weaving in of spirituality, humour).

Please note: authenticity does not just refer to accuracy; for the purposes of our teacher resource guides, it refers to texts created by, or in significant collaboration with, First Peoples.

Video, The Importance of Including Authentic First Peoples Resources in BC Classrooms (2021)

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The past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the number of Indigenous texts. The First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) and the First Nations Schools Association (FNSA) have developed tools, Authentic First Peoples Resources for Use in K-9 Classrooms (Updated 2021) and Authentic First Peoples Resources for Grades 10-12 and Adult Learning (2021) to help educators in British Columbia (BC) make decisions about which resources might be appropriate for use with students.

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Based on the acclaimed graphic novel anthology, This Place is a 10-part journey through one-hundred and fifty years of Indigenous resistance and resilience. Through dramatizations and interviews, along with your host and time-guide storyteller Rosanna Deerchild, the series reveals the heroes, battles, triumphs and traditions which live outside and beyond the national story we have been taught ... to learn, to share, and to heal the future of "this place" we call Canada.

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Based on the acclaimed graphic novel anthology, This Place is a 10-part journey through one-hundred and fifty years of Indigenous resistance and resilience. Through dramatizations and interviews, along with your host and time-guide storyteller Rosanna Deerchild, the series reveals the heroes, battles, triumphs and traditions which live outside and beyond the national story we have been taught ...

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Who are the Metis? It's complicated. This podcast explores the history of Metis people in Manitoba, beginning with Louis Riel who was hero to some and traitor to others. Host Stephanie Cram unravels the intricate history of the Metis...and follows the thread from resistance to renaissance.

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Muddied Water | CBC Podcasts | CBC Listen

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Who are the Metis? It's complicated. This podcast explores the history of Metis people in Manitoba, beginning with Louis Riel who was hero to some and traitor to others. Host Stephanie Cram unravels the intricate history of the Metis...and follows the thread from resistance to renaissance.

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Words connect us. Words hurt us. Indigenous histories have been twisted by centuries of colonization. Host Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds- one word, one concept, one story at a time.

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Telling Our Twisted Histories | CBC Podcasts | CBC Listen

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Words connect us. Words hurt us. Indigenous histories have been twisted by centuries of colonization. Host Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds- one word, one concept, one story at a time.

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After 'While, a short story by Cherie Dimaline, is part of Chaos & Control, a special series of new original writing by the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award winners. Dimaline's novel The Marrow Thieves won the young people's literature - text category. ​Warning: This story contains strong language.
The first time Lucky lost a tooth, the tooth fairy left her a bowling trophy. It was confusing because when she asked Grandma Stella to read the little plaque to her it said "To Fred, Best Gutter Ball in the State."

The second time she lost a tooth she got nothing at all. She thought maybe it was a one-shot deal and she was left with a mouth full of duds. But a week later a ziplock bag of pennies showed up lodged under her pillow with a handwritten note on the back of an Export label that said "Sorry, I'm shitty with deadlines." She assumed it was from the delinquent fairy and quickly sent her a thank you prayer, since she wasn't sure what the best way was to reach her.

"Screw 'em all and let Jesus sort it out," her mother would say. So she got in the habit of deferring all her important messages to heaven since Jesus was such a good organizer.

Lucky's mother Arnya was a magician. She could make groceries appear overnight even though the stores were closed. She found ways to evade the landlady where others would be stuck handing over cheques. She could make Lucky feel panic and relief in the same sentence.

Lucky collected magazines, which was easy to do since magazines were transient in nature, the hobos of the written word, hopping on trains, sleeping in alleyway piles, being left on chairs in offices where people came to wait. By the time she was eight she had a wall of sloping, slippery magazines like pulpy pillars stacked beneath her window in her attic room at Grandma's.

"What do you need all these for?" Arnya was sitting on her mattress smoking a cigarette and painting the peeled heel of her black booties with a small bottle of black Halloween nail polish. "How much do you even read in Grade 1?"

Lucky was organizing the travel issues by continent. She coughed. "I'm in Grade 3, Arnya. And you shouldn't smoke in here." She pointed to the circular window over her shoulder with a thumb. "It doesn't open."

"Well, excuse me, brainiac." Arnya ground out the cigarette in an empty plate on the nightstand, after taking one last haul that burned the paper down to the butt.

Lucky felt the silence as reprimand and hurried to fill the space.

"I like the pictures. And I collect the words."

Her mother exhaled through her nostrils. She reminded Lucky of the dragons in Grandma Stella's stories, if a dragon wore purple eyeshadow and swore a lot.

"Collect words? Why don't you collect something normal, like dolls or some shit? Or cards. I used to have a collection of cards from casinos all over the midwest. Until I left Richard. They stayed behind." She stabbed at the exposed white plastic with the nail polish brush until the fibers splayed and bent.

Lucky didn't really remember Richard. He was one of the boyfriends that lived "somewhere else;" one of the ones her mother moved away for. He happened during the "Christmas years," the only times she saw Arnya. His was one of the names scrawled directly on the wrapping paper of her wildly guessed gifts, as if her mother invoking him through the addition of a name made them somehow related, made her somehow relevant.

Lucky had a box under her bed filled with cut out words. Things like:

"can't understand"

"cosmic reckoning"

"Jilted"

"Separate"

And, "underestimated"

She also had words like:

"glamour by night"

"adventure"

"untold riches"

And even, "listen to your gut" (This was cut from a health magazine article about IBS and originally read "Listen to your guts" so Lucky had to be extra careful to extract the "s.")

They were the words she held in her hands, let slip through her fingers in the hours without her mother, when Arnya was off chasing a job, or a gig, or a man, or outrunning a debt. She was a natural born magician in life, and Lucky understood that magic takes time.

"Well," Arnya was shaking a cigarette from the pack, bouncing her thigh on the bed so that her wet boot dried quicker. "I'll be off, then."

Lucky felt a pinch in her stomach and that familiar feeling of guilt. "It's okay, you can smoke in here if you want to."

Arnya was already up and pulling on her denim jacket. She popped the unlit cigarette between her crimson lips and leaned over to place a heavy hand on her daughter's upturned face. "Nah, it's okay kid. I gotta see a man about a horse."

She turned to leave, pausing at the door. "Be good and listen to your crazy old grandma. Who knows how much longer the old coot will be around. See ya later, alligator."

The girl listened to her mother's steps on the stairs, the crack of the exposed heel louder than the other. Then the front door shutting behind her.

Lucky dug through the second pile from the left, the one that held all the old National Geographics. She found a promising issue on animals of the southern U.S., picked up her red-handled scissors and hunted for the words.

"Alligator.... alligator...."

About Cherie Dimaline

Cherie Dimaline's novel The Marrow Thieves won the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature - text and the 2017 Kirkus Prize for young readers' literature. Set in a dystopian North America, the book follows a young Indigenous man named Frenchie who is on the run from residential school recruiters. His parents and brother lost, Frenchie is taken into a new family headed north to fabled sanctuary.

Dimaline's previous books include A Gentle Habit and The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy. She annually coordinates the Indigenous Writers' Gathering.

Each year, CBC Books partners with the Canada Council for the Arts to present a special series of new original writing by the winners of the Governor General's Literary Awards. This year, the award-winning writers were asked to reflect on the theme of Chaos & Control. Read the rest of the series:

Several authors also contributed to an episode of CBC Radio's Ideas, discussing the concept of balancing chaos and control. Listen to the episode in the player below:

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After 'While by Cherie Dimaline | CBC Books

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After 'While, a short story by Cherie Dimaline, is part of Chaos & Control, a special series of new original writing by the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award winners. Dimaline's novel The Marrow Thieves won the young people's literature - text category. ​Warning: This story contains strong language.

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mediaINDIGENA - Interactive Indigenous Insight

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Is Canada guilty of its own genocide? There was a time-not all that long ago-that to even raise the question would be to invite all manner of ridicule.

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As I Remember It: Teachings (Ɂəms tɑɁɑw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder

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An Invitation to Listen

Well, my name is Elsie Paul. My ancestral name is qɑʔɑχstɑles, a name that was handed down to me by my grandfather. That was the ancestral name of his mother ... I grew up with my grandmother. As was the custom with our people, the grandmothers always helped with bringing children up. My grandmother had lost her youngest daughter with that residential school experience that we all have heard and know about. She was about ten when she was taken away to residential school, in Sechelt. And she got very ill, very sick there, within a few months. And by the time they let my grandparents know - they went to pick her up by canoe to Sechelt. They got her home, and she was so weak they had to pack her on and off the boat. And within a few days she had died. So her name was Elsie. So that's where I got my name from. My grandmother, when I was born, wanted me to be named Elsie after the daughter that she lost. And it's been good. For me it was very good. I thank her for that.

I think it happens in a lot of cases that we all say later on, "I should have listened. I should have paid attention to what my grandmother was saying or my grandfather was saying." Because back - earlier days, there was no documenting the teachings. It was all oral teachin's. You had to listen. So I think that's where a lot of it is lost now, because people are not listening or taking time to listen, or to share the teachings. That is so important. 'Cause it's not documented. A lot of it is not documented. There is a little bit documented. But not enough. All the little details. So those things are really important to remember.

It's very important, our tɑʔɑw. "tɑʔɑw" means "the teaching." That we all carry the teaching, what we learned from our ancestors, the traditional teaching, the traditional values. "Ɂəms tɑɁɑw" - "our teaching," that's what that means.

It's your job to look after yourself. To be well from inside and to teach that to your children, to teach that to your family, to set that example. When you listen to these stories, or the legends, or examples, and you apply that to your life. That's why you're the one that's responsible for the direction your life takes you.

Choose a Chapter

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Well, my name is Elsie Paul. My ancestral name is qɑʔɑχstɑles, a name that was handed down to me by my grandfather. That was the ancestral name of his mother ... I grew up with my grandmother. As was the custom with our people, the grandmothers always helped with bringing children up.

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?E?anx (The Cave) – Short Film, Science Fiction

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Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild, and reporter Connie Walker, take you behind the headlines of the top trending stories from Indigenous Canada.

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The Road Forward, a musical documentary by Marie Clements, connects a pivotal moment in Canada's civil rights history-the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s-with the powerful momentum ...

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This short film presents a stunning display of a stop-motion animation as it vividly depicts the majesty of the hoop dance, a tradition symbolizing the unity of all ...

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From remote reserves to bustling big cities, join Urban Native Girl Lisa Charleyboy as she brings you to the surprising heart of the conversations important to Aboriginal youth.

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for Librarians and Educators

Over the years, the ABPBC has produced a series of catalogues for educators, library wholesalers, and retailers working in the educational field. Digital copies of current and past catalogues are available below and you can sign up to receive copies of future catalogues by completing the following sign up form.

Catalogues have been selected from publisher submissions by teacher-librarians. The titles have been chosen for their relevance to school curricula and are annotated by professional evaluators.
Did you receive a copy of our new school catalogues? Complete our survey for a chance to win a selection of books for your school.
All the titles in our BC Books for BC Schools:

our Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools:

and our Canadian History Books for Schools:

We also have a catalogue from our latest event with publishers and librarians, Check Us Out!, which includes the latest titles from BC-publishers:

In Fall 2018, we sent out the inaugural BC Book Box for Schools. All the items included in the box were reviewed by an active teacher librarian, who assessed them for suitability in a K-12 setting and assigned appropriate BC-specific curriculum links and study units, which were noted on the enclosed brochure.

Read Local BC is a project to celebrates the vibrant community of authors, publishers, bookstores, and libraries that make up our province's literary landscape. We are pleased to offer free Read Local BC promotional materials for your school or library by request. Please fill out this request following form.

To obtain print copies of any materials, please email your request to admin@books.bc.ca.

To order books from our catalogues check the following educational wholesaler sites:

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The Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia

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Over the years, the ABPBC has produced a series of catalogues for educators, library wholesalers, and retailers working in the educational field. Digital copies of current and past catalogues are available below and you can sign up to receive copies of future catalogues by completing the following sign up form.

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IBBY Canada is pleased to present From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books, a digital catalogue of 100 picture books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors and illustrators. The catalogue is available for download here.

Includes 100 recommended picture books by Indigenous authors, many illustrated by Indigenous artists, published in Canada over the last 25 years and currently in print.

Reflects the diverse cultures, perspectives, and experiences of Inuit, Métis and 29 First Nations.

Gives attention to picture books that promote Indigenous languages, with 15 different languages/dialects represented.

Features books for children of every age, ranging from board books to picture books for older readers.

It is our hope that teachers, librarians, readers and booksellers will use and share this list widely - across Canada and around the world - while continuing to read and update their collections of Indigenous picture books. Please join us in celebrating Indigenous picture books as widely as possible, using the hashtags #ReadIndigenous and #IndigiPictureBooks, and tagging @IBBYCanada!

Booksellers, for a list of the books in the catalogue, including ISBNs and prices, click here.

Read the IBBY Canada special edition newsletter all about the Indigenous Picture Books Collection here.

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IBBY Canada is pleased to present From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books, a digital catalogue of 100 picture books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors and illustrators. The catalogue is available for download here.

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Joe Buffalo has made quite the name for himself as a pro skateboarder. A survivor of the infamous Indian Residential School system, whose motto was "Kill the Indian, save the man", he has made quite the journey to overcome an inconceivable amount of trauma stemming from those years. In Amar Chebib's 16-min documentary (named after the charismatic skater), he shares his incredibly empowering story, painting a deeply touching portrait of a man who was saved by his passion and literally captures the spirit behind the importance of always getting up, whenever you fall.

"I knew his story had the potential to touch very disparate audiences"

Chebib and Buffalo had known each other for quite some time, from the skateboarding scene, before the idea to make a film together even sparked. It was only turning pro in 2019 that made Chebib realize: "Joe had overcome tremendous obstacles to get where he is and I knew his story had the potential to touch very disparate audiences". As a Syrian-Canadian, there were facets of Buffalo's experience that Chebib could instantly relate to, and his experience working with refugees (on his feature documentary Wajd - Songs of Separation) has informed his approach whenever working with people living with trauma. However, fully aware of his blind spots, he made sure that Buffalo was as involved as much as possible - from the writing process to the edit - in the making the film and also collaborated with people from Indigenous communities, even creating a paid mentorship for the sound design and mixing.

Given how personal the film is, and the vulnerabilities Buffalo has to show for the story to be this emotionally powerful, the pair quickly decided voice-over would be key. I usually am not a fan of voice-over narration, but here it undeniably strengthens the authenticity of the story and the emotional engagement for the audience. Adopting an unconventional filmmaking process, where they recorded the audio first, through a series of conversations and scripted sections, this was edited together before Chebib tackled the visual aesthetic of the film. Buffalo had never shared some parts of his story before, which made it a delicate process that heavily relied on his rapport with Chebib and ultimately contributed to his healing journey or as he puts it: "...by doing this film and having those moments of vulnerability... the more I was able to speak about it, the stronger my voice became. And I speak from the heart every time I talk now."

Visually, the film blends elements of the skate video with an aesthetic that blurs the lines between doc and fiction. Opting to use as little archival footage as possible, they wanted to highlight that this is Joe's tale of how he is finding the courage to confront his inner demons head-on, not a historical doc. And this emotional approach is very obvious and effective on-screen, with DP Liam Mitchell, who has also known Buffalo for years, capturing the depth of the story through an intimate lens. The images are indeed captivating, but the pacing is also flawless and plays an important role in capturing Buffalo's state of mind. Following a hopeful exposition, which doesn't shy away from the darkness within the skater's story, as the film progresses the most powerful moments comes as we relive the time when Buffalo finally gets back up after hitting rock bottom. As the darker photography is replaced with shots bathed in natural light, and the music takes on a lighter tone, the audience feels a sense of relief, and in my case definitely an emotional one - the frame widening and that final shot wrapping the film on such a gorgeous and peaceful note.

Following a successful festival run, where it picked up the audience award at SXSW for documentary shorts and the best documentary at Regard, Joe Buffalo premiered on the New Yorker on October 6th ahead of Indigenous Peoples' Day. Chebib is currently in post with a new short doc about Darius Sam, a 20-year-old Indigenous man who ran 100 miles in subzero Canadian winter to raise awareness around mental health and addiction issues. The director is also in the process of developing a couple of narrative shorts.

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Joe Buffalo by Amar Chebib | Documentary | Short Film

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Joe Buffalo has made quite the name for himself as a pro skateboarder. A survivor of the infamous Indian Residential School system, whose motto was "Kill the Indian, save the man", he has made quite the journey to overcome an inconceivable amount of trauma stemming from those years.

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Mapping

We strive to map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages across the world in a way that goes beyond colonial ways of thinking in order to better represent how Indigenous people want to see themselves.

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Native Land is a resource to learn more about Indigenous territories, languages, lands, and ways of life. We welcome you to our site.

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Canada's Indian Residential School System was a network of boarding schools, industrial schools, and federal hostels created to remove indigenous children from their homes, their families, and their cultures. While many schools originated long before Confederation in 1867, the system was primarily active following the approval of the Indian Act in 1876 - a group of laws aiming to do away with the Indian tribal system and forcibly enfranchise First Nations peoples - until the the last federally-operated school closed in 1996.

In recent years and in light of official apologies issued by the Government of Canada, individual provinces and territories, the Vatican, and various church groups, information about the schools and their students' welfare has become public knowledge: physical and sexual abuse was rampant, both involving administrators and between students; malnourishment and poor living conditions were not uncommon; and assimilation, deprivation of cultural traditions, and punishment was the standard. It is estimated that 6000 children died while in attendance.

This project aims to investigate the IRS system visually, beginning with the stories of survivors and transitioning into the narrative of each school. What follows is a selection of stories told by residential school survivors, gathered by the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission between 2008 and 2015 ¹. Scroll on to explore.

A search tool is always available in the top left corner. Access the above navigation menu by clicking the search icon. Data, credits, and methodology is available here.

This project contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some visitors. A 24 Hour National Survivors Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419.

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Canada's Indian Residential School System was a network of boarding schools, industrial schools, and federal hostels created to remove indigenous children from their homes, their families, and their cultures.

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Teacher's Guide for the Welcome to Native Land website. Link can be found under Classroom Resources. Includes discussion about Land Acknowledgments.

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is one of an immense network of culturally important places in Heiltsuk territory. It is the land where C̓uṃ́qlaqs gave birth to her wolf children, and where we have lived for millennia, making our imprint on the land. Húy̓at collectively refers to several socially and geographically connected bays on northern Hunter Island, located in what is known today as the Central Coast of British Columbia. Húy̓at is just down the channel from the present-day village of Bella Bella where many of our people now live.

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is one of an immense network of culturally important places in Heiltsuk territory. It is the land where C̓uṃ́qlaqs gave birth to her wolf children, and where we have lived for millennia, making our imprint on the land.

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Depictions of Native Americans on-screen are often rife with cliché, from offensive caricatures (oh hai, Peter Pan!) to lugubrious "poverty porn" focusing on vices like alcoholism, drugs, and gambling.

In a very intentional fashion, Into the Circle from filmmakers Meg Griffiths and Scott Faris, is the exact opposite of that "kind" of representation, eschewing melodrama and broad, lugubrious depictions of Indigenous life and instead providing something hyper-specific: a nuanced look at one particular indigenous family as they attempt to bridge the gap between their heritage and their path to the future.

On some level, I realize that Into the Circle is a "tough sell" for an online audience. There's no major structural plot arc, its tone is measured and quiet, and its length will deter short-attention-spanned online viewers. But, if you open yourself to the film's patient delivery, you will be rewarded by something that is contemplative and powerful as it explores the intersection of family, culture, and community as drivers towards purpose in one's life.

Obviously, by focusing on this specific Lakota family, we are treated to a very particular look at what this community entails: from the importance of native education to rediscovering a "homeland" that isn't your literal home. Although the film never becomes preachy, it's impossible to talk about the modern Native American experience without somehow tangentially broaching America's systemic and often violent attempts to squash it. But, there is larger and broader resonance via this specific lens. In screening for this site since 2013, I think one of the major themes I gravitate towards in my personal curation is the power of community. I realize that sounds like a Kumbaya platitude, but I truly believe it is the defining desire of humanity: this want to belong and be a part of something bigger than one's self, whether it be religion or sports or other nonsecular interests. For the Hollow Horn family, that community comes from their literal tribe and it's a touching journey to see them overcome the loss of their patriarch and find love and support in the warmth of Lakota culture, watching as new generations continue customs and traditions.

"Building a genuine and trusting relationship with our key subjects was paramount to the project's success"

On a technical level, the film is very objectively well-executed, featuring some truly lovely cinematography and an atmospheric score. For those interested in the specific technical qualifications, the film was shot using the Atlas Orion anamorphic primes, which gives all the bokeh and soft-focus shots such a distinctive look. Griffiths and Faris worked hard to build a rapport with their subjects, aiming to create an environment that was comfortable and unobtrusive for filming. Into the Circle, was, technically, in production long before any footage was shot.

As the filmmakers related to Short of the Week:

"Due to our previous experience both working with and living in Indigenous communities in South Dakota, we knew from the onset that building a genuine and trusting relationship with our key subjects was paramount to the project's success. We made several pre-production visits in the years leading up to the start of filming to secure buy-in from both NACA leadership and the Hollow Horn family. Creating a production environment that felt casual and minimally invasive was a key creative consideration in the film's aesthetic, which relies heavily on natural light and verité photography."

The film's final act takes place during COVID, which, not surprisingly, had a major effect on production, forcing the filmmaker's to restructure the edit and even incorporate footage captured by a friend of the family during the lockdown. The film's last few minutes are a sobering reminder of how the Pandemic had so unceremoniously denied us the chance to commune with one another. Posting this feature in fall of 2021 (in honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day), where life has more or less returned to normalcy, Into the Circle is a fascinating document of pandemic vs post-pandemic life (albeit it in reverse). Now, thankfully, we can all come together once again and find meaning and support via our own respective tribes.

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Into the Circle by Scott Faris & Meg Griffiths | Short Film

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Depictions of Native Americans on-screen are often rife with cliché, from offensive caricatures (oh hai, Peter Pan!) to lugubrious "poverty porn" focusing on vices like alcoholism, drugs, and gambling.

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a glimpse into the cluttered mind of a Native American artist who loves Comics, Sci-Fi & Toys and expresses this through his art.

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Potlatch 67-67: Then and Now is a multi-artist thematic program that examines the impacts of the attempted cultural genocide through the Potlatch Ban and the resilience of First Nation peoples in preserving their culture and language for future generations.

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Potlatch 67-67 | Indigenous Art Showcase at CVAG

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Potlatch 67-67: Then and Now is a multi-artist thematic program that examines the impacts of the attempted cultural genocide through the Potlatch Ban and the resilience of First Nation peoples in preserving their culture and language for future generations.

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I was born in 1954 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, of Plains Cree, Scottish and Irish ancestry. I grew up in Cardston Alberta near the Blood Reserve, where at the age of eight I met artist Gerald Tailfeathers and decided that I, too, wanted to be an artist. As a child, my first art materials included the orange paper that was discarded in the processing of the Polaroid chest x-rays that we were subjected to annually as students in routine tuberculosis screenings; they collected the peculiar-smelling 18-inch squares of paper and gave them to my Anglican minister father for use in Sunday school. Early fascination with disease, First Nations living conditions, and settler/Native relationships informed by childhood experiences have become key elements in my creative practice, which has encompassed printmaking, painting, drawing, photography, and beadwork.

The 1876 Indian Act was passed into law as a means to protect, civilize and assimilate the Indian population. Today it remains a barrier to improvement in First Nations standards of living and a paternalistic system of governance devoid of transparency. My personal experiences with this system are reflected in work that throughout my career has included subjects such as "white liberal" attitudes towards Aboriginal women, the Canadian response to the 1990 Oka crisis, Mormon-Native relations in Cardston, Alberta (my childhood home), the diseases that ravished First Nations upon European contact, and the deplorable living conditions in Indigenous communities that exemplify the social issues that have affected Canadian First Nations people.

In my early work, I adopted a consistently anti-aesthetic stance, refusing to be stereotyped by forcefully rejecting the authority of both Western high art and traditional Aboriginal art and design. In true anarchic style, however, I borrow freely from both when it suits my purposes. This approach has allowed me to challenge mainstream perspectives on colonialism and the relationships between "settlers" and Natives, addressing the frictions between cultures, the failures of representation, and the political uses of anger in Canada, employing stylistic crudeness to counter the stereotype of Canada as the great polite nation. In my work, I challenge the status quo by exposing the inequities that have plagued for centuries Canada's relationship with its First Peoples, while proudly claiming a complex and self-determined Aboriginal identity.

Adopting the traditional craft of beading in my recent work was a way to continue to centre the Aboriginal woman in my art while addressing other issues of concern. Maintaining the anti-aesthetic principles on which my practice was founded, I have traded crudeness of style for materials and techniques that have long been denied status as serious art. This shift has allowed for a more sophisticated end-product that capitalizes on my fascination with the attractive and repellant subject; the simultaneously beautiful and abhorrent. This dichotomous relationship between appearance and content, or between style and subject creates a cognitive schism; it is that gap that creates a space for contemplation about the work and what it means. Though humour softens the blow of a critical message, I have found that making work which confronts the most difficult truths about Canadian society and the impacts of colonization on Aboriginal people are made remarkably palatable when delivered in a strikingly seductive package.

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I was born in 1954 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, of Plains Cree, Scottish and Irish ancestry. I grew up in Cardston Alberta near the Blood Reserve, where at the age of eight I met artist Gerald Tailfeathers and decided that I, too, wanted to be an artist.

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Sonny Assu | Interdisciplinary Artist | sonnyassu.com

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Sonny Assu is a contemporary Indigenous artist who resides in unceeded Liǥwildaʼx̱w territory.

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Collection of art and writing created by Indigenous youth across Canada.

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For Teachers

Help your students enter the largest and most recognized art & creative writing competition in Canada for Indigenous youth.

View past winners to get inspired. Learn about prizing, guidelines and familiarize yourself with the rules & regulations. Once you're ready, use the teaching tools below to help students during the creative process. Students can enter the contest online or by mail.

Groups with 6 or more individual students are eligible for a special classroom prize!

Teacher Resources

Indigenous Arts & Stories is a great tool to use in the classroom - use it as a class project, an alternative assignment, or an extra credit assignment! It fits in well with curricula in Art, English, History and Social Studies, and is a great option to address the multiple-intelligences and learning styles in your classroom. We hope that Indigenous students will be excited about writing and creating artwork, and hope that youth become engaged in the material because they see themselves reflected in the works.

Teachers' Kit

This learning tool is intended to help teachers support their students in the Indigenous Arts & Stories competition. Using this guide, educators can assist Indigenous youth with the creative process of developing their art and writing. It offers suggestions for dealing with sensitive issues, for motivating Indigenous students, and for encouraging youth to reflect on culture, identity and expression.

Senior Activities

The Senior Art and Senior Writing learning tools provide interactive classroom activities that aid in the research and creative process, as well as encourage critical thinking. The guides outline four projects that explore cultural significance, Indigenous identity and personal awareness.

Junior Activities

The Junior Art and Junior Writing learning tools provide interactive classroom activities that aid in the research and creative process, as well as encourage critical thinking. The guides outline five and four projects, respectively, that explore cultural significance, identity, and personal awareness.

Primary Activities

The Primary Art and Writing learning tool provides interactive classroom activities that aid in the research and creative process, as well as encourage critical thinking. The guide outlines eight projects that explore cultural significance, Indigenous identity and personal awareness.

Writing Styles

Students can use the Six Steps to Writing Historical Fiction (PDF) for tips on researching and creating a work of historical fiction.

Historica Canada Education Portal: Indigenous History Collection

The Historica Canada Education Portal is an interactive digital resource for teachers designed to help you and your students explore Canada through our collection of learning tools covering Canada's remarkable history from sea to sea to sea. The Indigenous History Collection includes resources addressing the history of residential schools, treaties, and Indigenous peoples and the War of 1812, among others. The resources incorporate lesson plans, classroom activities, critical thinking exercises and discussion questions to engage students of all ages and language levels.

Contest Workshop

This video workshops invites educators to bring the Indigenous Arts & Stories contest into their classrooms with engaging hands-on activities, suggestions from projects, and stories from past winners and jury members.

© 2023 Historica Canada

The views expressed in the art and writing pieces presented here are those of the authors and artists and in no way represent the views of Historica Canada, our funders or affiliates. Historica Canada, as a non-profit organization with a strict mandate of non-partisanship, does not endorse, support or comment on the views expressed by this work.

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Indigenous Arts & Stories - For Teachers

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Help your students enter the largest and most recognized art & creative writing competition in Canada for Indigenous youth. View past winners to get inspired. Learn about prizing, guidelines and familiarize yourself with the rules & regulations. Once you're ready, use the teaching tools below to help students during the creative process.

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check out his episode 12 Steps to Decolonization in Canada

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'Ten Times Around The Sun' is a five part mini-series that takes a look back at the last 10 years of Indigenous arts and culture in Indian Country. Join Ryan & special guest hosts, Alan Greyeyes, Jesse wente, alicia elliot and Wanda nanibush as they celebrate a decade of music, cinema, books/words and art!

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'Ten Times Around The Sun' is a five part mini-series that takes a look back at the last 10 years of Indigenous arts and culture in Indian Country. Join Ryan & special guest hosts, Alan Greyeyes, Jesse wente, alicia elliot and Wanda nanibush as they celebrate a decade of music, cinema, books/words and art!

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The 2003 CBC Massey Lectures, "The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative" | CBC Radio Loaded

Ideas

In his 2003 Massey lecture, award-winning author and scholar Thomas King looks at the breadth and depth of Native experience and imagination.

In his 2003 Massey lecture, award-winning author and scholar Thomas King looks at the breadth and depth of Native experience and imagination.

Beginning with Native oral stories, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, in an effort to make sense of North America's relationship with its Aboriginal peoples.

Thomas King holds a PhD in English/American Studies from the University of Utah and has taught Native Studies at Utah, California, Minnesota, and Alberta for the past twenty-five years. He is currently Professor of English (teaching Native Literature and Creative Writing) at the University of Guelph. His widely-acclaimed novels include Medicine River, Green Grass, Running Water, and Truth and Bright Water, and he has been nominated for the Governor General's Award as well as the Commonwealth Writer's Prize. He is the editor of All My Relations: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction, and co-editor of The Native in Literature: Canadian and Comparative Perspectives. His popular CBC series, The Dead Dog Café, is being adapted as an animated television series. His father was Cherokee, his mother is Greek, and King is the first Massey lecturer of Native descent.

The Truth About Stories is published by House of Anansi.

Listen

Listen to other CBC Massey Lectures

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The 2003 CBC Massey Lectures, "The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative" | CBC Radio

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In his 2003 Massey lecture, award-winning author and scholar Thomas King looks at the breadth and depth of Native experience and imagination.

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UNAPOLOGETICALLY INDIGENOUS, UNABASHEDLY FEMALE & UNBLINKINGLY NERDY, OTIPÊYIMISIW-ISKWÊWAK KIHCI-KÎSIKOHK (MÉTIS IN SPACE), MOLLYAND CHELSEA DRINK A BOTTLE OF (RED) WINE AND, FROM A TIPSY, DECOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE, REVIEW A SCI-FI MOVIE OR TELEVISI

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Our Work Has Begun!
Teachers in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver are implementing the brain unit and DBT in their classrooms. We are conducting rigorous research to determine the outcomes for students and teachers.
K eep coming back for updates!

First, students learn about the brain. They study the lobes and major parts of the brain, and their functions. They study neuron communication and how messages are sent within the brain. They learn about cortisol, oxytocin, and neurotransmitters, and the role they play in our emotions and behavior. Students conduct research about mental health and mental illness, and come to understand what is happening for them when they are stressed, and what is affecting others who are showing stress or trauma related behaviors.

Next, they learn strategies for calming themselves down when they are stressed, develop mindfulness and resiliency, and learn how to support each other when needed. Even very young students can participate, as you can see in the "Big Brain, Little Brain" video below.

Things are going pretty well in my group. We are a special needs group, but have been plodding along slowly.

We have made a series of mind-maps (one for the brain, that we added to over the course of a week and one for mental health).

We explored the functions of the various parts of the brain. We used the research of the parts of the brain as a way to teach the students how to research without plagiarizing. They each had to create a PowerPoint that showed the functions of the various parts of the brain - information that they had to look up, paraphrase and provide a citation.

We talked about the mental health continua, the five senses and neurochemistry. We used these concepts to create a series of descriptive writing assignments (how it feels to be flourishing vs. languishing, how the senses are related to memories, how you feel when you have a flood of cortisol vs. oxytocin). We discussed also different strategies for dealing with anxiety (breathing techniques, the 20 minute metabolizing period).

We have just completed a pretty involved project on mental illnesses. The students were each assigned a mental illness (I made a point to assign students illnesses that impact their personal lives whenever possible). They had to do research from a variety of sources (websites, videos, books) and create a media presentation raising awareness of the illness, which they then had to present to the class.

For our midterm before the Christmas break, my students will be using all of the information they have, as well as two articles that I have pulled from newsela to write a response answering the guiding question, "Should the topics of mental health and mental illness be taught at school?"

After the Christmas break, we will be working on the second half of the program with mindfulness and all of those crazy acronyms (DBT Skills). However, I keep the book on my desk, and if ever a situation comes up where one is applicable, I whip it out and show the kids. For example, I have been trying to write this email for about an hour. While I was writing, a student came up and asked for my advice on a conflict he is having with his foster parents. I showed him DEARMAN and we practiced what he could say.

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Our Work Has Begun! Teachers in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver are implementing the brain unit and DBT in their classrooms. We are conducting rigorous research to determine the outcomes for students and teachers. K eep coming back for updates! First, students learn about the brain.

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Physical - Use culturally authentic, valid and approved resources that accurately reflect and demonstrate the strength and diversity of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.

Mental- Foster authentic learning opportunities for all students to be engaged in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education that bridge culture and curriculum.

Emotional - Foster safe and respectful classroom learning environments where First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students feel welcomed, supports and positively represented in the general school culture.

Spiritual - Embrace individual narratives that support cultural literacies across the curriculum from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit worldviews and ways of knowing.

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First Nations, Métis and Inuit Universal Design for Learning

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Physical - Use culturally authentic, valid and approved resources that accurately reflect and demonstrate the strength and diversity of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. Mental- Foster authentic learning opportunities for all students to be engaged in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education that bridge culture and curriculum.

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About this Project

What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom is a research project that explores difficult discussions of Aboriginal issues that take place in classrooms at the University of British Columbia. Students frequently report troubling and sometimes traumatic discussions of cultural issues in class. The video records of their experiences provides a way to think about developing more functional approaches and environments for discussion . . .

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Watch our Videos

The videos, including the edited 20 min video, are key to initiating discussions about improving classroom discussions of complex and contentious social issues. Explore the edited video, or the full archive using the innovative and searchable IVT interview and transcript viewer . . .

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Reactions to the Project

In workshops and meetings where this project has been presented, we have noted frequently occurring comments to the issues it raises, which limit participants' ability to engage in discussions of these issues.

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About Us | What I Learned in Class Today

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About this Project What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom is a research project that explores difficult discussions of Aboriginal issues that take place in classrooms at the University of British Columbia. Students frequently report troubling and sometimes traumatic discussions of cultural issues in class.

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Before you begin

Please bear in mind about the following before you begin exploring the timeline as a teaching and learning resource:

What the timeline is not and its limitations

The timeline is not a static and exhaustive list of historical events in Canada. It continues to be a work in progress. Much like the individual who developed it holds a particular set of knowledge and interests (See Developer's Stories), the timeline highlights certain moments in history. You are therefore encouraged to actively and critically engage with the timeline.

First of all, the specific history of the land where UBC stands - the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Musqueam territory - is lacking in the timeline. The timeline currently includes some recent Musqueam-related events, most of which are based on publicly available information that documents UBC's relationship with the Musqueam community. However, representations of the Musqueam Nation are still insufficient in the timeline. A long and ongoing history of the Musqueam people that dates far back prior to the "arrival" of UBC is a major missing piece in the timeline. ( Adding Musqueam history to the timeline is currently under development as a 2016-17 TLEF project.)

Similarly, the timeline currently does not include history before the establishment of the first residential school in Canada in 1620. However, this does not mean that it is the beginning of history, and we need to be cognizant of the existence of rich Indigenous histories long prior to that.

In addition, the linear presentation of history, as presented in the timeline, has a limitation. It does not fully address the multifaceted nature of each historical event, such as multiple forces and contexts that gave rise to the event, people's different views of the event, and the event's varying effects on different segments of society.

Lastly, it is important to note the scope of this website. The purpose of the website is not to present academic analyses and debates of historical events. We hope to gradually expand the website with stories that highlight the multifaceted nature of history by drawing on scholarly debates on some key historical events. Nonetheless, the primary purpose of the website remains to offer a starting point for learning and discussions about multi-layered histories at UBC.

Terminology

How we identify ourselves and others and the terminology we use to do so can be a complicated process. Especially, the complexity of Aboriginal peoples' identities - whether these identities are created by self or imposed by the government - need to be carefully reflected upon and understood. To learn more about this, please refer to the Indigenous Foundations website.

Throughout the website, you will see a variety terms used to describe Indigenous peoples, such as Native American, Aboriginal, First Nations, etc. While we work on making terminology consistent, the timeline currently reflects the terminology used in the original literature source from which the description of each event is drawn.

The timeline is a living document. Please contact us with questions, suggestions, and comments for further development.

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Home | Time and Place at UBC: Our Histories and Relations

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Please bear in mind about the following before you begin exploring the timeline as a teaching and learning resource: The timeline is not a static and exhaustive list of historical events in Canada. It continues to be a work in progress.

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By Hanae Tsukada
This story discusses how, as an international student from Japan, my view of Canadian history as "their" history transformed into an interest in tracing UBC's institutional history and relationship with Aboriginal peoples against the backdrop of the broader federal and provincial histories in Canada. [Download the story in PDF]
I am not from Canada. Neither am I a historian nor an Indigenous Studies scholar. I was born and raised in Niigata, Japan. I came to Canada in 2007 via the United States for my doctoral studies in Educational Studies at UBC. As it may be the case for many newcomers to Canada, I came with very little knowledge about Canadian history and politics. A question like "Whose land am I entering?" did not cross my mind at all. I thought I had just moved from Minneapolis to Vancouver.

After my arrival in Vancouver, I encountered occasional opportunities to learn about Canada's history with Aboriginal peoples. However, those occasions occurred fairly randomly, such as someone mentioning Indian Residential Schools in a class discussion, at a campus event, or on the radio. I did not know how to pull all the pieces of information together in my head, and, at the end of the day, it was "their" history to me. I compared my partial understanding of Canada's history with what I knew of Japan's history: Japan has many unresolved historical issues, and so does Canada. I did not think much further than this.

A turning point came in March 2012 when I attended the on-campus symposium, Addressing Injustice: UBC's Response to the Internment of Japanese Canadians Students. This event took place to mark UBC's decision to grant honorary degrees to seventy-six Japanese Canadian students who were forced to leave UBC for internment camps in 1942 and could not complete their degrees. As a Japanese person whose area of research is higher education, I was particularly interested in UBC's action of removing Japanese Canadian students from the university[1] and its direct and significant impact on those seventy-six students' lives. I felt unsettled. There I was in 2012, witnessing the university finally acknowledging its culpability in enacting an institutional injustice that targeted "people like me"[2] seventy years ago, and learning that it took three years for an individual, Mary Kitagawa, to convince UBC to grant honorary degrees to the affected students.[3] I felt that this historical trajectory of UBC, and more broadly of Canada, gave me a new, and compelling, explanation for where my current experience at UBC as a Japanese student came from. For the first time, I saw myself in Canada's historical continuum: it was as if I had learned something about my family's past that had been hidden from me that suddenly shifted how I saw and related to this history. My view of Canadian history as "their" history slowly started to shift.

The "Addressing Injustice" symposium included talks by Musqueam Elder Larry Grant on the historical parallels and differences between Aboriginal peoples and Japanese Canadians, and by Dr. Henry Yu on why history still matters to us today. These stories helped me connect what I had just learned about the seventy-six Japanese Canadian students at UBC and my fragmented understandings of the histories of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. I wondered, "If Japanese Canadian students were removed from UBC for internment camps, what was the history like for Aboriginal students at UBC? How does history inform Aboriginal students' experiences at UBC today?" The timeline project took off with these questions.

At the earliest stages of creating the timeline, my focus was on learning about and documenting the histories of UBC and Canada and their relationships with Aboriginal peoples. However, as the project progressed, I gradually started to think about my own relationship with these histories. Eventually, I came to see myself embedded in the matrix of intertwining historical trajectories of this place that carries the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools, the internment of Japanese Canadians, and so on. I both am affected by and have benefited from the systems of power, oppression, and privilege developed through this complex, and often problematic, history.

Through my work on the timeline, I started to think about the historical contexts of some of my daily experiences of marginalization in Canada as a woman of color whose first language is not English. I began wondering how my experiences today would have been different if colonialism had not established white supremacy in Canada in the first place. At the same time, I realized that I benefit from my affiliation with UBC as a Western educational institution that prioritizes the English language while standing on the unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking Musqueam people. My doctoral degree from UBC puts me in an elevated position to many others in Canada, and more so in Japan. How both English language and Western university degrees have come to attain high currency in the world is not independent from colonial history (Altbach, 2004; Luke, 2006; Mufwene, 2010). Moreover, I came to see that my middle-class socio-economic status enables me to benefit from such historical and ongoing global colonial processes, and that I continue to accrue my privilege while occupying unceded Musqueam territory. Yet, I would not have been able to do so in 1942, when people of Japanese descent were being sent to interment camps. Circumstances have changed since 1942; nonetheless, the white supremacist history of UBC, and more broadly of Canada, still shapes the social landscape of this place (Stanley, 2009), and hence my experiences today.

Thus, I came to see the specific and complex implications that time and place have on my life. My participation in settler colonialism does not negate my struggles as a foreign woman of color in Canada. Privilege is distributed unevenly across settlers and visitors based on their varying and intersecting social positions, such as race, gender, class, migration status, and language (Jafri, 2012). At the same time, my experiences of oppression in Canada do not cancel out my complicity in settler colonialism either, no matter how temporary or permanently I am going to stay in Canada (Lawrence & Dua, 2005). I did not enact colonialism, but I am not innocent as long as I live on this stolen land and benefit from it. I must be accountable for this uncomfortable and yet undeniable fact. In retrospect, I feel that I have created the timeline to learn, and eventually to share with others, that my life, like everyone else's life, is part of, and not outside, of the histories here in Vancouver and at UBC.
References:
Altbach, P. G. (2004). Globalisation and the university: Myths and realities in an unequal world. Tertiary Education and Management, 10(1), 3-25.

Jafri, B. (2012, March 21). Privilege vs. complicity: People of colour and settler colonialism. Retrieved from http://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/privilege-vs-complicity-people-colour-and-settler-colonialism

Lawrence, B., & Dua, E. (2005). Decolonizing antiracism. Social Justice, 32(4), 120-143.

Luke, C. (2006). Eduscapes: Knowledge capital and cultures. Studies in Language & Capitalism, 1, 97-120.

Mufwene, S. S. (2010). Globalization, global English and world English(es): Myths and facts. In N. Coupland (Ed.), The handbook of language and globalization (pp. 31-55). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Stanley, T. J. (2009). The banality of colonialism: Encountering artifacts of genocide and white supremacy in Vancouver today. In S. R. Steinberg (Ed.), Diversity and multiculturalism: A reader (pp. 143-159). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Notes:
[1] Read the stance that UBC took on the removal of Japanese Canadian students in "Reopening a Sensitive Case" here.

[2] It needs to be noted that those who were subject to the internment camps were not only Japanese nationals but also Canadian citizens of Japanese descent. Seventy-five percent of the internees were Canadian citizens. Read more about the internment of Japanese Canadians here.

[3] Read Mary Kitagawa's story about her three-year campaign and UBC's initial reluctant response to her letter here.
Suggested Citation:
Tsukada, H. (2016, March 9). It's their history, isn't it? Retrieved from http://timeandplace.ubc.ca/developers-stories/story-1-its-their-history-isnt-it/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Story 1 - It's "their" history, isn't it?

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By Hanae Tsukada This story discusses how, as an international student from Japan, my view of Canadian history as "their" history transformed into an interest in tracing UBC's institutional history and relationship with Aboriginal peoples against the backdrop of the broader federal and provincial histories in Canada.

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Welcome to Indigenous Foundations, an information resource on key topics relating to the histories, politics, and cultures of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. This website was developed to support students in their studies, and to provide instructors, researchers and the broader public with a place…

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FourDirectionsTeachings.com is a visually stunning audio narrated resource for learning about Indigenous knowledge and philosophy from five diverse First Nations in Canada. The site is provided in English with French subtitles and includes curriculum resources in both English and French.

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Welcome to Land and Language Based Learning at LSS.

uy'ye'thut ch 'u' suw ts'its'uwatul' ch

https://ls.schools.sd68.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2019/03/be-kind-and-help-each-other.mp3

(be kind and help each other)

This class is co-taught by yutustanaat and William Taylor.

Please note that for the curriculum is based on traditional Coast Salish teachings and consists of hul'q'umi'num' together with another course (or courses) chosen in consultation with you and with counsellors to support each student's educational path. This year, English First Peoples is the default second course.

Our assessment practices are as follows:

1. Are you present and prepared?

2. Are you listening?

3. Can you tell the story back?

4. Can you identify and add your strengths/gifts to the class work?

We are using the following text this year: Two Houses Half Buried in Sand, Cryer. yutustana:t's great grandmother is the central storyteller here and we are honoured to receive these teachings.

Our hands on work this year includes Coast Salish weaving (featuring a blanket featuring the Canada Goose symbolizing leadership in reconciliation), Drumming/Singing, and producing a play in hul'q'umi'num' (the seagull steals the sun).

Here is a paper written by yutustana:t about some of our work.

Coast Salish Weaving LLBL

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Land and Language Based Learning - Ladysmith Secondary

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Welcome to Land and Language Based Learning at LSS. uy'ye'thut ch 'u' suw ts'its'uwatul' ch https://ls.schools.sd68.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2019/03/be-kind-and-help-each-other.mp3 (be kind and help each other) This class is co-taught by yutustanaat and William Taylor. Please note that for the curriculum is based on traditional Coast Salish teachings and consists of hul'q'umi'num' together with another course (or courses) chosen in consultation with you and with counsellors to support each student's educational path.