A Hero

A Hero 

I am taking a leadership course with Unstoppable Communications; it is the second time I have enrolled in this course, completing it last summer in August, 2020. 

One of the first exercises we did was to discover what word defined leadership. As I pondered the exercise, I discovered that the word I would use to define a leader is being a hero. In particular, someone who undertakes action that no one else would take and at a great cost to themselves. 

A few days ago, I became aware that a good friend, Dr. John O’Connor, has been honoured. He received the first ever award from Ryerson University for being a whistleblower. John received this award for drawing attention to unusual incidence of bile cancer in Fort Chipewyan, in Northern Alberta. This is my home community. He linked Cholangiocarcinoma (bile cancer) to pollution resulted from the oilsands industry. 

His actions came at great cost to him both personally and professionally, if you have been paying attention to any of the conversations around the oilsands you will know that the backlash was swift and severe. His actions resulted in complaints from his professional colleagues that led the Alberta Medical Association to suspend his license to practice medicine. 

As an Indigenous woman from the community of Fort Chipewyan I view Dr. O’Connor's actions as courageous. 

He put his reputation at risk to raise awareness of the damage being done not only to the environment but also to the very people who live on the land. His actions are not only brave but also demonstrate his integrity. In a news article I read he is reported to have said he was only doing his job as a physician. His fight took years before he received validation on his concern regarding incidence of bile cancer, but by then the damage to his personal reputation was marred. 

Dr. John O'Connor and his wife Char

When he took a stand for my community’s health and well-being, he inspired my Chief Allan Adam to take up a political fight against industry and the damage caused by the pollution. Having someone in the medical profession with credibility created the collaboration he needed, and the Chief was able to use the studies on the pollution to move his agenda forward, with a campaign against industry’s destruction that and raised funding for the community to take his fight through the courts. 

Chief Allan Adam of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and  his father Alex

Without Dr. O’Connor’s actions I believe no one would have made the link between Cholangiocarcinoma and the oil industry in northern Alberta.

Only Dr. O’Connor could have made this link. First, he had prior awareness of this rare disease from a case in his own family. As a result, he was able to recognize it and also to realize how unusual it was when he first saw it in the community. Second, when he noticed the occurrence was higher in the community of 1500 souls it was his good character and sense of duty that led him to sound the alarm in spite of the negative consequences to his reputation.

 

Who else would take this kind of risk for an isolated Indigenous community? I echo his call for an independent research study of Cholangiocarcinoma in the community of Fort Chipewyan and surrounding communities in the region of the oil industry. I am extremely honored to call him a friend. 

He is an extraordinary leader, a hero. 

PS I sent a draft of this post to Dr. O’Connor and he replied: “The connection between pollution and cancers in the community hasn’t been formally made-despite the numbers, the documented toxin exposure and the U of M 2014 report-that’s where the health study comes in. Science hand in hand with Traditional Knowledge would complete the picture. Otherwise this is perfect!” 

Thank you, John!

We are Broken People

This is about my First Nation, the Athabasca First Nation (ACFN) and should not be interpreted as a commentary on any other First Nation.

Since the summer it has been all about the settlement of our Agricultural Benefits Claim (also referred to as Cows and Ploughs).  Arguments within our community were started over the Cows and Ploughs settlement and at times tempers reached a boiling point.  The settlement relates to a long outstanding obligation of the government of Canada under Treaty #8.  The government failed to provide agricultural assistance as the Treaty, which our First Nation signed in 1899, promised.  The process took many decades to negotiate and resolve.

The Treaty obligation, if it had been implemented as it should have been in the past, would have given some benefits to individual First Nation families and other benefits to the Chief, for the use of the First Nation as a whole, to help the community adapt to a farming way of life.  The federal government negotiated this based on models of what it would cost today for a family of five to start a farm.

The settlement in our First Nation’s case was arranged so that a majority of the settlement is held with ACFN, to be held in trust for collective community purposes. However each member received an amount of money on November 15, 2017 from the First Nation, representing about a quarter of the settlement proceeds.  In the day since the distribution I have been feeling pensive. It is not much, but we all have more than we had on the 14^th.  Most members will be able to catch up with outstanding bills and maybe buy something nice for their family.  Unfortunately, by the end of the week some will return to their poverty-stricken life.  And our homeless will still be homeless.
 

The questions I have been asking myself are: how does this improve our life overall? How will the funds in the First Nation’s account fix our social problems? Will there be any fundamental changes in how we do business? Will this money actually make a difference? And if so, how?

The truth is that no amount of money will change the lives of individual members in any meaningful way unless we change the way we are. The problem with our nation goes deeper, many layers deeper.  We have seen that money cannot solve these problems, whether it is held by the community or individually.  We only have to look at the residential schools settlements, right?  Sadly, some members received in excess of a hundred thousand dollars and are in no better position today than before they got the money.

To understand how we got here we have to go to the signing of the Treaty. Once the Treaty was signed in 1899 we were effectively doomed as a nation. We became disenfranchised.  Treaty #8 was signed with a group of people who didn’t know how to read, let alone understand the various concepts being translated through an interpreter. In particular, the notion of ownership of lands was a completely foreign notion. When you add the effects of alcohol combined with a gradual loss of purposeful economic work, the decline of a beautiful people began.

Then came the Indian Act to administer and transfer Indian lands to non-indigenous people, and regulate the Indians. The drafters of the Indian Act certainly didn’t expect it to last into the 21^st century because they likely believed the “Indian Problem” would be solved by assimilation and acculturation, especially after the Indian Residential School system began. By now we are all too familiar with that horrifying legacy.

Fortunately, after 1951 it was no longer illegal for First Nations to hire lawyers, after amendments of sections of the Indian Act that had been in place since the 1920s.  The courts to some degree have been on our side over the years.  However, legal victories did not prevent us from continuing to be seriously damaged. Much of the damage goes back generations, stemming from lost of livelihood, lands, and culture.  Once we were stripped of our self-sufficiency we essentially became dependent.  And in the 1960s, the welfare state came to our communities.

Today we are a broken people, spiritually and physically.  Each clause of the Indian Act is used as ammunition to diminish our humanity.  The Indian Act shackles us.  Notwithstanding that there have been amendments and challenges to it over the years, it still controls every aspect of being an “Indian” until death.

There have been talks by the Assembly of First Nations and the federal government of doing away with the Indian Act.  This is proving to be difficult. How can we eliminate the Indian Act when First Nations themselves are of two minds about it? They see it as our saviour and the bane of our existence at the same time.  It gives us just enough to make us feel like it is protecting our special status but not enough for true liberty.  It is complicated.  Like an abusive marriage that contains just enough promise to keep trying to keep it together.

There needs to be a paradigm shift among our people. A fundamental change in the way First Nations are run.  First Nations today are run like the colonial system, without the checks and balances of good governance.

We can’t continue to do things the same old way and expect our communities to improve.  It has to be a change that is dramatic and that rejects the “normal” way of doing things.

In my own First Nation, there are members who distrust our leaders.  Some feel that the leaders are not acting in their best interest and they feel abandoned. Even though we are one of the lucky ones for owning a multimillion-dollar business that services the oil industry there are still too many members living in poverty. The demand never ends. And I am certain that our leadership feels overwhelmed by those demands. The Cows and Ploughs distribution will provide a stopgap for a couple of weeks and then the demands from those who don’t have enough will return.
 

My First Nation’s Chief and Council saw a need for change and chose to reward themselves in advance for their hard work, and without notice to the Community, doubling their salary three months into their term and making it retroactive to back to the election date. I agree, that being on Council is difficult and stressful work but unilaterally doubling their salary is not the way to handle this problem. Is this behavior the reason for the distrust of our leaders? This is not the change I am talking about. And if any member brings this up they are scorned and told they are being too critical of the leadership.

Can we agree that this is insane?  Because, it is actually our own members who are saying not to be critical of the leadership no matter what they do. It is as though they are so cynical that they believe they don’t deserve better governance.  To follow leadership blindly without question is the absolute definition of being broken.

The band-aid approach of fighting one crisis after another is not working. Honestly, our Council is not equipped to govern; they are simply over their heads. Are there enough healthy ACFN members that see this?  We have over 800 voting members, yet it is the same people running for election each term. There must be a way to get more members to take an interest in local politics.  Perhaps the new salaries of approximately, $270,000 for Chief and $160,000 for each Council member will be enough incentive to get new members to run. It is even being received tax free, I might add, although the basis of this is unclear to me, the First Nation having lost a test case on the application of the Indian Act tax exemption some years ago.
  

I don’t have the answers to fix us but I do know if we don't do something we will continue to have high suicides, addictions, sickness, moldy houses, lack of education, economic losses, unemployment and abject poverty.

Our future health depends on us getting out of a spiral of decline. How do we get unbroken? It is clear that our nation must not rely on government to improve our circumstances.  Being entitled and waiting for the Government to tell us what we need to do is fruitless. We must be innovative, take risks, and change the conversation from victims to an empowered healthy community.

Our leadership must use the funds from the Cows and Ploughs settlement to create not only economic stability but also a plan to address the social problems.  The initial information from Council does speak to a general economic plan but is silent on addressing in any fundamental way the social issues that plague our nation.  In my view, in order to have economic success we can’t continue to ignore these problems.

We are going to have to look in the mirror and honestly confront what has happened to our community and its individual members in the 118 years since our Treaty promised us a future of healthy coexistence.  We were poor in material terms but we had what we needed to survive.  We worked together to overcome difficult times.  Nobody imagined they were entitled to handouts.  Life had meaning and our culture was strong.

Settling Treaty claims is good and should provide compensation on what we lost.  But how do you compensate for the loss of meaning and hope in a people?

ACFN members deserve HOPE and a MEANINGFUL life without despair, no matter how challenging the task is for our leadership.  

Flashback!

24 years and still he is part of our life... A time passed.  

http://thedestinywithin.blogspot.ca/search?q=baba  

Dene Poem

Drum Dance

2009

Roger Deranger - Denesuline Artist

Hidden within the Dene forest home

spirits dream enthusiastically to roam

they dwell honorably during mystic time

when the heaven and earth vastly rhyme

upon a painted sunset, a silence broke

it was an ancient flame that spoke

and the drums mysteriously, exhilarate

altering each soul into a radiant state

chants and pulse, conjured, impulsively

blessing everyone into a circular flee

round and around they sacredly dance

drowning themselves into a joyous trance

poured with euphoria, the beings paced

leaving each step then majestically traced

within its midst, the fire proudly sing

drawing the ritual into a universal ring

the stars above also harmonized along

ensuring the divine hoop is kept strong

for every life is absorbed into solidarity

a movement of strength and reassuringly

the dance, song and heartbeat, all is real

giving the entire cycle a seed to heal

from dusk to dark, the spirits fly

until our dance has reached the sky

Navigating Stories

Reading stories from residential school survivors made me feel uncomfortable about my own story.  The survivors’ stories are heartbreaking and filled with unbearable pain and sorrow. 

I have also been following stories on Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, and these too made me uncomfortable.  On October 4^th a documentary film on the Hospital screened in Edmonton. Again, the shocking treatment of Indigenous people who were admitted to the Indian hospital, sometimes for years, is equally horrific.

 

These stories must be told and they must be heard.  It is an important Canadian historical legacy.  Furthermore, both the telling and the listening to these stories are critical for the truth and reconciliation process.

 

So why am I feeling uncomfortable?  Because my personal experience was very unalike most of the stories I’ve heard or read about. My story was never told because I feel it is not something that people want to hear.

Holy Angels Residence 

Recently I posted a residential school picture on facebook. It portrayed a celebration of sorts; I was sitting with three of my brothers at the dinning room table with other children. Three nuns were standing in the background.  Someone posted in the comments, “ID like to kill them nuns and burn that place down.”   This is not someone who went here or any other residential school.  This person never asked me about my experience, he just assumed it was bad.     How do we heal when there is so much anger from people who didn’t experience residential school or are not willing to listen to all the stories?

It is interesting that even in the same family, experiences of accounts can be vastly different.  This is certainly the case in my own family. 

I am one of the youngest of 16 children.  We were raised in abject poverty. We had no running water or electricity.  Although the hamlet where we lived was a “dry” town, meaning that alcohol was not allowed, this didn’t mean it didn’t exist there.  In fact, there was alcohol in our home because my parents were bootleggers.  They made and sold home-brew and shipped in liquor by plane, this to supplement their income from trapping and seasonal work in order to feed the lot of us.  As a child I witnessed violence in my home due to alcohol abuse.

 

To complicate matters, when I was a toddler, I was stricken with a serious illness and I almost died.  I was sent to Charles Camsell Hospital frequently. 

Many Indigenous people from the area where I grew up also lived in poverty, and were sent to Holy Angels Residence.  Some of them also were admitted to Charles Camsell Hospital, like me.  

I am hesitant to tell my story because I know some people would dismiss it on the basis that I am so colonized that I am not even aware of how colonized I am.  Or because I am brainwashed.  In any event how can I say, after all the horrific stories about Indian Residential Schools, by the way, I don't think it was so bad,in my experience. It sounds callous and empty.  

My experience in residential school from the first day was a good experience. There, I said it! 

I will always remember the afternoon my older sister Dora said, “Do you want to go to school?” I said, “Yes,” with a big smile. “Ok,” she said, “Go get into your snowsuit.” We walked to residential school. It was getting dark and the snow sparkled like diamonds. 

It was in December, and I had just returned from Charles Camsell Hospital, having missed the first part of the school year.  I wasn’t scared because my sister was a cook at the Holy Angels - I was excited! I took quickly to learning and only spent one week in grade one before I was moved into grade two. 

Holy Angeles Residence, Fort Chipewyan, Alberta

I particularly loved reading and spent many hours in the study hall.  I didn’t mind work, like polishing the hardwood floors and the wooden banisters, because I was used to doing housework at home.  In a large family like ours we all had to pitch in to help.  I also learned beading, embroidery and how to darn socks and mitts.  There was also playtime. The older girls never picked on me. Once a week we had movie night.  Because we lived in town we got to go home for the weekend and when we returned Sunday afternoon, that evening we would watch a movie. All the other boys and girls came to our room to watch the movie.  Occasionally we played bingo.   I remember going camping too; we were allowed to run into the hills for hours until we were called for dinner. 

A number of the priest spoke Denesuline (Chipewyan) and Cree. Also, Sister Brady, a Metis nun spoke Cree.  We sometimes laughed behind their backs at how they sounded when they spoke our language. It must be said here that neither the nuns nor the priests ever mistreated me, physically or emotionally.  In fact, I corresponded regularly with one of the priests until his death in 2003.  He even visited my home in Ottawa several times and met my husband and son.

Indeed, I still have many fond memories of being at Holy Angel Residence. 

That said, I also remember fights between girls in the schoolyard.  I remember students running away and being brought back in tears.  I remember that one time an older girl slugged a nun.  I remember whispers about a certain “brother” who would fix bikes for the boys. So yeah, for sure there were critical concerns during my time at Holy Angels.

Like I mentioned earlier I split my time between Holy Angels and Charles Camsell Hospital.  I always looked forward to going to the hospital, the pain from numerous operations notwithstanding.  I would find money in my folded clothes on the bed, left by Sister Nadeau for canteen treats while I was at the hospital.  I didn’t worry about falling behind in my studies because I attended classes there.  I was in the hospital so often I developed personal relationships with the nurses and doctors, which I maintained through correspondence when I was back at Holy Angels.  I was encouraged to have pen pals and the nuns took my letters to be posted in town. 

Indeed my story is different, maybe it was because the era was the late sixties and seventies, and times and attitudes were changing.  I don’t know why my experience was different, was I the only one with these good memories?

The story of residential schools is a challenging and complicated one.  We don't serve the truth if we don’t tell the whole truth, and reconciliation can't be based on half-truths.  

My story doesn’t take anything from those  unfortunate students who suffered abuse, or who died to be placed in unmarked graves.  The fact that I was lucky to meet people who were caring does not contradict the truth of those who were abusive, or the misguided policy that sought to kill the Indian in Indian children.  it was a policy designed to  kill the Indian in the child because the government saw us as savages that could not be redeemed to live in society. 

Even with the extended times away from my family, I never forgot who I was. I never forgot my first language, Denesuline.  I never forgot the smell of drying pelts, drying meat, and the taste of caribou.  I never forgot our songs, our culture, and my ancestors. I never blame anyone for anything that happened to me as a child. And, I am most proud of the fact that alcohol or drugs never became a narrative in my story.  I am proud to be breaking the cycle of destruction.

How you tell your story, how you interpret these past events become you. The more you tell your story the more you strengthen that image of yourself.  Your story IS you. I don’t want to, and I shouldn't have to, feel shame because my story is different.

I may be a product of residential school, but I am not a "survivor"of residential school.  Residential school increased my resilience and confidence in who I am as a Dene Woman. 

UPDATE

June 2021 215  Remains of children as young as three  discovered in the grounds around the Kamloops residential school. 

 

This horrific  finding brings into evidence the tragedy of residential schools legacy.  

For years we have known about it however, when evidence resurfaces it brings up the trauma for the survivors even for me.  Inasmuch as my story is different because my experience in residential school was in the 70s by then attitudes  were changing. However there is no denying that the atrocities committed on children happened, and for the survivors the continued emotional trauma is transferred to their children and grandchildren.  I am fortunate to be the last generation of residential school.  

 

 In my family of 16 children the only ones who attended residential school were the younger ones like me,  Patrick, ,Ronnie, Roger, Donna, Donald, Beatrice. Rose, Christopher, Max.   

Fortunately,  Dora, Liz, Freddie, Jimmy,  Peter,  didn't attend Holy Angels. 

Re: It’s not you, it’s us

A LOVE LETTER TO MOTHER EARTH

photo credit CanStock Photo 

March 29, 2016

Dearest Mother Earth,

Re: It’s not you, it’s us

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately because I am worried about us.  Ok,  I admit I am terrified about what the future holds for you and by extension, the whole of our human civilization.

I agree that the signs of trouble have been there for some time.  But I thought that if I ignored them, I could pretend it didn't exist. After all we still have more sunny days than bad ones.

I remember the first sign something was wrong. At the time, it seemed inconsequential, but in fact it set off a chain of events, from which it appears there is no turning back.

I noticed that where I lived, water levels began to drop and land that was once covered by water, now was left exposed. That was not your fault, but instead the fault of a BC hydro dam that we humans built upstream .

The result was the livelihood of First Nations was dramatically impacted. Hunting and gathering, where we only took what we needed and in turn took great care to give back to you, was a thing of the past. We like to think of ourselves as protectors of you, our Mother Earth. But for the most part, based on our actions, this is just lip service. We have been grossly negligent.

Our relationship changed. It was no longer a reciprocal relationship because our needs, we felt, were greater than yours. Ironically, we called this progress. Honestly, could we have done any differently?

Do I dare mention the “C” word, climate change? The impact of climate change is real. Many remain in denial, still naively believing that climate change is a fabrication. Believe me denial does not mean it does not exist. And you know as well as I that it is inevitable that we are heading to a tipping point and you don’t have to look too far for the signs.

Indeed, with the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, our relationship continues to be impacted. It is changing faster than we can comprehend or prepare for, and more importantly it is changing faster than you can fix what we humans have done.

The process we humans have put in motion is nonlinear, in other words climate change effects climate change in a feedback loop out of our control. And it is cumulative and at some point in time, there will be a breaking point. It will be dramatic and sadly we will be powerless to stop it.

It’s complicated, right? We need you, yet our actions betray that notion. I am sorry it took me this long to notice that our relationship was on the rocks.

I realize our collective actions caused irreparable damage and to talk about reconciliation is almost a moot point at this juncture. But is it too late? Do we still have a chance? What can we do to fix it?

Love,

I can’t live without you

PS (PENNED BY HUBBY) might you be working on your own solution to the problem, which is to kill us off and wait for some other and more intelligent beings to appear.  I hope it doesn’t come to this, but after what we have done to you I couldn’t really blame you!

It’s all about Perspective!

DaYS 35-41 of 100 DaYS oF GRaTiTUdE

On January 15, 2016, I challenged myself to write about being grateful over 100 days.  Forty-one days into it has demonstrated a process that  sometimes took me to the edge. Particularly while I was dealing with the death of my mom. 

However, I found that even in grief you can find a reason to smile. It is a matter of perspective and gratitude.  How you view your world and the people around you  can make a difference on your happiness scale. 

 Day 35

My lovely sister Mary and I went on a road trip on the ice road to Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, because my friend Irene said she would bake me a pie. Another relative said they would cook us some fresh lake fish.  Who could refuse such generosity!

The view from Annie's home!

First, we dropped in at Joyce’s place where her significant other cooked a delicious meal and we visited over tea.  Then we went to Irene’s place for dessert and a short visit.  

I am so grateful to catch up with friends I’ve not seen in a long while. 

Andrew in front of Kim's Cafe

A visit to Fort Chipewyan also means taking Andrew to visit his aunt Annie's and places I hung out as a kid. Then it was time to head back to McMurray. I am grateful for my sister Mary who provided interesting conversation under the shine of the moonlight as we drove back. The ice road was amazing and in great shape. 

We saw two beautiful snow white owls on this trip. Thank you Mary!   

Day 36 

Mary Olive Adam 2016

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit with my mom’s friend Mary Olive.  She is really awesome because she does not mince words and says it like she sees it.  What a lovely lady.  

Day 37

I am grateful to be able to phone my doctor and he agrees to see me within 1/2 hour. I get there, wait 2 minutes, and then I am done within 20 minutes!  It is great when this happens.  

Day 38

I have so much gratitude for being able to make my own juices! When you make your own juice you know what goes into it. Today, my juice has added Love! 

Day 39

I am grateful to be living in a country where everyone has free choice and free will. You, and only you can decide how you will react to situations either of your own doing or someone else. You decide your own actions. It really is simple, if you want to be happy, you can be.  

Now, I will have tea!

Day 40

Being 100% authentic, which may not always be the easiest route to take but doing it anyway. Grateful to have people in my life who understand and appreciate me for what I stand for.  Being happy means living the life you want and not being afraid to let others see it.  

Day 41

The moments of my life are never on social media or on my cell phone while I am with you. I am grateful to always being present with whomever I am with at the moment. When I am with you, I will give you all I have and I don't share it with the world. Well, maybe in my blog, after the fact. lol   Gratitude highlights the positive in your life. Happiness is being present for those moments.  :)