Nuanced. - 24. Inez Louis: Indigenous Leader, Nurse & Health & Wellness Director for Cheam First Nation

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Inez Louis is a loving mother, Indigenous leader, wife, Nurse, and the Health and Wellness Director for Cheam First Nation. Inez is from Skowkale First Nation, within the Sto:lo territory. Inez was previously the Strategic Operations Planner with the health department in the Sto:lo Service Agency. She is a two-time nominee for the Juno Award for Aboriginal Album of the Year first for her 2010 album, Singsoulgirl and again in 2014 for her album Burn Me Down. As well, Inez Louis was chosen for the Chilliwack Mural Festival.  The photo was taken by her husband Justin Louis, and the mural was painted by Kevin Ledo.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Inaz, it is an absolute pleasure to sit down with you. I feel like it is a really good time to be recording this and to be having this conversation because I feel like a lot's going on around us and it's nice to be able to sit in a quiet location and actually just have a conversation about things rather than trying to pick aside or hear other people's perspectives just to be able to kind of sit with it and reflect because I think we both come from different backgrounds, but I feel like we're kind of on the same path, and a lot of people are on our same path of trying to heal and trying to do better. And I really think that that's part of the narrative.

I think that has been missing is highlighting what we're doing well in the community and what difference we're making. So one thing that really struck out to me was that your grandparents talked to you about becoming self-sufficient and becoming, and that drove you towards, nursing. And so I'm interested to hear about that and the roots of that story. Right. So I'm trying to remember where I've shared this a few times and it's interesting that it's crossed your path as well. But I think back to, you know, times around the kitchen table where there were a lot of political discussions happening or discussion about context of residential schools and

And, you know, and this happened since I was little. You know, you're playing around on the floor or you're in the living room and, you know, little kids have rabbit ears. I noticed that about my kids. And I'm always interested, I've always been interested what the adults are talking about or what the elders are talking about. And you can kind of like half listen. But I remember hearing conversations about residential school and how damaging that was. And my grandmother was very clear with us, even when we came in the room, that children were kidnapped. It was against their will, it was against the parents' will, and that those were hard times.

And that, circling back to what that means for our people and for our nations, more specifically the Stalo people, that we have a lot of healing to do in order to work towards sovereignty. And even shifting sovereignty right into perspective, because quite often that's not the lens that our people are looking at because we really, and I would have to say not to our own fault. The colonial perspective is still there, that we're looking at things to the lens of the Indian Act. We're looking at things through proposed solutions through the government, like the treaty process is controversial of and itself. But the conversation always circled back to healing. And my dad still talks about this to this day, about how we need to heal together. We need to

come together? What are those difficult conversations that we need to have? And I'm always mindful of readiness too. They are critical conversations, but also being mindful that not everybody's ready to have some of those tough conversations. So how do we create a safe space to invite people when you're ready? Here's where we're talking about it. You can come and go, as you please, to take breaks, because it's intensive. Of course, right now. Now, the world's listening in and the world is trying to figure out how to navigate 215 as they say the children who were discovered and I know the reaction from a lot of the people I know and myself included are really we've known this for a long time and now you're just tuning in that's that's

exhausting of in itself but also in the same breath important that now attention is being paid But there's a process that people go through. The vicarious trauma of learning about it, they, you know, they need time to come back and focus on what's the path forward. And it always circles back to what is the healing journey that we're on and how can allies support that. So, yes, that is the common thread that we share, that we have quite unique journeys on this path of how colonialism has impacted our separate families. but that's the common thread is that we're healing. I completely agree. And I think one thing that I get worried about

is when the narrative starts to leave our community and start to do its own thing without us helping inform it. And that's kind of how I felt when the news broke is that it's first started by looking towards indigenous people and then it quickly moved over to, it was just corporations trying to get involved and do their own approach on what they view as sustainable or as the future or as the best.

best path forward and that always makes me concerned because I think that we need to play a role in the process but it's so complicated because it's also not fair to put these atrocities to indigenous people to forgive on their behalf and I think that you you mentioned something along those lines of making sure that you're not putting it back on us to forgive the community and to make everybody feel better about what's gone on is a lot of us are still processing that. And I think what I hear you talking about is white fragility. Quite often, people who have the intention to be allies, they come with a bunch of loaded emotions, which I honor that, you know,

everybody goes on their own journey, but that's not, we're not responsible to or for that. And I think that's where people lose perspective, and that's where privilege, white privilege gets in the way quite often. And I love a quote, and I apologize, I can't remember where I learned this, but it's something that stuck with me. Nothing about us without us. And I just, I use that in my work because quite often in health care, there's allied partners that come in, for example, say Fraser Health or different organizations or like you say, different corporations that say, hey, I want to throw money at this issue. And I'm always thinking, what's driving this? What's the intention and what are you going to get out of this?

And what are you thinking that you could get out of this? And unconsciously, what is driving you that you could get out of this that you haven't even considered? Because really thinking about the kind of socialization that people bring to the table in their upbringing worldview, people sometimes aren't even aware of the intentions that they're bringing to the table. And I think having grown up with constantly reminded about those are not our values, this is our values being reoriented to that.

When I sit at a table quite often and I have this prickly feeling, I know it's my, I guess you could say, spidey sense is telling me like something's not right here. And in my professional career, I'm just sort of edging on sitting at different leadership tables. And so I'm trying very quickly to figure out, okay, what is my, what is my body telling me? Something's wrong here, but I need to figure it out before I can form the thought, maybe share that, hey, you know, I'm not sure that this is on the right track or, you know, pose some difficult questions at that table. So I really look to some of the leaders who have come before me, particularly in health, how to challenge those tables in a good way, while also being really clear that I think you're budding up against a boundary. here and we need to circle back or slow down and do some consultation because that's where the values really we need to have that clear boundaries that you know if you're going to do things on

our terms and our way then you need to stop talking and start listening and I find that that we have to say that over and over they just want to talk and they want to it's almost like they want to hear themselves and they're hearing themselves sort through their emotions I'm not here your counselor about how you're feeling about your white fragility right now. If we're here to do the work, I honor that you have some work to do, and that's important and sacred work. It's spirit work, but please go do that on your own time before you want to come and help. And so separating those two things about doing that personal work and doing work for the indigenous community seems to be a constant conversation that we have to have. Yeah. And I really respect what

you're doing because you are taking more of that leadership role in such an important area for our communities that has been struggling for so long. So one of the things that I saw you do is during the COVID-19 pandemic, you were starting to communicate with indigenous communities and talking about these issues, which I really did feel was being left at the wayside when I was watching CTV or global or these channels was just think this, don't think that, this is how to look at it. And it was like, this is never going to resonate with my community. or and so that meant a lot to me to be able to see that because it is setting a different example and it's contrasting with the traditional approach so like I got to see the videos and you were talking

directly to the camera and breaking it down as clear as could be for people and I think that that makes a huge difference because it puts the voice back in our hands and with this podcast that's kind of what I'm trying to do is I don't want to be tied to some big organization that's going to have its own preferences on how I talk about it on what I say. I want to be able to get the conversation as real as it can be and really understand from your perspective how we can do better and what you're seeing from your perspective because I think too often it's written in a report, it's communicated to the other head of the organization and it doesn't reach other people or the community where we can start to understand ourselves how we can do better. And I think you're just, you're a really

strong role model for so many indigenous people who have only learned that Indian residential schools happen, the 60 scoop happened, and if we want to get out of this, we likely need the government's help. And I think that you're setting this example of, I can lead, I can set the example, I can do better, and we can become sustainable ourselves. So I'm really interested to see how you got into healthcare and how you did go to UBC. So how was that whole process set up? Was that planned from a young age? Or? I think it was a lot of what I saw. So circling back to that first question where you initially asked that those conversations are critical and help to set my worldview that here's where we've come from and this is the circumstance we find ourselves in

and that need for healing healing healing healing how do we we really need to work towards sovereignty so how do we get there and um watching different people in my family and that was the the thing my grandmother was very clear, all you young people, and, you know, this is a message to her own children and the work that she did, she said, you have to work toward sovereignty for our people. We have to get that back. There's not a question of if, or maybe, or no, that is the direction we need to point ourselves in dead dying or bleeding. And it was almost like the war against reclaim, you know, to reclaim ourselves, to reclaim our dignity even that had been stripped from us. And seeing how that had impacted my grandmother, I think it really motivated my dad and his

siblings. And so for us, the following generations, myself and my cousins, you know, being tasked to, you know, this is the healing we have to do and we're not perfect. We struggle with many of the intergenerational things that other families do. I know sometimes people don't think that for whatever reason, but I think we're trying to honor those around us and hold them up in good space, but they struggle too, myself included. But that do the work, do that healing, but go to school, get those tools, and how can you continue to hold space for our cultural values and our worldview, go to school, find those tools that exist out there. And how can we come back and learn how to integrate them? We might say, oh, this one doesn't serve us. It's deeply entrenched

in Western values. Or how can we pick pieces out of that and put them back together? And I guess in Western institutions, we call it creating knowledge when really we're interweaving our worldview into those ways of communicating. How can we teach you that this is our way? of thinking so that we can work together, so that we can help you to understand how to best work with us. And, I mean, it was suggested to us that we go to law school, Uncle Stephen, for those who know, Stephen Point, was adamant about us going to law school because, of course, a big part of that, like, what you're pursuing is making sure that rights and title and so many different practice areas of law are observed and respected. And so if we can get the tools of Western law, then we can help to protect that. Now, I remember one time he was joking and bribing us like, hey, you girls, if you go to law school, I'll send you to Hawaii or something after you're done. And I remember being so mad, I'm not going to law school. I want to be a doctor.

And he said, whatever, just do something cool. And so I'm going to have to circle back and take him up. Yeah, for real. But it was also what we saw. It was what we saw in the family and in the community. You know, I was fortunate that my mom, when I was growing up, she had a background in ECE. So she was really keen. Sorry, what is ECE?

ECE, early childhood education. And my mom is Brenda Point, and she was the first out of her family to graduate from high school. And she's the youngest. And so she ended up doing a little bit of ECE, and she stayed home with me. And I think that really helped with, we know now, early childhood development is so critical, especially in our communities where families struggle with a lot of trauma. So trying to set that solid foundation of development and early interaction. So I'm so thankful to my mom and dad for that.

And then she and my dad circled back and ended up getting their teaching degrees through UBC, through NITEP, actually, the Native Indian teacher education program. Wow. And it was a laddering program where you could start at the College of the Freedians. Valley, which is now UFV. And it was a native program. So again, here's the kitchen table conversation. They're talking about First Nations education, indigenous education, Aboriginal education, all the language that's been used over the years. What does that mean for us? What does that mean for families? And so hearing again about indigenous trauma that lives in our community

and lives in our families and how that's impacting our family's early ability to support young people in early education. So I was thinking, wow, you know, there's so much practice areas. And I have to say teaching is not my jam, but I always joke that I have some sort of honorary certificate in indigenous education, because my dad doesn't type. He's a two-finger typeer. So when he was doing his undergraduate, I would type all of his papers for him. And then I would edit, which is interesting because we'd always argue about this, because my dad's writing style is much different than mine. He has much more traditional narrative story style of writing, whereas I'm a nurse and always have been more of a science background and everything's factual.

And if I could write a paper bullet point form, that's the way my life would go. So it provided me an opportunity to discuss like, Dad, what's your idea here? What are you getting at? And so it was a really good learning opportunity for me because I'm not a strong writer. He's a writer. He's a writer. a storyteller and a speaker and all of these things. So that helped me. And when I circled back to going to UBC, I just went for it. I just thought I'm going to apply. Through high school, I made sure to have all my prerex.

I was and always have been an overachiever. So in grade 9, I challenged math 10, wrote the exam with little or no background because I didn't attend a lot of the classes, evening classes I was supposed to go to. And I thought, ah, I'll just challenge it and see where I land. And I passed. Wow. And I loved math. It was hard.

But is a ladder, are you familiar with that term laddering, ladder learning? No. So in math, my mom, again, here's a teacher thing. Yeah. My mom said ladder, ladder learning is where you need to know each of the steps before you can jump to the next level. Oh, okay. Because you know in algebra or anything, one misstep in any of the steps as you're solving a problem can throw you off. Yeah.

And so somehow I managed. I don't know how. And so I got ahead in math. I ended up doing an advanced placement math in grade 12 after writing the math 12 exam in grade 11. I did advanced placement English and ended up applying and getting accepted to UBC. Now that is its own story because I ended up dropping out after the first year. So I'm binge drinking there, a lot of grief and trauma that. I think came into my awareness more than I was ready to acknowledge at that time.

I had gone into my first year of university with some traumatic deaths in my family. I had an aunt who passed away from a heroin overdose. We had another great aunt who passed away, just so many things going on. And then also I think going to what I think is considered an Ivy League university in Canada and really coming to an awareness and understanding of the amount of wealth that exists in the world after coming from a background of growing up on reserve. And then also seeing how high-functioning people were emotionally. You know, you kind of see that in high school.

And I've always had this attitude that I'm just going to fake it to make it. I'm going to try to figure it out. But going there and trying to manage my grief and really learning about myself, and how maybe far behind I was compared to a lot of people, that really got me down. And so starting to cope with alcohol and different things set me back. And so I failed my first year and came home. So that was a really tough thing. But I ended up realizing I didn't like the entry-level jobs that I had to stay in and circled back to nursing school.

Awesome. And how did you continue through nursing school? What brought you back? Well, I had had a few jobs at the band office, and I really enjoyed the administrative stuff, learned quick, and I enjoyed, like, for example, I'd make the information packages for chief and council, so they need all the background information before they go into a meeting. So I was in a training position for administration, and I remember the chief at the time stormed out of the council building room and said, who made this? who made this and I thought he was mad and I was like uh me and he said this is really good this helps a lot and he must have just been in deep thought

because I thought he was angry the way his face was and he's like this is great we need more of this and he walked out of the room and I thought oh wow that that was a big kudos and that's when I started to recognize I think I can do something bigger and you know I wanted to to move on from the band office and learned a bit, you know, even if you haven't worked in the

band office, there's about 500 acronyms to learn. Now it's ISC, Indian service, indigenous services Canada. You know, you learn about CMHC and all that stuff. So that was a good experience for me, kind of getting a sense of how... Which community was this by the way? In Skokhale, the community that I was born and raised in, a very tiny community. So went away, did a bit of indigenous tours at Heitam, which is near Hatsuk Rock, and there's a glacier erratic there that where our people have stories about a lot of the glacier erratics that were pushed down by the glaciers, but our people have different stories about the chachals and how they traveled up and down the valley and made the world right, which is a very parallel sort of story to, some of the biblical stories. So it's interesting when you see those parallels. That happened with the canoe story,

which is that we all, during the flood, we all were connected in canoes to the story of Noah and the Ark. And so I completely agree with you. I think that there are more parallels than there are dissimilarities to the both belief systems, which is why it's so unfortunate that they've been at loggerheads for so long

and that treat it as if being spiritual is somehow completely the opposite of being religious and I think that that's really unfortunate because I think an informed dialogue could definitely occur there in regards to religion and values. Absolutely, and I think that was interesting for me to see the parallels in that because they talk about how the canoes were tied up

at the top of Sumas Mountain. And this site where I worked as a tour guide and we did tours with, I think, grade fours and grade sevens. We talked about some of the oral history, some of the teachings, and then the scientific background of how the Western world has come to understand how these glacier erratics have come to land in the valley that we have our own worldview of how these were created. And so, yes, I agree, so much more dialogue is needed,

and I think that's the awareness that that position brought for me, and I thought, you know what, I'm not making enough money here, kind of like at the band office. So I kept hopping around at one point was working at Stellanation as an administrative clerk for the finance and administration department, serving tables at night. And it really also wasn't the lifestyle that I was wanting, you know, working so much for very little money. Yeah. And wanting to not live hand to mouth. You know, and I watched people in my community, watched my parents.

And I thought, you know what? I also feel like I want to make a better difference. So if I can do both, I can make more money, not struggle, you know, maybe help my family, help my loved ones, because, of course, we do so much ceremony and whatnot, there are expenses there. So I want to be able to help in that aspect. But I also wanted a meaningful career. And I remember asking my aunt. I have an aunt. Her name is Elizabeth Point or Liz. And she was a nurse. And I remember learning that she was going to school. And I remember having that on my periphery, but when I had come to chat with her about where did you go to school and how long did that take? She let me know that she has a bachelor degree, an undergraduate, and it's a Bachelor of Science of Nursing from UFV. How long did that take and just really grilling her about it? And she ended up having to go back to high school, get her high school degree, then go back and get a prerequisites, then do her undergraduate. And I thought, wow. And then I started studying how much nurses earn, registered nurses. Because a nurse is not the same. There's different levels of nursing. And boy, my eyes were about as big as pies when I saw how much the earnings were for registered nurses. So I started, I remember on my lunch break one day looking on the internet and realizing that UBC had a nursing program. And I thought, ah, maybe you

I go back and switch faculties, I could try something and also have a better readiness of no, I know what to expect when I go there. I know what I need to do in order to, you know, do the work, a lot of self-discipline, a lot of self-reflection. And so I applied to switch faculties and was promptly told, no, we've looked at your grades, you've failed a number of your classes, and that's just not going to happen. So I had already used my, what you call an Aboriginal entry allowance, meaning that as long as you meet the requirements to enter, you are guaranteed a space.

And they will give you that one time. And I had already used that to enter the Faculty of Science. So I thought, okay, you know, I was pretty disappointed, realizing that, yeah, I'd gone away and done some healing. I'd made some mistakes, but I think I'm ready for this. And I wanted to fight. So I thought, what is the way that I can humbly present that I have, yes, I made some mistakes.

Here's what happened. So I wrote a four-page letter to the faculty of nursing and admissions. And I said, this is what's happened. These are the deaths that have happened in my family. I was very clear that I was not coping. This is what I've gone away and done. I sent in my resume of all the different employers I'd work from. I got a support letter from my chief.

I got a support letter from the director of health at the Stalin, nation, and as well as Doug Kelly, who is a prominent leader that's worked in health care to bring the First Nations Health Authority to life, one of many people. And a few others, I can't remember. I found that letter a few years ago, those letters that those people wrote for me, and I thought, I need to acknowledge that because there was a special meeting pulled together to consider, we consider my application, and they said, yes, we will give you a conditional acceptance that we are going to watch her progress in the first year.

because we really can't ignore the fact that you failed your first year, and you didn't take it seriously. And I said, I hear that, and I will continue to report to you everything that I'm doing. I was also unconditional acceptance from our funder. Wow. From the solanation, because, again, I had failed. You have to report your grades every semester to the funder. And he, too, said, I don't know that I can approve you to go back.

Yeah. And so I showed him that I had got conditional acceptance. And he said, you have to send me every single one of your grades on your papers, everything. And I said, I'm happy to do that. And I understand that I need to be accountable to all parties, ultimately myself. And I graduated as the class speaker for the School of Nursing and the School of Engineering. Wow. No way. Yeah.

What was that experience like to be able to give those grades back to people and be able to know that you had met your own expectations? but also the expectations of all these people around you because that is a story of adversity and being willing to overcome and really take that on. Terrifying. I think, you know, you have to face yourself and you have to face your own failures and it just for me circle back to accountability that, yeah, I did fail and it was super crappy of me to let all of these people down, but really I let myself down. And I just was not ready. I think I was afraid of if I took a year off, then I was going to get distracted. And that's why I sort of forged ahead to do my first year, not realizing, wow, I was so young. And I just didn't have the life skills and self-discipline to get through that. But, you know, when I actually applied myself, you know, I did things like in lecture looked at my notes.

I went back and made notes from my readings. And then I combined those notes into a third set of notes. And sometimes a fourth set of notes where I drew pictures on the wall. And this was in biology where I used colors because realizing I had to adapt to my own learning style. And asked for help that like, gosh, I'm really struggling. Like, for example, having had such a successful background in math, which is against all stereotypes that girls aren't good at math. and I love bucking the tide on stereotypes, hate being a statistic that I, again, faced that

difficulty in statistics. Like, I barely passed statistics by the skin of my teeth. And at the time, my partner at the time, he had a background in baseball. So stats, he could do stats in his sleep. And he got like an A plus in his class. And I was thinking, how can you do that? And he's just like, there's just some things we're good at in some. things were not. And you're just doing the right thing by asking for help. So I had to get through

those things. So there were definitely times where I brought my assignments in with my tail between my legs and I said, you know what? At least I did my due diligence by asking for help and I made sure I passed this. Whereas there were some times where I had an A and I knew that I bled for that A, literally. You know, there were late nights. There were times where like concepts, like I was making a joke the other day with a meme that like what's a nephron and for people with science backgrounds you'll know what I mean but a nephron is a component of the kidney that has all this these complex electrolyte exchanges and whatnot and I remember just one night bursting into tears thinking how am I ever going to understand this and I had to just have my moment regroup and say this is what's in front of me right now and this

is the challenge that I'm being faced with and this is setting me up to face the more difficult challenges when I go into practice and it sure did. Yeah. And so I think those were the culminating feelings for me standing on stage as an indigenous woman. I also sang a traditional song and and I thought this is also going to show them that I'm a person and a human if they haven't had an opportunity to see an indigenous woman in this light. Yeah. Because even after that in my practice learning how so many people know and understand indigenous people to see what they see in the downtown east side. Homeless, drug-seeking behaviors, you know, everything that comes with that.

And so really challenging those ideas. And in addition to not just the graduates in the School of Nursing and Engineering, the families who were sitting there with them. And so I think of that often. I later found out that some of my friends were also asked to be Valde Victorian, And they kept emailing us saying, oh, like, can you do this? Can you do this? And everybody was just frozen thinking, oh, my gosh, what do you say to the school of nursing and engineering?

Yeah. So thankful that that opportunity came to me and hoping that that influenced the people in the room in the Chan Center. Yeah, that's amazing because I'd want to go back to your statement about not wanting to be a statistic. Because that's something I've actually been thinking a lot about just for myself, like knowing that I'm the first of my community to attend law school. And to be able to break those statistics of the underrepresentation in attending higher education, but knowing all throughout growing up, I constantly felt like that statistic. I had teachers say you have like narcissistic, tell my mom, your child has narcissistic personality disorder, they're not going to graduate high school, those types of conversations. And I was in the room sitting there being like my potential is being discussed without any input from myself. And so looking as a native court worker at the overrepresentation of indigenous people in incarceration in the court system and seeing these people feeling and embodying a statistic and feeling that because I'd have clients kind of go like, what else am I supposed to do?

Like this is my family does this. My friends do this. Like where would you have me go? What would you have me do? And it was like, wow, this person really feels cornered in. And I think that's something that so often gets overlooked when we're trying to address the problem is that when you identify it, you make a lot of people feel like they are just the problem. And they don't see that avenue towards nursing or towards law school.

There's this already feeling of defeat when I was working with clients in the Chilliwack and Abbotsford Courts of, like, this is my life, this is who I am. And being able to offer them resources like First Nations Health Authority counseling through Indian residents. schools and knowing that that was a resource and being able to say, hey, we can get you a counselor. This doesn't have to be a group program if you don't want it to be. You can work through your own processes. We can get you set up with resources for education if that interests you. We can do these things that are just normal, that you don't have to carry this burden with you. Really change the conversation because I think sometimes stressing the history can cause people

to feel like there's no avenue out. And I'm hoping that people like yourself set that example for how to get out of the the rat race of continuing down the same path and not succeeding because I think indigenous people just need people to emulate people to look up to and say those are the footsteps I'd like to follow in whether it's law or nursing or other areas that they can make a difference in that feeling like they are represented on that stage is something I'm really hopeful for and it just goes to your point about not wanting to be a statistic and statistics are great to inform us on what's going

on, but they can also trap us in thinking that that's how things are and how that things could be. And so I really appreciate you sharing that story because I think it humanizes the process of going to nursing school. Because for some who might not know you, it's like, oh, she went to nursing school. She's a successful person and she just got there and it was easy, peasy can really be discouraging when you're thinking of your own life and your own struggles because I have listeners who have faced drug abuse and drug addiction and knowing that they can feel represented through other people's stories really helps encourage them to move forward. So I'm very interested to see how that connects with your singer and songwriting experience,

because that's something so unique. You've been nominated for two Juno Awards. What was that whole process like? And do you still create music? I'm not creating music right now. I've retired essentially from that so that I can focus my energy on my family, because in my career as a musician and a singer-songwriter, it required a lot of traveling, and I have three children now.

And so when my children became of age to go to kindergarten, I just decided that this is time. I also went through a divorce. And so we just said, you know, we need to put the children first. And thankful for that, thankful to my partner at the time, Otis. we know, it's tough to go through a divorce and we supported each other through our undergraduates. Otis now has his business degree in indigenous business and he's married to his partner, Katie Godfretton, who is in Kamloops and really thankful to both of them. We co-parent and it's the dream that you would wish for in co-parenting

and putting the children in the center of that has been important. But as a result, I had to make a difficult decision to retire my music. career. But at the same time, I feel like I got a lot out of it. So at the time when I was going to school, I like that you point out that, you know, people from the outset may have a perspective of how we're living and experiencing our lives. And I also don't like to glamorize the difficulty. It's okay to acknowledge and talk about it, and I'm happy to talk about it, but I think it's important, like you say, let's not over glamorize our focus on the trauma or the difficulty, but it's, it's important to acknowledge it. Absolutely.

And my undergraduate was not without difficulty. Moving away from home was challenging. You know, you live in your little bubble wherever that is, and for me, it was on the reserve, and, you know, my worldview and my ideas were formed by that. And so that was a significant shift for me. I moved to campus, and I acknowledged that binge drinking was a problem for me, so I'd find myself, I had these rules for me and my self-discipline. You know, I could go out and party with my friends after I'd finished my midterms, and I also had to do it

within reason and safety, you know, not put myself in a dangerous situation. But in the meantime, you know, I could do small wins, like I could buy myself pizza after I had successfully finished a paper. So on these Friday nights where I'm interrupting these bad behaviors I had of going out and drinking, or I would find myself staring at my computer screen on a Friday night at 11 at night, thinking, I don't even know what to do with myself if I'm not using alcohol. So how do I live? I was having to explore different ways of dealing with my emotions or even entertaining myself.

And I started writing poetry because at the First Nation's Longhouse, they had brought all of these different activities in, one of them being a touring rap group. Wow. Was it res official? Yeah, and they were rapping. And of course, rap is poetry. And so I was so fascinated, particularly by one of them who could freestyle. And so, you know, for us in university, really, you're finding. tuning that sharp wit, thinking on the spot, using jargon to clearly express yourself

in a way that you're critically thinking actively while you're listening so that you can form an argument to respond. I know, particularly in your area of work. And so how do you actively listen and critically think at the same time? That is a skill set of in itself. So I'm watching this guy freestyle. And he said, everybody bring an object down and everybody line up and I'm going to come one by one and I'm going to freestyle. People brought tampons, people brought water bottles, people had a slice of pizza. And he had a whole story he told. And he wasn't afraid of the tampon or the slice of pizza. He told an entire story. So I was so fascinated by his wit and how sharp and quick he was. And I thought, I want that. And I was fascinated by his ability to

express himself and have a voice. Voice is so important for our people because sometimes we're told we don't have a voice and we shouldn't have an opinion, particularly women and children. We're to be seen and not heard. I think that's an intergenerational thing from residential school. I also know that in our culture there's time and place. So how do you weave through those things? So coming away from that, I found myself riding down,

thoughts and ideas and I had started to accumulate this book of pretty raw writing about braids being cut off and children being apprehended and being taken to residential school and a lot of it was fueled by anger and frustration from my experiences in the classroom anytime anything indigenous came up in the classroom it was so misinformed and people had their opinions on them which were more grossly misinformed and in an effort not to rage and tell everyone to eat shit, which is so unprofessional, I needed to figure out a way to deal with my rage. And how was I going to make impactful change if I was just going to be an angry native woman? Because nobody wants to listen to an angry native woman.

So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and a few years later I was living with my partner at the time, Otis, the father of my two older children, and he noticed that I was writing and encouraged and supported me to start presenting some of this poetry, which was very real and raw. And I remember people clapping for me in this cafe-style presentation at like a poetry slam, and I was just like, wow, people identify with these thoughts and feelings. So then I realized I wasn't alone and that my voice was important. That really validated me. And then one, day, I was so homesick. I skipped one of my last lectures, which was very unlike me, but I was just in tears. I was homesick. And I was fortunate to have a vehicle. So I jumped in my car.

I didn't tell my parents I was coming home. And I remember driving over the Portman Bridge, and I was listening to some hip-hop music. And you could see the mountains rising in the background. I needed to go home to the territory to read. group. And I just had some thoughts that came to mind with the music. And I very quickly formulated verses pre-chorus, chorus, and a song came together very quickly. It was almost like the sky opened, like a little trap door in my brain. And all the words just sort of went and then on to the piece of paper. And not safe, but I wrote it on a bill that happened to be sitting on the passenger side. And that's how I wrote Stala Strong. Because I was just thinking,

God, I need to call my spirit back. I'm feeling so weak in my spirit and my body, my brain. You get brain drained at a certain point because we all know post-secondary pushes you to your limit and beyond. And is teaching you how to perform in a high output environment. And that's sometimes not healthy. And so, again, my partner found out about this. I showed him, you know, like, ooh, I was terrified even to show him. And he said, you have to record this.

We have to make this happen. This is so cool. And he was my biggest cheerleader. And so I connected with Jason Bernstick, and he helped me to make it into an acoustic song. I also connected with another guy who made some beats, and we made it into a hip-hop version. And it just took off from there. My husband at the time bought me music equipment, and I would just fiddle all hours of the night writing. And I ended up joining an R&B duo, and we called ourselves Gold.

And we'd perform in these gritty bars in Vancouver. I remember we opened for Res Official, the group that had originally, yeah, that had originally toured. And we did Haifi-inspired. I don't know if you're familiar with Ha-Pee. I've heard of it, yes. Yeah, we did Haifi-inspired R&B. And our lives, I think, took different directions. Okolani LeBlanc was the gal I sang with tremendously,

talented women. To this day is still writing and recording music. But then started exploring more of my own writing and thought I wanted to take more of an R&B twern a little bit away from Heifie and wrote Sing Soul Girl. I had had all of these songs actually in a bank that I was terrified to do and I ended up just recording it and by accident stumbled through putting the album together. I had for a self-care thing done a photo shoot. I had actually lost a pregnancy. And so that was so difficult of in itself and ended up thinking, you know what, this native photographer was in town. I thought, oh, I'll do a photo shoot. And when we needed to put the album together, someone said, oh, do you have album art or photography? And I was like, no, well,

I have these photos. So it was just crazy the way the whole thing came together. And so by the time I graduated nursing. I was working at St. Paul's on 10A, 10AB, which was post-op. So I'd do 12-hour shifts. Sometimes after a day shift, I would go record at night at a friend's house. And that's just how the album came together. I was married at the time, had my son Zane. He was a baby, traveled to Amp Camp, which was the Aboriginal music program, learned a lot of basic skills. about how to tour, how to work with a sound man, how to operate yourself as a sole proprietor in small business, because technically you are a sole proprietor as a musician.

I had come with my album pressed already. Like I had a box because we put the album together and all the boxes were sitting in the living room and we were like, what do we do now? We really didn't know. And it's funny when I tell the story to people, they were like, we thought you just knew what you were doing. And I was like, I had no idea.

Thank goodness for Google. How do you do a gig? I had no idea, but I just knew that when I was on stage performing, as terrifying as that was, it was the most terrifying space, but also the most empowering space. And people are like, you don't look shy, you're so brave. And I'm like, I would be so close to barfing every time I would get on stage. And it was just something that really helped me in my healing process,

to be able to, I wrote these songs. These are my ideas and my thoughts. And just to be validated by the crowd of people, like I remember coming home and doing like a homecoming performance in Chiakton. And everybody showed up a lot of kids. And in the crowd, everybody's filming me, everybody's crying when I was singing Stella Strong

and feeling like, wow, this was, I'm not alone in this. And it was really, sort of a next level to me to realize, like, wow, I want other people to have this feeling and started touring and talking about my story of having suicidal thoughts and having a plan and having the means. I don't know if you're trained in suicide assessment and support, but very, very high risk when someone first discloses to you that they have suicidal thoughts and next we explore, do you have a plan? Do you have a date set?

How would you do it? And so having worked through that privately, realizing that finding my voice, finding a space for me to express myself through not only school but also art, that that helped me come back from a difficult time. So I transitioned into touring, doing some motivational speaking, encouraging young people to plow through grade 12. However you can, get all the help. You can find something so that you don't have to scrape by in line. but also take care of your spirit and your heart. And this is what I struggled with because people were so shocked even then. You thought about killing yourself?

And I thought, yeah, I've had that thought many times in my life because that feeling of hopelessness is heavy. But how do we then work through that? And again, music was something that helped me with that. So that brought me a lot of opportunity because, as we know, unfortunately, a lot of our people struggle with that. So it brought me an opportunity to share that good. medicine, share music, and pulled me away from my nursing career, but.

Wow, that's amazing. And just to go to the Portman Bridge and driving over that, it's just funny that you say that because a lot of this podcast was inspired on a drive back from UBC. I was driving back. The pandemic was just becoming real news to Canada and kind of becoming more real. The university was talking about closing down. And I was like, there's no voices that I'm seeing on the news or hearing that I trust that I want to hear from. And we have these great professors at UFE. We have these great people in Chilawak and nobody's talking to them and nobody's sitting down with them and getting the full story. And for me, podcasts, like, I know we come from an oral tradition. And for me, podcasts, they're very easy for me to listen to. So back and forth

between UBC because I also couldn't stand it there. I just felt too disconnected. So during my first semester, I was trying to live on campus, but returning three times a week, four times a week, to the point where it's like, do I really, so during the second semester, I was like, I don't need a place, I'm just going to drive. So it's three hours drive out, three hours drive back each day,

listening to podcasts and really feeling connected to the conversation that was going on. And then hitting this point where it's like, I know so many people that would be great to have on, yet I'm not doing it, why aren't I doing it? And on that drive, I called my closest friend Jake and said, hey, I'm serious about starting a podcast. Are you interested in this?

Is this something that you would support me doing? And he was my first guest on the podcast because he's been through so much as someone from Stihilis, struggling, working through university, starting it later than me. We did our whole childhood together. And when he didn't go to university with me, it really created this separation between us

because I could see he wanted to be where I was. but wasn't there yet. And so it put me in this position as being a role model, helping him apply to Stahelis for funding, helping him apply to UFE, explaining the process, explaining what the courses are. Now he's starting his first year of law school a couple years behind me, but he's been on the same path throughout.

So it's been such an honor to be able to have the conversations that I'm passionate about, but it was in the exact same circumstance as you as heading back from UBC being like, what am I doing? Because for me, the people at law school, that my peers, they don't feel like peers. They feel like competition. And when I came back to the community, I'm supported, I'm respected. People don't see me as competition. And that's constantly how I felt

out at UBC. So it really did feel like this is the place to be. And so I've continued, I was lucky, in my opinion, to have COVID come because it just reinforced doing school in the Fraser Valley, staying here and not having to be in that environment. And so that was kind of my experience with that. But I'm so grateful to have you talk about your role with hip hop and music because for me and seeing a lot of indigenous friends on reserve, hip hop and rap are actually like the strongest music that you're going to hear. It's going to be Eminem. It's going to be these type of people that have a similar lived experience that I don't think gets acknowledged enough. I think people like Eminem, they have songs that I don't listen to, but they also have songs that I think a lot of indigenous people really understand. because it's starting from nothing, having people in regular society, not respect you,

not give you the time of day, and finding a way to come out of that. And so all of my favorite music is hip-hop rap, because it talks about this, like all my favorite rappers have started from nothing, known what it's like to not have food on the table, to be able to sing in front of thousands of people that are crying because of the relationship that they've had. Because I listen to these rappers all the time, and they have no idea who I am. And if I did go to one of their events, I'd probably be very emotional. And again, they'd still have no idea who I am, but their lyrics impact me on such a deeper level that I'm seriously considering starting a YouTube channel just to talk about my favorite music and why I find it relatable, because that's something I think music really misses out on.

We all have our favorite music, but we don't get to share it enough. There's never an appropriate time to be, stop talking, we're going to listen to this song, and I'm going to tell you what I think this song means to me and my community and our circumstance. because I think we have a lot of connection with the African American community based on the struggles they face. So all of my favorite rappers come from that Detroit, Michigan life of not having enough. This podcast was inspired by Big Sean, who wrote a song called Bigger Than Me and really coming out of poverty and realizing this isn't about just making money. This is about fixing my family, fixing the trauma we've been through, addressing these issues and helping the community do better and representing it in a positive light. that really encourages me, which is why it's called bigger than me, is because that whole mindset of doing better and setting a positive example is really something that's important

to me. So I'm actually interested, who are some of your favorite rappers and why? Or musicians. Oh gosh. When I grew up, I listened to a lot of R&B, and I remember when we would travel to the States because I grew up paddling. I really enjoyed listening to the music in the States because a lot of R&B and hip hop didn't make it to Canadian radio because of so can and of course they want to make sure Canadian music is at the forefront which I think is important as well but it also filtered out a lot of good music and so I remember listening to the cube 93.3 and just being like oh wow this music's so cool so like at the time quad city DJs which are of course down in the south in Virginia area there was

was Brandy, Monica, S.WV was a big one, Sisters with Voices. And I always say SWV taught me how to sing because I remember being in my room trying to sing along or like understand the different riffs, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. And then at that time, there were a lot of rap features starting to come out. So I remember Old Dirty Bastard was on there thinking, wow, this guy's rank in his style. but just he a lot of them and their approach were just talking and telling a story and I mean a lot of it was related to love or relationships but then I started listening more to Tupac and Biggie at that time and not really a fan of east coast versus west coast and all that shit really because a lot of the young people were gravitating towards that and that was a problem on our reserves wrapping colors are you blue or red and I remember in the States too on the Lummi Res and Nooksack, you know, gang stuff was a problem. So I definitely gravitated towards the music, but not necessarily this lifestyle that was being projected. Master

P and all of the artists at that time that came out. And just last night we had friends over and we were listening to some old 90s rap. And we're like, oh yeah, remember this song or this guy's awesome. And I said, you know what's so messed up is how disrespectful the music was to women and still is. And how I love this song, but there's elements of this song where they'll be like, fuck bitches or, you know, whatever. And I'm thinking, this is so out of left field and I can stand here and dance and sing along. And then that part comes up. And I'm just like, a lot's changed. And a lot has come into our awareness.

Yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah. But those are important things to acknowledge. And, you know, listening to music with my children, I try not to feel. filter too much from what they listen. Of course, it needs to be age appropriate. But I also think it's a good conversation to have. I'm like, oh, did you hear what that guy said in that song? Yep. What do you think about that? And, you know, my son's 12 and he'll be like, I don't know.

And I'm like, well, think about that. He said, this, this and this. Do you agree or disagree? Do you have a thought about it? And he was like, oh, I guess that's not very good. And I said, yeah, I think it's important that you're going to hear a lot of music in your lifetime. People are expressing ideas for whatever reason, whatever thought they're coming from. But you just know that a lot of it's not good. And some of the music that I might listen to from a long time ago, I don't agree with some of what they're saying either. Yeah.

Ah, okay. So, yeah, a lot of the music back then was focused a lot on gang life, coming out of difficult situations. You know, in the era of M&M and those rappers, I think there was a lot more, content about emotional journey, which wasn't there back in the 90s, and bringing light to the need of emotional intelligence because we find strength and we find light at the end through vulnerability. And I think a lot of MCs were not comfortable going to that space

of vulnerability. They were still in the 90s projecting this toxic masculinity. where I'm strong and I'm packing and don't F with me and don't come through my head or you know don't front and all this stuff and I think a lot of people in Res Life identified with that even you know my husband he's from Samson Cree First Nation which people might know as Hobema and there was a lot of gang activity and unfortunately continues to be it's not as bad as it was but a lot of our reserves gravitated to that music not in a good way Yeah. So it's funny that you ask me about that, that we were just talking about that last night.

Yeah, because I think of people, like, I don't know if you've heard of NF, but he's more recent, he's, like, Eminem's joked about how he's, like, his, like, rap kid because he's so similar to this recovery album. But there's no swearing, there's no belittling women. It's all about how deep can he go with the lyrics of talking about losing his mother to drug use. and struggling with not feeling like he fits in, but also struggling with anxiety and depression, and not just saying that, but going like, my mind is going so quickly down these rabbit holes of negativity

and of whether or not I should even exist and whether or not this is even worth something, like in one of his interludes, he just talks about, his album had been the biggest ever, it was probably the height of his career, and he wanted to die. He didn't want to live anymore. And so, like, breaking that down for the listener

and explaining, this is the life I live, like feeling pressured to be on with fans when he's still the same person. The person who's rapping to you in that song is the same person who has to meet you and doesn't do those types of things, doesn't enjoy the meet and greets with the fans after because that's not who he is. And so it's very interesting to see these developments. It's exhausting. Like, and I'll speak to that.

You're on 24-7 and you're technically an entrepreneur. And so nobody cares about your business. business as much as you do when you're an entrepreneur. And so the work never ends. The emails never end. The interactions never end. You have to be on. People have an expectation and an entitlement to you. Especially after gigs when you're leasing, shaking hands, kissing babies or whatever you want to call it, seems like politics at times. But then people expect, they also want to tell you their stories. And they're very traumatic stories. And, you know, I always try to make myself available in hold space, but there needs to be some health, there needed to be some healthy

boundaries about that because it started to impact my mental health as well. You know, people need to recognize that we're human too. We've, we've had an experience and we're still having that experience. And that's part of why I decided to pull back as well, is that, okay, I did my part. This was a part of my journey and healing, but I don't know that I want to do this full time. Do I miss it? Yes. The part that I miss is being on stage performing. That was less than 10% of what I did in my music career. A lot of it was being on an airplane. A lot of it was being alone in a hotel room.

A lot of it was late nights. And, you know, after having children, making sure that their needs were met. And so my business slowly became last priority because I had to make sure I was doing that. And sometimes I couldn't do that. And that was tough. And my husband at the time had to pick up the pieces. And so we had to take a really quick inventory and say, is this feasible to continue? And at the time, my career was just starting to take off.

I remember being in Winnipeg, and I remember we had rented a car to drive around. I had a young woman who was traveling with me as a nanny. So the baby was in the back, and we were going through the Tim Horton's drive-through. And all of a sudden, my song came on the radio because they have two indigenous radio stations. And they play all music, not just indigenous music. But there I was on the radio. And, you know, I was in Winnipeg a lot and doing a lot of interviews on the radio. I would do guest features where I would do this report on the weather as a joke and different fun things like that.

We'd be driving around and there's my face, like this huge, massive billboard. And so things were, and that kind of messes with your head in itself because a lot of people are like, oh, you're famous or, oh, you know, your household name. Like, I couldn't walk down the street and Winnipeg with people like being like, oh, it's Inez. It was a very strange world to go from that back to home. Home was a safe place because at least everybody at home and the community was like, hey, Inaz. Or even though little kids were like, oh, it's Inez, their parents would be like, that's actually your cousin. So it's cool. Like, you don't have to be all starstruck.

And I'd be like, yeah, how are you? And how's school and start to circle back to some of those anti-kind of conversations. Whereas, you know, being thrust in. to that limelight and other places, particularly when a peg started to feel unsafe. And some of the interactions I had with, particularly men, started to feel unsafe. And I really struggled with that. And I didn't know how to put my finger on what I was feeling. Again, that emotional intelligence that I needed to work on to have the tools.

So I can understand why other artists start to implode. I had my own moments of implosion and poor decision-making. and so I had to really pull back. And now at this point in time, really just focusing on my family, I hold that space and time that I had the opportunity to share my story and my music. It's a very special time in my life, but I don't know that I'd go back. Right. I can't imagine because I think for a lot of indigenous people, specifically with my community, we've been through so much, but we don't talk about it.

Or when we do talk about it, it's just, yeah, remember the impact of Indian residential school. It's not remember when this thing happened. And so when you're sharing those stories, probably for your audience, it's like, finally, somebody said the thing that we all have not been talking about for so long. And so what were those interactions like for you to have to greet some of your own community when you're at Stolo or at Shiacton story and sharing your story and your song and having that impact for a whole community to be able to be like that sigh of relief that the thing that wasn't being said for so long

was finally said. I think I just saw relief for them. Like it's a weight that everyone was carrying. And I mean, I think my experience coming back to community and performing was just one small thing. Like I guess I don't see it as a big thing. I think certain people see it as a big thing.

Everyone experienced that differently. For some people, my music didn't really land with them and that's okay. For other people, they still contact me and buy CDs because they're like, every time someone hears a CD, I give it to them. And as obsolete as CDs are, people still call me personally and ask me, hey, I got your number from so-and-so, I need to buy another set of CDs because I gave the whole set away to my niece or whatever.

And I'm like, great, you know, if that's still landing for you and is impactful for you, great. And for that, and it's individual, and I hold, that's private space that I hold for those individuals that are still in touch with me. even the odd time I have a vendor online that ships internationally and randomly they'll email me and say we're out of CDs and I was like how is that still happening I guess I've moved on from it but there's other people who it still resonates with and I think when I've done shows where I'll dive deep into what the song means to me and people will listen to it back and go oh wow I didn't hear it like that they may have heard it in their own own way. Like on the Sing Soul Girl album, there is a song where we talk about the disconnect between the elders and the young people. And traditionally, the elders sit back and wait for the young people to go to them for knowledge. And that youth, from our perspective,

sometimes we lack the confidence to, or how do we access traditional knowledge? And we don't know the protocols or we don't want to upset the elders by asking the wrong question or upsetting them because we should or should not talk about residential school. Like, it's just such a loaded tension in the air. And the song literally is acknowledging that tension in the air. Yeah. There. And when I explain that, you could just see the crowd like, oh, you really put your finger on the issue there. And for some people, it just was like, and that's okay. But it was such an important thing to me because that was an experience I had that sometimes I was told,

oh, you're not asking the question in the right way. And I was like, like, well, I'm sorry my intention wasn't to be offensive, but I, I'm interested to learn and thank you for correcting me so that I don't go do that with other elders. And that was elders in my family, but some of us don't have those connections to any elder, right? And so that's where the disconnect lies, because I've heard that rhetoric from elders saying, oh, these young people, they're not interested in culture, oh, they don't care. gosh, no, we just don't know. We just don't know.

So let's have this dialogue about why there's a gap there. I'm really grateful that you brought up elders specifically because I've mentioned it to a few guests who don't know as much about indigenous culture, but I think it's one area where we get to have kind of the, we have the upper hand on Western culture because we actually respect our elders. And if we learned anything from COVID-19,

it's that being in a care home is not the place to be during a COVID-19 pandemic because of how seniors are treated in Ontario, in Manitoba. They've had a lot of problems with how their senior population has been cared for and treated.

And same with New York. They were very much pushed aside and getting to speak to Spencer Huskin, who's a sociologist at UFE, he was talking about how that's the, you can see a little bit of capitalism in that decision because seniors don't offer anything

of fruit to the economy anymore. And so it has nothing to do with whether or not they have knowledge to share. It's that European viewpoint of what a contributor to society is, and that's a consumer, that's somebody who's at a job, those are what we value. But for indigenous people, being a native court work and getting to see indigenous people in jail and being incarcerated, but still wanting that elder support, still wanting me to bring in an elder into the Chilawak courts so that they, have someone to be by them is a complete contrast to how seniors have been treated during the pandemic by European culture.

And so I'm really grateful that you brought that up because I don't think many people understand the respect that elders are given in our culture. And so could you elaborate on that a bit and what your experience has been with elders? I was raised in a family with a very strong matriarch system and that there's no questioning that. that the women are in charge, that there are certain women in charge, and in our family particularly, it's my grandmother, as a knowledge keeper and the carrier of the Chelangan, which is the rights to various traditional things, and that there's going to be women who will be next in line, but that's not the end-all-be-all, that we all have different roles to support that, and not to look at it through a capitalist or westernized lens that that's, the top person or that that's the person at the top, it's actually inverted. This is a person that's holding up the group. And it's almost like a formation where we're all holding hands. And so if there's a link broken, it's not that because I'm not the next matriarch, so to speak, that I'm any less important. I'm still a chain in the link. I'm still a link in the chain,

so to speak. And so that everybody has a role to play and it's important. And, we need to abide by that, but acknowledging that it's quite different than the patriarchy that exists in Western systems. And so even more so important for women to speak up and to speak to that and how sometimes that can get mixed up with feminism, Western feminism, which is a response to Westernized patriarchy. And I remember finding a paper written about indigenous feminism, and I just thought, this is not quite, I think I recognize the intention of whoever wrote that paper, but not realizing that it's the oppression of indigenous women who are some of the key elders in the community that we need to be listening to about that matriarchal system that exists. and so that's more so about the indigenous elders in the matriarch system but also the different roles that are played by men and women in community and they align quite closely with traditional roles played by men and women in Western society but they're not looked at in the same way

and so I think that's where things can get mixed up and so when I look at some of the elders and I remember my grandma telling me you serve your husband bring him tea, plate his food. And I remember thinking, I'm not doing that for him. He can do it himself. And, you know, slowly over time, coming to understand that if I look at it through a Western feminized lens, then yeah, I will feel like that takes away from me because he also has a responsibility to hold me up from his role and what he's doing.

And removing that disrespect from, as the lens I'm seeing everything through, there's nothing wrong with that, especially when you look at it through an indigenous lens. And that's what our elders were trying to get us to see. And that's tough because, again, circling back that some of our young people don't have access to elders. Some of our young people don't know how to approach an elder. And sometimes elders are very strict and narrow about how they want to be approached, and that can create a barrier as well, knowing that they're carrying a lot of, some can be carrying a lot of traumatic experiences, and so they can, they offer things in one way, and that's okay. But we also need to know how can we be respectful based on what their needs are.

It's a loaded issue. I don't know that I have all the answers or all the perspectives, but that's been my experience with elders, and I just try to put my best foot forward and be brave and beg for forgiveness because I'd rather have a connection than know that, oh, I second-guessed myself to many times that I just lack the confidence to just ask, or to ask to be, have space. Yeah. Or just say, hey, what's, please, maybe you can teach me the best way

that I can learn from you. Yeah. Some of them want to be talked to only on the phone. Some of them, oh, let's have a video chat. And I'm like, oh, wow, you know how to use Zoom? Cool. Some of them are like, I don't know that technology stuff. No, that's amazing.

And I think you hit the nail right on the head because I think it is complicated. And I think appreciating that sometimes when indigenous knowledge goes to a university, it warps and changes into something that's a hybrid of two different types of things rather than what it was to begin with. Because I do see that in universities a lot. There's a big indigenous push, but it's not reflective of any. anything I've learned in community through people, it's more of like, these are the ideas we think are important based on what we've heard from these people, and now we're just going to enforce them just like any other program.

And I think sometimes it misses the soul of the community of what it was intention to do. And I think that that point about feminism and indigenous culture is really strong because I think there is this communal support that indigenous people offer. and that mindset has found itself in potlatches, in ceremony, in all these different places, and can often get lost when you're trying to view something through a specific lens to come to certain understandings. And so I'm really grateful for that. I'm interested as well to learn more about how you've come about to being involved in Stolo Health

and when you took back on that nursing role in our community. Well, going back to when I had graduated and was doing music, But my husband at the time and I were living in Vancouver. He still had a year to finish his degree at UBC. And so we decided to stay and I took on a job at St. Paul's Hospital. And I worked there. I was there for about nine months and the health director phoned and said, when are you moving home? When are you moving home?

We want you to work here. And I said, well, you know, we're not quite done here in the city. Otis has a year to finish his degree. And he said, well, can you come and start orienting? This was my first experience with learning about how difficult it is to recruit and retain nurses and indigenous health care. And so I worked on a schedule 12-hour shifts four days on, four days off. The first two days were 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The latter two days were 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

So night shifts. So I would come off of a night shift. I would sleep as long as I could, and I would drive back to Chiluac, and I had signed on with a contract with Stella Health to start orienting because people think nursing is nursing as nursing, similar to the different roles or levels of nursing. It's similar to military ranks. of who has more training.

It's going to look till this chopper passes. And the reason for that with the ranking is that when you're in emergency, you have to very quickly all fall in line about who's in charge and who's training trumps, who's, and that's about decision-making. In community, that's less, that we don't see that as often, but that's the reasoning behind it. Yeah.

But shifting to a different practice area requires a whole different set of knowledge. And so I didn't know or understand community. And it's so different than bedside care. That's what you call hospital care. You're literally working at the bedside with people. Whereas in community, you're doing health education. So you have to have a strong background in a base of knowledge. of illness, chronic illness, that sort of stuff, navigating health care systems, but also in

addition to that communicable disease control, which involves immunization. So I had to become what's called a certified immunizer, which is a whole different level of certification. So my time was consumed there with studying, preparing for a different exam. I was sent away for foot care training, which is another level of certification for knowledge to care for people with neuropathy who are diabetic or people who can't reach their feet and so making sure that their foot care. That's also to prevent amputations and things like that.

And I just, I almost considered quitting nursing because at the time I came into that role as an anti-vaxxer. I was against vaccines. My knowledge was that the government was here to kill us. They didn't want us. We're here to take our land, and part of that was giving us vaccines. So when I learned that, oh, part of community health nursing is vaccinating people. I remember my aunt at the time, who was my supervisor, said, okay, clinics coming up on this date.

We need you to come into this room, and you'll be observing and working alongside this other nurse. My gosh, I ran out of that room crying. The nurse was putting needles in the baby's legs and putting vaccines in them. And I had to face this worldview that I had about vaccines. And I thought, I can either continue in this job and learn about it and figure out if I'm going to do it or I have to quit nursing. And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to study it and see where I land. I'll check it out first before I make a decision because I'm not a quitter, first of all. Yeah.

But it's also the scientific method that you used to say, this is the bias I came in with. I'm going to let the science kind of inform my worldview. that's using science as a tool. The actual science of hypothesis and that process is actually what you went through. Yeah, quite the scientist, because the nursing process is assess, you assess what's going on, then you plan, how am I going to respond based on my resources that I have at hand, you implement, so you follow through, and then you reassess, and it's a circular process. I approach my life like that, and that's what I had to do.

I was like, I don't, okay, I'm just taking inventory, you don't like this, this doesn't feel good, up against the worldview that I'm bringing into this, well, I'm going to explore what the opposing argument is. And I always hold in my basket, my basket of worldview and thoughts and ideas and things that have been given to me are gifted to me, that lack of trust is always there. And sometimes that plant seeds to take away from us. It can put barriers in the way of good things. And I've always acknowledged that I don't want that for myself. I want to have access to everything for myself and everything for our people. And I don't want my lack of trust to get in the way, so I have to face that.

And that's what I was considering there is that I wonder that this could be a good thing, but we're afraid. And so in studying vaccines, the history of vaccines, understanding, having a background in science to understand how they work, And also understanding some of the things that were done against us, I learned that vaccination campaigns were not targeted solely at indigenous people. They were there to benefit the non-Indigenous community. And so I realized that this is a gift. And also having that red flag in the back of my mind, if I was to see some of this being targeted only at the indigenous community,

I would know from the history of our people being studied or researched on in the hunger studies in residential school, I would throw red flags on that play. And so I decided to move forward with becoming a certified nurse, that a lot of education, and I loved it. I embraced it because I realized that health education is giving power back to the people, giving agency. And part of that is informed consent. A lot of what we learned in the immunization course was about informed consent. which is such a huge piece of taking power back because quite often what I found happening in the clinics was I would come in and I would say,

you know, I really would like for you to consider immunizing your child, like to give you more information. The parents would be unsure and I'm like, yeah, absolutely, I appreciate that you have questions about this. Let's chat about it. I want to make sure you have a space to make a decision. They'd come in and see me, realize, you know what, I really trust DeNez, and they'd say, I don't want to talk about this, and they'd give

their baby to me and say, just do it. And there's a fear of needles and all that sort of stuff there. And that was tough. And don't get me wrong, I appreciated that people trusted me, but I had to hand the baby back and say, no, this is your decision because you have the power to make this decision. And I'm legally required to go through each vaccine with you and make sure that you agree. I have to tell you the cost benefit of this is the benefit. that your child could get, this is the risk that goes along with it. It's kind of like, you know, you see those commercials where they say, here's this medication, but this and this and this can happen.

And that in itself, facing the risk, I think our community doesn't have really straightforward conversations because they're too scary. You know, like you said, some of our community, we can't even really talk about residential school. There's a lack of readiness there, and that's okay because the pain is so much. but it edged on that like let's have some real conversation here you're important your opinion matters it's okay that you don't understand this how can I break this down so it's digestible for you because of course the science background or sometimes any professional background we use too much

jargon and so I learned a lot about myself learned about the families and was happy to gain their trust of course not everybody wanted me as their provider and I respect that because there's always a concern about reaching confidentiality and community, and that is of the utmost importance that if we're going to try to earn people's trust, we have to also make sure that they know and understand that we are committed to protecting their privacy. You know, that band office mentality of everybody knows everybody's business does not have a place in anywhere, not in the band office, not anywhere,

that anything that's shared between the client and the provider is privileged. unless you tell me that you're going to hurt yourself or you're going to go hurt somebody else, I can't talk about what you've said unless you give me that explicit permission and consent. So it was a real privilege working with families and their children to give that power back and be trusted in that process. Yeah, that is amazing. And it's something I experienced as well as a native court worker, just interacting with someone in a cell and then seeing them in community. if I was doing community engagement or something, trying to make sure that if I greet them,

I do that with everyone so it doesn't look like I'm greeting a client or a potential client because I don't even want that to look like, oh, hey, Joe, and like they're talking to me. I don't want that to come across. Like, I know Joe because of my role. And so I definitely understand what you're saying. What, coming into the pandemic,

what was that whole process like? And was it you from the geto or how did that all come about? I think it brought back, Just like when I was saying, I had to really use this step back and use this open lens to assess what was going on, I had red flags on the play right away because here's, here we know there's a new vaccine being developed. Through the FNHA and the providers and the leadership, we're advocating to put our people in the front of the line for best care. We're advocating for equitable care, meaning if people need more care, better care, we're there advocating for it. Now with this new vaccine being developed, we want to put our people at the front of the line,

but also don't want it to be perceived or actually putting our people at risk. So it was such a tricky thing. And I think for me, I can tend to be an overthinker, and I want to help. So I spent many late hours reading all of the literature, reading the process of developing the vaccine. I can't say that I'm an immunologist or a virologist. not sense, but at least I had somewhat of an understanding and science background that I could read the information, sort of very quickly get up to speed on any stuff that I'd forgotten from my studies and my undergraduate to come to an understanding, would I recommend this to our

people? Because I knew that question would be posed to me, maybe not professionally, but privately. My family would come and say, what do you think? And so I studied, I sat in on UBC lectures that were mostly, most of them were physicians, and they talked about family practice, how they were approaching COVID in their family practice, and listening to the BC Center of Disease Control and some of the experts presenting through Nassi, which is the National Center, which reviews and approves immunizations. And, I mean, some of it was over my head. I had to go away and do some studying, but.

I wanted to stay ahead of the curve so that I could at least throw my opinion out there and to space to see who was going to listen. And that's how it started out. So I just did it on a whim one night with the lives because part of what prompted me to do that as well is that I just saw so much fear and misinformation circling on Facebook. As we know, there's so much misinformation on social media anyways. all of a sudden someone's a scientist and they've been a stay-at-home mom their whole life like come on this is not reputable source where do we find reputable information that was the question that started to come to me and I said you know what I don't know but I'm going to find out and that's where one evening I thought I'm just going to go live and say let's acknowledge that we all have these questions let's acknowledge that there's some work in front of us I don't know who's going to be doing that work but we'll look to the F&HA We'll look to our own people. Let's acknowledge that there's some fear about this, but let's move forward with the intention to protect ourselves. Let's not make poor decisions based out of trauma or our fear.

And I went back, I circled back to the health director, and I just said, you know, because I was doing it from my personal Facebook, and I said, what do you think if I do this live? And I presented somewhat of a structure similar to what you had sent. me for the podcast. They said, this is where I plan to source my information. It needs to be from reputable sources. I'll look at it through my lens to make sure it's a, it's a good reference. I will source information from the BC Center of Disease Control, Nassi, as well as the F&HA and Fraser Health, and make sure our people have equal access to that, make sure it's safe for them. And they just said, go ahead. And they gave me full rain to speak to that, which I felt so thankful not to feel like my hands are tied.

And I just said, let's talk. Ask me your questions. What do you need to know? Recognizing that watching the news can be so stressful. I loved it, quite frankly. Like, I would just sit there every day and wait for Dr. Bonnie Henry to talk. And it was so nerdy. I was able to live in my nerd.

Like full nerd. That's what I always say. Nerd life, that's the best thing. Let's take all of our knowledge and put it together. And so I was so excited every day to watch the news. All day had the news on in the background. I'd be like, ooh, what does that mean? hmm what is the you know is that a corporate message is that the news spinning things and I'd go and study something and I'd make notes throughout the day and that's how I would make my script for my presentation and also people were inboxing me and I would say ask questions live and or inbox me and let me know what you want to hear if you want me to go circle back and explain something and so I mean I couldn't answer a lot of things live some things I could speak to a bit and I just say you know what let's let give me 24 hours and I'll come back to you

and answer that question. Yeah. I ended up having to do some disclaimers on the presentation about that this information is specific to the Fraser Salis region, which, according to Fraser Health, is the Fraser region within British Columbia, because people were sharing this information as far as like Manitoba. Right. It was getting shared to the US, but some of the core messaging about following precautions

in the pandemic about hand washing, even early discussions about mask wearing when people were debating that. I just said, you know what? I shared what I, the decisions I was making, I sent my children back to school, that was deeply controversial, but also acknowledging that people are making their own decisions based on their own circumstances. So, you know, you don't need to follow me blindly. You need to go back and look, does that decision fit for my family?

And if it doesn't, we support you to make those decisions. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to tell you these are the considerations you need to make and go away and make those decisions on your own. And I loved it. probably, I felt like I had arrived in my career that I was able to leverage the knowledge I had and pulled together some of the knowledge and community hosts some knowledge keepers to be interviewed. We interviewed a number of people, the health director, some people at Fraser Health, some physicians

and whatnot. And it came to an end, and that the physician came to a close as well. And so now I've moved on to work as a health director for the Chiang First Nation. Right. But able to bring my knowledge there. But I think that there's a start, middle, and an end to that live that really, I think there wasn't much more to talk about. It ended up being that we could really pick apart or split hairs about some of the scientific changes. But as long as people were in the groove of how to protect themselves, that's what mattered to me.

And also to consider and discuss in a safe space, asking all those difficult questions about vaccination. Yeah. Yeah. Promoting vaccination. I'm very happy with how First Nations Health Authority, I'm sure with your involvement, chose to limit the access to reserves without evidence. Like you needed to have some sort of reason to go on to the reserve, which hasn't been the case ever. And so I really feel like that made a difference, especially just for keeping community safe.

But I'm just interested to hear your thoughts on. some of the mistakes that were made because to me the information regarding mask wearing was handled really poorly across North America and the reason that I have frustrations with it is because I know how vulnerable communities are and I got to see a lot of my friends who don't have that post-secondary background really really start to go okay I don't trust what the government's saying anymore because we got this you don't need a mask wearing a mask is stupid like why would you do that it's not going to help anything even like but even if you cover

your mouth when you're sneezing it's going to do something so that idea seemed a little bit off but then hearing we do need to wear masks and that's the number one priority but the reason that they were telling us to not wear masks in the beginning was because they had a shortage and that was one of the the points that was made later on and dr bonnie henry has since denied ever denying the efficacy of masks, even though we have her on video, saying that masks aren't going to help. And so, for me, just seeing it from that perspective, I was really a little bit frustrated because no matter what, in my view, the government needs to be honest with us, specifically as indigenous people, but to their constituents, regardless of whether or not

it's good news or bad news, because using sleight of hand on your community is really dangerous, in my opinion, and I'm just interested to hear what your thoughts on that were. So two things, and I'm going to circle back to what you said about F&HA controlling access to reserves. It actually wasn't FNHA. Each community has a sovereign decision to determine how they want to manage access. So it's actually chief and counsel, which is in charge. And they were prompted to make some considerations based on what they thought was best fit. And here's where the problem comes in, is that people who are in charge, whether it's chief in council, provincial politics or federal politics, are not scientists, and they do not have a background

in health. So each province has their own center of disease control. Of course, BCs is called BC CDC, and they are advised by Nassi based on the immunization piece. But, then there's medical health officers who advise within that. And so what I've observed, at least within our political realms in the indigenous community as well as what I've seen unfold on a larger level politically is that what is the willingness for politicians to listen and follow the advice of the medical health officers and the teams that are attached to them because really the medical officers, medical health officers, or MHO, are the face of a larger team that are working towards making those best decisions.

And so what I've observed is that BC's done really well. Probably the best in all of Canada, thank goodness. And that's what I kept saying in my delivery of the live is that we are very fortunate to live in BC because I'm seeing some decisions being made and some other provinces that is not very good. Particularly Manitoba and a conservative government

that right before the pandemic laid off a bunch of nurses. It's just a gong show. Really tough. Space to be in. That said, circling back to your point about mask wearing, I can see where

there is the piece of social control in the midst of a crisis. And I say social control in a positive way. How can we support the greater population understanding that there's an entire spectrum of beliefs and personalities among the population? And so you can look at, do we deliver the accurate real information or do we deliver information that's going to sort of find a middle ground and not cause complete chaos? because I really struggled with this too because I was really angry

that we need to give the population accurate information so that they can make the appropriate choices. Now, imagine the toilet paper crisis about masks. I don't know that I, I'm not saying that they did the right thing or the wrong thing because if I was in that seat to make a decision about that,

I don't know what I would have done either. If you have the one thing that's going to save your life and we don't have any of it, how are you going to go to a podium and tell the world that we're not prepared? And that you have to be responsible for that. That's a tough thing. And so we also don't know that Dr. Bonnie Henry was told that she had to say that. It's interesting. We don't know what happened behind the scenes there.

I think that I don't know that we were in the front running as the highest performing province back then. I know that in the end it unfolded in that way. It's kind of like event planning. If you've ever talked to an event planner, no. One of them that I worked with referred to herself as a duck. You're swimming frantically underneath the surface, but it looks like you're just sort of floating along,

you know, gracefully in the background. If you've ever run an event, it's always chaos in the background, but on the front it looks like it's... That's how I perceive the pandemic. management to be, even as scrambly as it looked a little bit to us, imagine the chaos in the background. And so, yeah, I think it was a big wake-up call for us. Sometimes as health care providers and advisors and as tech leads, we don't feel heard

at the political table. This was a big wake-up call to the government of how prepared we need to be. I mean, I even know trying to reach out to the bands and saying, hey, we need to talk about emergency preparedness or we need to talk about pandemics and you know sometimes that's so far from our reality when we have competing priorities of rights and title or we have issues with CPs on reserve it's tough there's a lot of competing priorities and I would I would wonder that those same competing priorities struggle are a struggle for all levels of government so I'm hesitant to say that we made a big mistake because really Why would we need masks when people also should have been self-isolating in the first place and not have been out in public? It's tough. I think when you look at it from a sociology sort of perspective, you're having, you sort of have, again, have to take inventory.

What are we working with? And it's like chess. You have to figure out, okay, if we do this, what's a social fallout? Well, if we approach it this way, what's the social fallout? There's a lot of psychology and sociology to be considered when you're delivering public health messages. Yeah. I don't disagree. I just think of one of the other problems that have kind of arisen is the fact that the Walmarts and the Amazons have been able to flourish during this while we're all, all the small businesses are expected to self-isolate and basically close down during this period. And so I think that it gets complicated when you have corporate interest, because I'm sure Walmart was automatically an essential service that was kept open. And so I think it does kind of expose us to the fact that being outdoors is the best thing we could have done. So telling people to don't go outdoors and go for a walk was actually detrimental to a lot of people's mental health,

but also our ability to absorb vitamin D in response to COVID, which is if you have low vitamin D, it's shown that you're going to have worse responses if you interact with the virus. But to your credit and to everybody's credit, I think we have come out of this really far ahead in terms of our vaccination rates have been really strong, our amount of people getting COVID has been really low in comparison to other provinces. And so I do think that we came out of this overall really well. I just like to pick at those things that we could have done better for next time so that leaders can hear the community say this is what we want to see for next time because that is always my concern is what's going to happen the next time we have

or what if these variants continue to move around and become more harmful. What does that look like? And so I'm interested as well. What has it been like to switch over to working for a SHAM, First Nation? It's been a big change because a role in responsibility is quite different. And the last role that I had at the nation or the Stalin nation was as a tech lead. And my technical role was called a strategic operations planner. So I was able to zoom in and out and assess different circumstances, make recommendations to the health director in that sense.

and really work on strategy in any area coming through my nursing lens. And that was a lot of fun. I have to admit I really miss that. It's nice to have a new learning opportunity, and it's more administration and management of health care services, particularly for one community, which is so different because I work regularly with the leadership in that community, very progressive forward thinking,

wanting to bring solutions to the problems, closing gaps, And in this case of the community, so progressive that they want to consider solutions that I think haven't been considered in the past, particularly harm reduction. Right. And so I find it really exciting that, you know, if I come prepared with suggestions to the table, they're willing to hear me out. And there's an established trust there that, you know, if I come with resources, you know, like such a nerdy. approach of where here I am. Here's the problem. Here's the proposed solution. Here's the resources we plan to pull in. And there's a strategy there, which I guess, you know, my background has helped me to bring that skill set to this new role. It's been really exciting. I haven't been

told no at the chief and council table yet because I've been supported 100% and I'm really thankful for that. So we're putting in some strategies to respond to substance misuse. We're looking at how we can improve shelter services to make sure that the safety is provided for clients as well as the health care providers, looking at making sure that all of the services, not just health, but as well as administration as trauma-informed. Because if we're looking at the community coming out of, trying to come out of a colonial oppression, and the community is looking at working towards sovereignty, we first must make sure that the service providers all know and understand where the community has come from.

And so we're putting that in place there and taking things as they come. So working on building a team where we've got job postings out and community, we're building a wellness team, which is traditionally known as the alcohol and drug team. We all know that wellness and coping or unhealthy coping isn't just drugs and alcoholic sometimes can be gambling, sex addiction, shopping, all kinds of things.

as well as all the mental health things in the fallout and support that those folks who may have personality disorder or schizophrenia, bipolar, any of those sorts of things that can be triggered by trauma, to make sure that we can normalize what that treatment and management looks like in community because we know, in my experience and practice, I know lots of high-functioning people

that struggle with severe mental illness but are able to manage it and be leaders in community. And so it's been a real challenge, I think for me to stretch my brain and shift into practice as a management and leader position, but it's been a real gift and an honor to be trusted in that role to coach and build it, to first build a team because we're still recruiting, but next coach a team to really uphold and value the skillsets that the people are bringing to the table and also make sure that the goals and the vision that Chiam has given to us is always held in the highest.

regard. The culture and language is held in the highest regard. Make sure that we include our elders. And I'm learning. I can't say that I have full knowledge of what culture and protocol is. And what also that means to the CHAM community. Just because I'm indigenous and from a different style of community doesn't mean that I know how CHAM wants their services delivered in a culturally appropriate way. So I'm a student. And I'm appreciative for the opportunity. That's amazing. How did that come about? How did you end up at Shiam doing that role? Well, I had seen for some time that they were struggling to recruit a health director. I know that they'd been without a health director for some time.

And the health director role, even across the province, is known as one of the most difficult roles in community. Because communities are working to develop their services, they're working to make them individualized to the community. and navigating a lot of the trauma and the politics and community can be tough. And sometimes that's where things intersect is at the health director. They intersect at the health director because then they must look at how do they structure services to navigate those politics, but also make sure that the staff are protected and they're there to focus on the frontline services. So it can be a real juggle.

And I've observed the health director that I've had the privilege to work with, Koloadle, and the grace that she works with managing and juggling all of those things. How do we go to the political table and suggest that we need to make a left turn or put our finger on an issue that that was not helpful in a respectful but firm way to say we're respectfully asking you that we revisit this or we circle back or that we renege or let's put this on your radar and here's the backward information and we make some recommendations at the table and they'll inform us politically that, you know, that that's great.

We're not ready to do that. And that's hard information to deal with too. So I've been privileged to support her in doing that work and doing the tech support for her and seeing some of the highs and lows in that work and sit at the political table in the region and learn a lot about the political tone. So I think that work prepared me for that.

There was a restructure that happened at the nation. And unfortunately, there was quite a few of us who lost our jobs. And I think there was some misconceptions about what happened there. I know there were some rumors that we lost our jobs or that we were let go or that we were fired. And frankly, it was just a restructure. And as hard as that was, I also understood that financially there needed to be stability moving forward. You know, we always say don't build a house of cards.

You know, we recognize there's a need for tax and support to the leadership, whether it's the leadership themselves, the chief and council, as well as a health director, but also to help support, it's almost like a middle management tech role to support frontline staff. Because in nursing, we always want to say we need nursing leadership and management to support frontline practice if we want the best practice.

So really what Stahl Health had created was that they had sort of pulled together resources from different areas to pay for our roles. And what happened is that management came in and said, we don't know whether that's sustainable. let's do a restructure and it meant eight of us lost our jobs around eight of us right and so with that discussion i you know initially you go through that grieving process of anger and whatnot but i very quickly landed on that i was just grateful to have the opportunity and maybe there will be an opportunity

my journey that's to whole health has you know i've gone away and done touring and then i've come back um and done some nursing i did some touring i came back as a nursing supervisor i went away and had a baby, I came back as a strategic operation planner. I don't know that I'll circle back to ever work there, but if the opportunity comes, I would welcome it. I've always had a positive experience there. I don't know whether I'm going away to learn something and come back or whether I will retire at GM.

We don't know. But just to clear the air, and I know that there were a lot of people that were really angry about me leaving the nation, especially after the work I did with the lives. I'm not angry. I think all of it was a gift, and I'm thankful to have had the people who listened in and to do that good work. I have a special place in my heart for that work, though, because I'm from Skokale, and Skokale is one of the bands who have amalgamated their services through Stola Health. That in itself can be difficult because sometimes you are a little too invested. You know, you'll work too much. You'll work too hard. You'll work yourself to a nub almost. And so, you know, maybe this is my opportunity to take a step back.

That's awesome. And it's great that you look at it like that because I do think that you made a huge difference. But now, from my perspective, having the opportunity to work with so many First Nations communities, I know that Shiam has been looking for great leadership. And I think what Andrew Victor is doing with his project is just phenomenal, but also his humility to his work and how he tries to educate people in a non-confrontational way is, It's another reason I really look forward to having him on to kind of talk about what's going on with Shiam First Nation and give us more detail. But one thing that I landed on is I'm interested to hear about the different First Nations communities from your perspective because I have a lot of Caucasian European friends who don't understand.

You say I'm from Stolo and then what does that mean in comparison to your indigenous community and what is what does that all of that look like? it's often kind of let go. Like I see a lot of territorial land acknowledgements, just saying Stolo. And for me, that often misses all the indigenous communities that are here in the area, but don't follow under Stolo's name. And so I'm interested to hear what you've seen and what are some of the unique aspects of these First Nations communities to help educate people who drive past Gokale all the time and have no idea that they're interacting with indigenous communities.

Right. So the knowledge that I have that I'll share with you is knowledge that I've learned from some of the elders in my family and community. And so there's two things here, two streams of thought. There is the ISC or Indian Affairs or Indigenous Service of Canada School of Thought, which is the Indian Act, and creating sovereign nations through bands. And then there's the Indigenous School of Thought that we are villages of a nation. And within that nation there are tribes. So for example, Skokale, the community where I grew up in, is a subset of the Stilkoyukwai tribe, the Chiluac tribes. And Stilkoyak are the folks who had originally migrated down from the Chiluac Lake area down to the Greater Valley Floor.

Now, the background to that, too, is that our people are not nomadic. We had seasonal camps, one main area where we lived, but we also had rights to, say, berry picking camps, fishing areas. And my grandma says always reminds me that every rock was claimed by family. And you had rights to fish in that exact area, and those are passed down through marriage. And so traditionally, a lot of the communities that you see as sovereign bands, like Chiam, Skokale, Squaw, Popkum, Skaluk, also known as Ruby Creek, El Palmo, these are simply villages. And when the surveyors came through before treaty, they drew circles around our village. where people happen to be at. And some people may have, like, my dad told me a story.

There was a gentleman who passed away from Chiakton. And these are when the stories come out. He talked about, oh, I didn't know that we lived in squaw for a short amount of time because there was flooding in the village where grandma's family was. We were staying in La Camel with family there. But because there was flooding, we went down and we stayed with our relatives in Squa. And apparently my dad was a newborn at that time. And so you think about all these different things that may have been happening in all of our family connections.

He said, oh yeah, we traveled on a canoe and we went down to schwa. And that's where we stayed. And so you think about when the reserves were made, people were, just like today, oh, I might have been visiting so-and-so up here. And then that's how families came to be. So all these little squabbles that exist on reserves are, oh, well, you're originally from here, you're originally from here. because that's what happened when they built the reserves. And we were villages, and villages are connected. So there's those layers of villages, and then there's tribes, and then there's nations.

And Stolo Nation really is a pan word, very similar to Coast Salish, because the way my grandmother explained it to me is that Stalo means river. And it really is a describer word for all the people who live and get their lives, livelihood from the river. In a modern definition, the Stalo Nation means a political modern affiliation with the Stalo Nation, which is now known as Stalo Service Agency. So those are two different things, and I can see where people, you know, some of our own people will get their nose at a joint when I say, oh, you're Stolo, and they say, I'm not Stalo, and I'm saying, no, you're not Stalo Nation, we are Stolo people. Yeah. Because we traditionally use the river as our

highway. We used it to fish. 90% of our diet was salmon, wild meat and a little bit of berries, which is kind of a keto cycling diet, which is a different discussion. So I did some work in that area about traditional diet. So it's a loaded issue that almost deserves its own discussion, but I can see how it can be so complicating for our neighbors. And not everyone will share the same view and perspective as me. Again, the disclaimer on that is that's the knowledge that I've been given by my elders, particularly my grandmother. And just a bit of background on her. My grandmother is Rina Point Bolton. Her maiden name is De Silva. She's from the Samath village. She was born in a longhouse in one of the villages that's now in close proximity to the Samath

village or First Nation in that area. And there was a number of villages. And my My grandmother, I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to have sat with her in her lifetime, and she's still living today. She talks about remembering the Sumas Lake before it was drained to become agricultural land and stuff like that. So that's, you know, I defer to the elders and the knowledge that they've shared with me, and that's where I get my knowledge about the village systems and being called Stalo people. It's a word that should be bringing us together rather than dividing us. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that there are so many levels to this complex discussion because we talk about whether or not the Indian Act should continue or what role it has to play in people coming down on different sides. And I think even that conversation needs to be further broken down into which nations are we talking about because I see communities like Shiakton and Squyala really thriving in comparison to other communities.

But that's also because they're in community already. they're in, they're within the Chilliwack area, they're in an urban setting. And so I get to see what's going on with my community, Chihuahawthal, and how that's impacted, because they're not in an urban community. And economic development is not occurring at the rate I think they'd like it to be in order to create those opportunities. And I constantly think about how hard it must be for young indigenous people to consider going to UF.E or UBC or these universities when it's, it's so far away from what they know. It's so far away from community and the people that they've grown up with that that's going to, of course, cause an impediment to them considering that as a viable alternative. Because if you don't get to spend time with the people that you consider your circle, you're taking a huge risk and it is going to cause them to rely on substance use when they're and try and fit in with the community that's already established there that's going to do them a disservice if their goal is higher education and to improve themselves. So I agree that there isn't one correct answer.

It's not do we get rid of or do we switch out? It's what is the specific community need and what do they want to do and what do they see as sustainable that needs to be considered when we're looking at these types of issues. And I think that's tough because there's two things here. The background and history of the land theft and different imposed laws that basically interfered with our traditional economic systems. One being the fishery. You know, we talk about salmon, or I just say fish,

because that's the fish that we eat is salmon. So it's sort of, you know, I guess I take it for granted that people would understand that I mean salmon and all the different fish sources in the river, sturgeon included, that it wasn't just our way of eating. It was also a currency. And so when you look at the history, of the fishery and how it was overused.

Our people were not at the forefront of that. It was not well managed. We managed our own fishery pre-contact. We know that it's a colonial impact that the fishery is decimated. So when you look now at some of our people who those are their knowledge systems, their knowledge carriers, they know how to fish,

they know how to drift, they know how to mend nets, they know how to process and sell those fish, That's illegal now. That's one of the key economies of our people that's first been ruined by newcomers. Second, it's illegal. You know, if anyone should have access to this economy, it should be our people first. It's not. Their systems very similar to the RCMP in place like DFO.

I understand that part of their intention is to preserve and protect the fish, but they have also demonstrated to us that they have not done that. So I take issue with that, you know. And the atrocities that occur when they're interacting with indigenous people, when they're fishing, I've gotten to hear lots of those stories in court actually play out where the DFO agent is absolutely 100% unequivocally in the wrong on how he approached the situation. Absolutely, and I've had interactions with DFO when, you know, it's funny. My mom's always like, don't socialize your kids not to like the police.

and they're there to help and I'm like, yeah, ideally. But unfortunately, I've had to teach my kids that DFO isn't always there to help us. And I remember the first time I brought them up to Dry Rat Camp, I parked my van and I got out and a vehicle got out, pulled up behind me and it was DFO. And I'm like, great, this is my kid's first interaction at fish camp, not with their aunts and uncles, but with DFO. And I told them, don't say anything to them because they'll use. it, they'll twist our words, and they'll use it against us.

Yeah. And so it's our reality, it's a tough one. But that was my comment about the interruption in our own traditional economies, because if you don't have that, and that's the only knowledge that some of our people have, you know, expecting them, you know, previously, like they were trying to make us into farmers. We're not an agricultural society. There's a small subset of our people who grew food. but also a lot of that gathering was done in the wild.

And acknowledging those traditional systems and how plants and systems work together and support one another. And also making sure we were sustainably harvesting. But fast forward to now, and you look at communities like yours in Chihuahua'u, in the proximity, really they're having, because of the laws and limitations of our own economies,

we're having to rely on capitalist economy. So yeah, communities like Chiakton, and I mean, there's lots of discussion and controversy about whether people agree with the way they've acquired wealth, that they've had to buy into modern capitalist society ways, but also they're using it in a way to circle back and support community and support culture and language. They've been able to build a longhouse, something their longhouse built, burnt down years ago. And so I can't comment whether it's right or wrong, that it's up to the community to determine if it's right. right or wrong for them. But I think what the most important piece that we need to acknowledge is that there's a lack of unity on doing it together. Yeah. And that's the one thing that I always think about when they created our communities, they went around and circled encampments or they circled villages, and then they created our own little nations when really it would have been

best have we amalgamated. I know that our communities at Skokale, Achilles, and Yakkoyus are considering amalgamating. There's lots of politics to be sorted out there. We've amalgamated for our lands department, which helps because it doesn't make sense for three small communities to develop a lands department with little to no money and revenue. And so lots of questions there about economies of scale, trying to figure out what the path forward is. How can we come together in unity to achieve some of the greater goals. But I think we're still sorting out our own. There's these little arguments that come up and stand in the way, some of the lateral

violence, even capacity. It doesn't make sense to have a chief for so many little communities because then there's too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, or maybe you'll say chiefs in the kitchen. And so trying to find unity among that is difficult in so many different areas. So lots of things politically there. Thankful to my dad, any of these political questions I have, I can bring them to him. He's currently serving as our chief and has worked in leadership for some time. So he understands the context and where it's come from.

And also, you know, it's interesting to hear from him how he acknowledged how almost little has changed in certain practice areas, like special claims and stuff like that. So hopefully we can get some traction in those areas. Yes, I couldn't agree more. I've found it very unfortunate that the people who do special claims are typically giant European law firms helping indigenous communities. And it's not being able to be done from the ground up to support. And you landed on a really good point that David Jimmy had made on the podcast, which is it really does us a disservice when we have a whole chief and council system

for such a small group of people. And then you have to try and get all of these small groups of people all together into a room to try and agree on something. It puts impediments in the way because for Chilliwack, we have like 86,000 people and one leader, like the mayor, and then the council, and it's six people. And you have that for such small communities all across the Fraser Valley, which makes it more difficult. And then you run into political questions. And I get to work with the NCCABC, the native court workers, and see the politics arise not only on a local level, but on like a provincial level and then on top of that across Canada and see all of these complex issues. So there's inward discussions and then I feel like we're constantly getting pushed from governments to have the answer ready to go when we're trying to sort it out within our own communities.

And it becomes tough because in leadership you're stretched so thin. You're being pulled to respond to family issues. You're being pulled to respond to some of the political stuff depending on what your portfolio is. And then from there, you're doing the council work and making some heavy discussions. And I had brought this awareness to some of our staff because one of our staff members said, I was on this national call and our chief and council wasn't there. And I noticed there wasn't a lot of Stalo chief and councils there. How come there's so, you know, there was a judgment being passed about our inability to be present.

And I did a bit of background for him. I said, when you look at the communities across Canada, many of them are large. and so they're choosing from a pool of people. In addition to that, these are paid positions where they are able to give their time, full time to work in their leadership role. Circling back to looking at the chief and councils here, our villages are so small,

we're picking from a smaller pool of capacity, people are having to maintain a day job or a different career, and so they don't have the time and resources, and so many of these factors hold back our ability to move forward because we have to, you know, yeah, of course you need a job. That means we can't have you employed full-time because we don't have the financial resources to employ you full-time as a leader. That way you can't be fully invested.

You're doing the job off the side of your desk. And if you're on your own healing journey, add that in the mix. It's a lot. So it really slows things down. And I think that's the climate of politics in our nation, the Stalo region and territory, all the villages and communities that fall within that area. We're so tiny, it doesn't make sense. That's why the circling back to amalgamation could be a path forward.

Whether it's right or wrong or we're at a place of readiness, I don't know. But based on what I'm seeing in health, I'm hoping that that could be an option that we could explore. Yeah, I don't disagree. And I think that everything should be on the table when making these complex decisions. Because the part that I've had the most frustration with is this dichotomy that we've created between acting in the environment, best interests and indigenous communities being able to find a way out of poverty because absolutely because that is something where again I feel like our European culture our Canadian culture is telling us we should be anti-pip pipelines and that's for the best for our society and

if you're not supporting that then maybe you're a conservative or you're these types of people and then I look at my indigenous community which allows a pipeline to run through which allows economic development, which allows them to build more houses and homes on reserve, which allows more people to live in their community, which is really meaningful for them, to see what kind of went on with the Wetsuin community where their chief and council pretty clearly supported the pipeline, but their hereditary chiefs did not show this political discussion occurring on a grand stage of all across Canada. We were having this conversation, and I think that it really places us in a worse position to make what's the best decision for our community possible.

Yeah, it's kind of like putting your, you know, they've put your head in a vice, and that's the example of the position colonialism has put us in. And while the vice is squeezing on your head, you're being asked to speak up for yourself and find a voice and think clearly while the vice is tightening. And now we're going to tighten the vice a bit tighter and then ask you to make a decision about a pipeline. And if you say yes, I'll loosen the vice. Meanwhile, your skull is being crushed. It's a tough thing because of course we don't want a pipeline. But also we're in a place of such desperation in poverty and also the intergenerational impacts of residential school

land theft, all these things that we so desperately want to bring resources to the people, children being apprehended from unsafe homes. This whole discussion, of we need to stop apprehending children. Actually, we need to apprehend children because they're in unsafe environments, but we need to have safe places to put them in our own community. So that we can preserve their access

to culture, language, and family and support these families to heal from the circumstances they've found themselves and to have their children apprehended. So it isn't really a question of apprehension, but we need resources to create those safer systems. So again, your head is in a vice. And so I really struggle with that because I too,

I'm a strong opponent of the pipeline, but I know that what other option do we have? And then when you look at, can we be at the table and look at what options that we have that are the safe, you know, if this is going to get rammed down our throat, so to speak, what is the safest way to transport the substance? It always circles back to the pipeline because we don't want it to be on a barge

we don't want to be on the train you know all these other things it's back to the pipeline I don't want a pipeline I don't I completely agree and I think that this your statement about apprehension of children really overlaps with my experience

with indigenous people being incarcerated because a lot of the push that you hear when you hear about the overrepresentation of indigenous people people is that it's just unfair. And the problem that I run into is that there is a piece of this that the majority of the crimes committed are violent defenses. And so the solution isn't necessarily to send these individuals because there's an overrepresentation back into community, which I've heard being said in rooms of informed people wanting to genuinely fix the problem and

thinking that if we just get the number of indigenous people down to the population size, everything would be fixed and if we just let these people out, things would be solved. And I sincerely think of communities that I got to work with out in hope that had someone who was recognized as someone who had committed a sexual assault against a young girl, who everybody knew committed it, was found guilty in a court of law, and returned to the community, I think they said, like, a year later, meant have been a year and a half later, with the same chagrin on his face of what he had done, the harm he had caused, and committed that offense again during my time, having the opportunity to work in that area

and learning that this is a problem. This isn't something where it is a clear answer. And I think grappling with the complexities of all of this because safety within indigenous communities is something that I'm very passionate about. Making sure that they feel that they can communicate with whoever their law enforcement is in an honest way that they know they're going to get the services they need

is something I feel like has sorely been missing from our communities for so long because you think about somebody commits a crime, do you really want the police to hold your cousins or your aunts to jail? Like, that's a complex conversation to have. And I feel like we need more resources around that to be better able to handle these complex circumstances. And I think it's leaning into community

and starting to have these difficult discussions about how do we create safety and how do we hold folks accountable for the offenses that they've made? I think that the fear is that we don't want to throw them away. Because I agree we don't throw anybody away, but there are boundaries and there's consequences. And so acknowledging that the current system is not serving the healing required or the ongoing boundaries that these folks from our community require because many of them have come to commit these offenses from whatever childhood experiences they have.

And I know very little, but I am aware that there are the Gladu reports, and I have a friend who's a Gladu report writer. And it's so important that people come to understand the background of some of these folks who are committing these crimes or committing these offenses. And often they're being committed within our own community against our own members. And so first honoring the victim and creating safety for them, but also saying, what's the path forward for this person? And there might be long-term ongoing consequences for that, whether you're serving time or whether that means that you're not going to be welcome back to community. And when you do come back, it's only under these terms and it's limited.

And again, there we need to restructure how the justice system operates because, yeah, we're overrepresented there, but it's not serving the needs of the offenders. And I'm not saying they need televisions and vacations and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about the real healing that needs to occur because we're just putting them back into a system that is damaging. And it's a tough thing to come up with those answers without, again, resources, just like we're asking the government to come up with money, to respond to the pain and hurt that they've caused to our people. They need money and resources if we're holding them. accountable to come back to the table to help support these systems that we would like to help guide and create. It's a tough, it's a tough one. Yeah, I completely agree. And I had the opportunity as a native court worker to do what I called Gle-Doo letters because my frustration with the Gle-Doo

system was just that you had to be very severely impacted in terms of a sentence in order to be eligible for a Gle-Doo report. And so I created Gle-Doo letters, which I was able to write up fairly quickly, be able to go down into cells, have a conversation with them, do the intake of what they've been through, what the grandparents have been through whether or not they'd be eligible for First Nations Health Authority funding, for counseling through whether it's the missing and murdered women's inquiry, or through the Indian residential schools or short-term intervention crisis. So I had the opportunity to learn about that and then created a resource book with UFEs practicum students to put together a document where we could do that intake, we could have

the resources clearly laid out and then communicate to the judge and have a document for the judge, the client, and the crown on what our proposal is moving forward, what were the historic traumas that have gone on in their family and with them personally, but also how do we fix that? How do we address that? How does the person get that meaningful engagement with addressing these fundamental issues and talking to a counselor privately? Because I support treatment, but that is one area I really think BC needs to work on is our treatment centers are not up to snuff, in my opinion, for indigenous issues. I think we need far more resources in terms of elders, in terms of support, in terms of not having past users trying to help people who are

trying to leave being a user. I can understand the peer support that takes place there, but I've heard too many times from clients saying, I'm trying to quit, but the person running this house has been selling drugs in this place and I don't know what to do and I don't want to leave and go back to jail but I don't want to stay here and continue to be offered this and pressured and feel obligated to utilize these substances and that's where I feel like when we're talking about indigenous issues we never hit that conversation we never get there in from what I see on at least a news stage we never get to that conversation and I think talking about those real issues can also bring up shame that we're struggling to find the right people and right resources and it

circles back to that real need for our own people to go into professional careers and become service providers professionals bring our worldview into that and be able to connect just like you did in cells go right to cells and talk to our people who are sitting there with whatever heavy emotions they're carrying and say you're important and valued let's acknowledge you made this mistake, you're paying the consequences now, what's a path forward? I'm willing to help you. And sit with you and I see you as a valuable, important person who has opportunities and bring that to you. And that's the gift that indigenous people can bring as providers. And I know in law and so many other different disciplines, we need that. So we're constantly looking for people

who have lived experience, whether it's on the reserve, off reserve, being discompetent. connected from your community, having access to traditional activities, not having had traditional. And that full spectrum and experience that everybody brings is so important because you're going to connect with someone else who has the exact same experience as you. And that's where the real work can happen, trust and understanding. And so really hope that if there's any young people or young at heart listening that you consider circling back to a career in healthcare, to a career in law, even business administration. We're constantly struggling to find people who could administer the social development

programs and community, help to administer education support so that we can fund those folks who want to go back to post-secondary. I've had a real-time recruiting and retaining people in our office with those skill sets who understand the funding services through Indigenous Services Canada, who understand the funding services through the First Nations Health Authority, and you need to have that business background. So really encouraging, each and every one of you, indigenous or not, to consider a career in First Nation's services. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about First Nations Health Authority? Because I think that that's one unique organization that's different than across Canada in terms of services that provides

something different. And I've been very grateful to meet many of the staff and get to know them through my role as a native court worker. And I don't think that they get enough awareness because I think that they're doing something really different that gives me a lot of optimism. So can you share your experience with them. So my understanding is that there's a tripartite agreement between First Nations and the government to improve services. So we are citizens. We are Canadian citizens.

We're entitled to all of the same services that other Canadians are. So meeting through Fraser Health or whatever health authority you live in in the province or in Canada. But the First Nations Health Authority is a separate organization that works as an addendum in addition to those services to meet the needs that are above and beyond and to support and work with Fraser Health so that we can make sure that indigenous specific services are there to meet the need and the gaps that exist. So for example, the funding that goes directly to the reserve for health services that fund

like the nursing that I talked about earlier, mental health care services that you're chatting about to make sure that we can connect. them with counselors that have a good understanding of the historical impacts, as well as early learning programming. There's many different veins of funding. Some of it is medical travel. So if you have to travel outside of your community to see a specialist, say you have an 8 o'clock appointment in downtown Vancouver and you're traveling from Chihuahawthal. You may qualify for a hotel. You may qualify for mileage and meals. And so either your band office can administer that funding or the First Nations Health Authority. So, and that funding is normally streamed directly

through Health Canada, but now First Nations want better ownership and control of how that programming is rolling out. So that's how the First Nations Health Authority came to be. I mean, I think it's been 10 years. Their 10-year funding agreement is coming up for negotiation, and I have lots of feedback about how that can be improved, and have provided lots of that feedback at the political table and thankful for having that feedback land. But it's, it's, even though I'd say 10 years, it's new. It's so brand new. And I see the people at that table. You know, when I had an outside perspective, I was quite critical of like, oh, it needs to be this or that. It needs to be better. You know, having come into a leadership position, I have a better insight of what the challenges

are that those people face at the First Nations Health Authority. You know, first and first, foremost, if you can't recruit and retain qualified people who know and understand the community and can build trusting relationships, you can't get any work done. And so that of in itself is a challenge, and they've done beautifully at doing the best they can given the resources that they have. But, you know, how I utilize that service, the FNHA is, of course, they fund us, and then we provide service on reserve, and they provide expertise to us. So, for example, in the work we're doing with substance use on reserve,

they have a substance use specialist who can come in and advise us and connect us to other resources, help bring in ideas, programming. When we were under staff, they were able to come in and support us. So all kinds of great stuff in suggesting that we needed better capacity or that we needed writing for health planning. They said, well, we can't do the writing for you, but we can at least provide some advice to you. And so lots of good, you know, from a nursing perspective, I see it as clinical oversight.

Well, it's the technical oversight to make sure that we have resources available to us. Again, they're not there to do the work for us, but at least guide us on saying, well, what do you want or what are you visioning? And how can we help to support you in that? And I think they really are in such growing pain phase that people who are critical might not know what it's like on the inside to be doing that work. Right. so looking forward to what the next 10 years can bring really what they've done is they've said the bands are sovereign whether the bands embrace that or not and they've said it's up to you so it's really the growth and change is happening at the pace and readiness of each band yeah that's really

important i think because it does give that autonomy to make the best decisions and i got to see a lot of that with how they're choosing to structure like i think le camel is doing their own type of health services now. And so changing that and being able to try and figure out what works best for them is really important in their further development because not all bands and First Nations communities are facing the same issues. And so making sure that that's tailored is important. I'm also interested. You have a mural in downtown Chilliwack. You have your face right in downtown. Your husband took the photo. Can you tell us how that all came about and what that means? So I got up, I'm trying to remember, I think it was a call or a Facebook message

and it was a gal who works and owns the bookman downtown. Amber Price. Yeah, and she said, hey, we want to do mural. What do you think about putting your face on there? And I just thought, oh, no, no, no. That made me really uncomfortable. I said, you know what? Thank you and I'm honored that you'd think of me, Amber.

But it's probably more culturally appropriate to ask an elder or someone who has had a lifetime of profound impact on the community. Why don't you talk to one of the elders? You know what? I'm happy to connect to you with my Uncle Stephen. Everybody seems to know him, and he's been a guiding light in community and continues to be. Or one of the leadership. And she said, Chief, full stop was like, no, we're not doing that.

And I said, well, and I kind of pulled the culture card when I responded, and I said, I think it's important that we honor elders. And she said, yeah, I hear you 100% on that, and I acknowledge that you're following the cultural way, but she said, we also need representation of young people. I tried to wiggle out of that, and I said, well, I'm not that young, you know, I'm turning 40 this year, I'm 40 now. And she said, well, yeah, younger, I guess is what she meant. And she really appealed to me on the part that she said, we need to know that people can achieve in their lifetime or at least are on their way. And she said, sometimes young people don't connect in that way. And that spoke to me.

And she said, you know, she explained to me the different people she had tried to engage. She was advised not to engage political leadership because she had explored having Dave Jimmy as the mural. And I was kind of like ready to say, oh, great, yeah, go with Dave. He's great. And she said, no, it keeps circling back to you. And so I said, I need to think about this. So I went home and I just had a really deep discomfort with it. That being in the spotlight again was a really tough when I toured in music.

And there's a profound amount of lateral violence that comes with that as well. And being at the brunt end of that is exhausting. And I was frankly quite concerned that that's what would happen. And after talking about it with some of my friends and different people, that I trust. I thought, you know what, I'm, I was asked to do this. I didn't throw my name in the ring and it's something I honored that Amber really had thought out really well. And I said, I just let her know. I said, I'm really uncomfortable with this, but I'm going to give it a try. And so the artist reached out and said he needed some photos and they needed to coordinate a photo shoot like yesterday.

And my schedule is busy. And I try to give my time to my family when I can. And so I said, you know what, let me go back to a bank of photos. I have lots of old photos. And he said, no, no, we have to take the photo. It has to be very specific, has to be done by a professional photographer. And I said, well, yeah, I have a lot of professional photos and let me go back. So I came up with my top three. One of them happened to be one that my husband Justin took.

And he doubles in photography, really good at product photography now. He's just done his own self-study and connected with some friends who've given him a lot of skills. He's quite phenomenal. and we landed on this photo. It's funny because we were camping at the time. We had taken this road trip down to Santa Fe Indian Market. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Look it up.

It's a really cool gathering of indigenous artists down in Santa Fe. And so we just went on this wild road trip through air mattress and a tent in the back of his Jeep and drove down there, camped at K-O-A's along the way. So I literally hadn't had a shower. My makeup was a day old. My hair was a mass. We had bought this Pendleton blanket and it was the golden hour. And he said he pulled over, Urge, this is a cool sunset.

Go stand over there, put the blanket on. And I kind of fixed out my makeup a bit, smudged from the smudging that it was since we had just been camping. And he said, turn this way, try a few different ankles. And then we jumped back in the track and kept going. And he came home and edited them. And they were cool photos. And that's the one she picked. So it just was a stroke of luck that the photo.

that the artist chose, out of the three that I offered, happened to be my husband's art, which was a photo of me. And I was wearing these earrings that I had bought at Indian Market from a collective that Bethany Yellowtail had worked to put together. She's a fashion designer. And so it just was this super indigenous photo wearing a Pendleton blanket, which full full disclosure is not an indigenous company, but is a coveted item in our community and beaded earrings and wearing my hair and in traditional style. And so it was chosen. And the cool

thing was that I said, I really want community involved in this. And so we engaged a friend of mine, Brianna Miller, runs Memyathil, which is a youth outreach program and critical service that we provide to young people who really might be struggling with addiction or maybe they have family struggling with addiction, some of them struggling with being unsheltered, maybe involved in the justice system, and ultimately struggling to complete school. Because we want to make sure that they launch in life with that minimum of grade 12, and even consider post-secondary. They can dream. And so they work one-on-one, and I said, I want those young people down here, because if I'm going to do this, I want them here. If that's what you're saying, you want it to be impacting these young

people so every day we'd go down and it was just such in disbelief and I was in turmoil quite frankly every day I felt really uncomfortable with this um you know and that's my own journey with imposter syndrome and whatnot and I brought my kids down there every day because they were just like wait a second that's a picture of you mom and I was like yeah it's not weird they're like yeah weird and it was so normal to them because they've also toured with me and traveled that oh yeah mom mom's famous weird and it just became normal to them

and I love that to them that it was just normal for to see indigenous people do cool things whereas for me it's been such a struggle and so when we went down there when the Memiathal youth were there we'd asked them to paint

different slogans and sayings different relevant things things in Halk Pamilom we had my auntie down there who was an elder in residence for the program And one of the workers called me over, one of the mentors, and she said, I want you to meet this young lady. She has something really important to share with you because I was chatting with some

of the other youth asking them, what are you writing and what does that mean to you? So this young woman, she said, thank you for having me here. I'm so in awe that you would ask me. And I was like, I'm so in awe that you're here and that you would answer the call. And so we were just having a moment. And I said, so tell me what you're painting. what it means to you. And she said, I'm writing holding hope. I said, well, what does holding hope mean? And she said, well, when people are struggling and they're really at their worst, they can't hold

hope for themselves. They've lost hope. And so we have to hold hope for them. So she said, in this program, I've learned how to hold hope for myself. And now I'm holding hope for my mom. I'm holding hope for my brother. And she just listed off all these people. And it just I'm just crying by this time, realizing that this young person has learned tools and how much she's carrying, it's like that metaphor, that she's carrying the world on her shoulders for her family. And she said, I hope one day I can give, I'll be able to give it back to them when they're able and in a healthier place to hold hope. Because she shared with me that some of her family were living in addiction or, you know, whatever their intergenerational trauma and how it landed for them. they just couldn't hold hope. And so here we are hugging and bawling our eyes out, having a moment.

So, you know, then I realized this is why I'm doing this. Yeah. Because it gave her a space, too, to share that message. That is an amazing story. And I think exactly what I was hoping when we were talking about having you on, is that I think that you are that for so many people who don't see themselves represented as a young person wanting to go to university as who do I resemble. in society and I've had a lot of positive responses in starting this but it's important that

you hear from the people who are doing it reluctantly because I think that there's some beauty in the fact that you weren't looking for this you weren't seeking this it wasn't your goal it wasn't your dream to have this mural up it was a process for you to accept it and to come to terms with that what was it like for your husband to get to see his photo up he was just thrilled He was just thrilled to, I mean, he has his own business, Section 35, which represents the part of the Canadian Constitution that represents our rights, our indigenous inherent indigenous rights and title and all of that good stuff. And so he had done a lot of photography for his clothing items, like the shirt and the sweater. A lot of my clothes are section. But, you know, he's always been interested in photography and something he's shared with.

with me, you know, like, I wish I had more time to do photography and I want to learn more, but just, you know, between juggling a career family and section, one of his dreams, he just hadn't had time to really pursue it. So then I think it was a signal to him that, you know, hey, I'm being acknowledged from my work and maybe I could do more. So I think for both of us, we've struggled with our confidence to do what we want to do. And, you know, I think from the outside people think, oh, look at you, it's been so easy, but it hasn't. There's been ups and downs. You know, I've contemplated suicide. I've had a plan. I've come back from that. I've contemplated suicide again. I've been somehow survived nursing school and came out of it

with a degree. But, you know, that journey is tough. And I think it's leaning in to find those supports along the way so that we can say, yeah, you're clearing the path. And that's what I try to share with some of the people I sit down and have the privilege to share my story with is that you're clearing the path first for yourself. We have to carve that out. And it's important to admit that that is very difficult spirit work, that spirit work, because nobody else can do that for you. You have to clear the path and take up space that you are entitled to.

But in that effort, you are also clearing a path for the young people behind you to come. And what I've learned is also not just young people, elders, too, to create safe space for them that nobody's done that for. They've done their best to clear the path, and sometimes it's a little bit narrow. So we follow behind and we carve out more. And pretty soon the young people won't have to have that fight. They won't have to carry that burden. And that's my dream that my children wouldn't have to do that. There's going to be a little bit of work ahead for them.

but I hope that I've given them the tools to do well that, you know, my children won't have to contemplate suicide with a plan, that my children won't have to manage how to live with anxiety and depression because of lived experience with sexual interference, sexual abuse, rape, feeling unsafe, or any of those things, that they can live somewhat normal lives and that it's a safe space to live in our worldview and practice our culture in a good way. And that's a thought I'd like to leave you with today, that, you know, that's the good work. I hold my hands up to you that you're doing. You're clearing a good path.

And I'm so thankful for this invite to be a part of this podcast. It's been a real honor to share my thoughts. It's been amazing to be able to sit down with you and hear these stories because I don't, I think it's hard to get in print journalism those tidbits of information in a fully thought-out way. And so I'm so grateful to be able to have you on. The other part I want to ask about, though, is just about your family. Because I think that for a lot of indigenous people, family is complicated. And I think being able to learn about your relationship with your husband and how that came about can be also encouraging in a different way where I think we don't have those love stories in media that I think are relatable to.

So I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about that. Well, there's two stories there because in my first marriage, I think it's important to honor my first marriage and Otis. Jasper was my husband and we're still connected through our children and we were married in traditional ceremony and I remember when I consulted my grandmother about how do we divorce and she said nope you're married forever. We thought oh no how does he carry on this life and how do I and and I've come to understand that we our marriage is now defined by co-parenting and raising our children together in a good way and honoring his wife in the life that he's living in the family that he's created with her And so thankful for that, that he's a part of our family.

And so when I met my husband now, who I share my life and family with Justin Lewis, he's from the Samson Creefer's Nation and was raised in that community. It was important for me and a partner. It's always been that I find someone who's indigenous because that's a safe space for me to know and understand someone who can understand a similar upbringing that I've had in a family deeply impacted by residential school, deeply impacted by land theft, a reserve experience, and just finding that common ground. I know everybody's different with that, but that was for me what was important.

And so we found that common experience and it's comforting in one another, but also similar in our artistry. because when I met him and we began a relationship, I kept seeing these little things on his desk or in his notepad that said Section 35, and I kept saying, what is that thing? Like, what does that mean? And he was, I don't know, it's nothing, it's nothing.

He kept minimizing it. And, you know, the gift that my first husband gave was a gift of encouragement. And I always am thankful for that. And my parents and my family and my friends. And so when I saw that, Justin had these beautiful ideas, I wanted to support him. And finally, like, pulling teeth had him explain to me that he was working on a streetwear clothing line. And I was just like, that is so cool.

I've never heard of such a thing. And he was really concerned because he wanted it to be very high quality items, but worried about the affordability and just so many things to consider. and I was like, what are you waiting for? Yeah, it might be a small market or a subset of the market, but go for it. Do your assessment. What are the drawbacks? What are the needs?

I'm like real process-oriented, so I was like, let's sit down and inserting myself in that as well. And he had to be really clear. Here's some boundaries. This is my baby. And I said, okay, well, you let me know how to support. And so really happy to see his business flourishing. And, I mean, it's had its challenges. Anybody who's an entrepreneur will tell you that, but it's been a beautiful thing to watch his dream come to life.

And as I was working on my exit plan from music, he supported in me so much. I have pictures of him babysitting my dog and supporting with the children. And it's neat when we do the handoff of the kids, Otis and Justin, they both have a background in business, so they're chatting. So we're blessed that we are really a large family working. together and I'm thankful for that. That's awesome. And who are some of your role models within the community? Oh gosh, so many people, I would first and foremost say, you know, I really have a lot of admiration for my husband and my ex-husband Otis and his family, my own family.

I came to be close with both sides of his family, the Douglas family as well as the Kelly family. and his grandma is my grandma, I still call her Grandma Marge and naturally different people in my family who I've seen achieve great things. You know, and I feel like sometimes we focus so much on the post-secondary, but I also really uphold those who have held the culture. And that's sort of an,

and through the humility of those teachings, it's maybe not respectful to say that you could align it with a degree or a PhD, but for our listeners who may need that description, there are those in community who have the PhD and spirituality and culture and have carried the knowledge of protocols and how those, the culture isn't static. It's evolved over time, and they've carried that and managed to adapt it so that it can survive. So lots of acknowledgement for my aunts and uncles. Some of them have chosen a post-secondary route.

Some of them have, some of them do both, which is, I don't know how they manage. It's tough, but they manage to juggle both worlds. And it's really, I really hold my hands up to them. I have some cousins now who are bringing that forward, and it's tough work, juggling, you know, education, indigenous education, as well as the spiritual work that they do, as well as managing their families. But it's been the message throughout our family that it must be done, find a way.

And so that's, you know, how I've found myself where I'm at. And I think also now the discussion among our families, the young professionals and the family too, is also how do we step back and take a break? Because you can't go 100 miles an hour all the time. You'll run yourself into the ground. So how do we then find that for ourselves so we can teach the young children that

because we don't want to demonstrate being workaholics. And to be entirely clear not to label the prior generation as workaholics, they also did what they had to do. They did what they had to do to bring our family forward and to help the culture survive. And so those are the necessary steps. So now the natural progression of that is how do we shift and what we see are the next steps of making sure

that we're doing that healing work. I feel that very strongly because I've seen what my grandmother has gone through with Indian residential school and my mother with the 60s scoop and I see that carrying on pushing the best way they knew how forward despite all of these barriers to success despite all of the reasons not to continue and being able to be here today and look at what they had to survive in order for me to be here today and to work towards better ends and better opportunities for my community. community is it's a lot of responsibility because I see that people sacrificed, that people didn't get the glamorous life, but acted in my best interest and acted in my mother's best interest for me to be able to be here today. And so how do you honor that? You try and continue positive work and let go of maybe the mistakes they made, but push forward in the best direction. And I think coming from a place of empathy and understanding that some of the hurts that maybe were passed to us through, behaviors that were learned in childhood to survive, you know, when we, when I look at people who lead with manipulation, I think it warrants an understanding that these are learned behaviors that people acquired usually in childhood to meet their basic needs like food, shelter, things very low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as you and I both know many of our people still struggle to meet those basic needs. And so without also in that same,

breath, important of having really good clear boundaries and saying, you know, I see that you're trying to do this. Unfortunately, that's disrespectful and I'd ask that you don't do that again. So respectfully but firmly laying boundaries out and saying, next time, if you need this is how I'd suggest you could ask and I'm happy to help you. And so a loving way to lean in with firm boundaries is warranted and not something that I'm practicing in my own life, learning to come to a place of understanding, I think it's easy to be angry. It's easy to be angry and hurt, but moving through that and past that, and whenever we find ourselves landing on anger and frustration, acknowledging it and giving it life, but not

living there. And that's tough because there's a lot to be angry about, about some of the hurts that have been passed on to us. But again, that's the healing work that we all have in front of us is how do we forgive and how do we have those healthy boundaries so that the pain and hurt doesn't continue or live with us? I agree. And to go to that point of being manipulative, that was who I was probably up until middle school, high school was severely using words as a way to, as a tool to get what I wanted or to get a response that I was looking for or to frustrate teachers or to cause harm because I didn't know what I was doing.

I didn't understand, and these were the tools that I used to try and get through. And I never want to come across as like this perfect person who's doing this podcast. I always want people to know that I made tons and tons and tons of mistakes enough to continue to look back on them and look at how I approached things. Like I've had the opportunity to sit down with a professor. I fell asleep in his class, wasn't paying attention at all. And I had the opportunity to bring him on and thank him for calling me out for that. Because those were some of the growing moments within my life where nobody had really stood up to me until that point. because I was given a large leash without having a father figure.

It was just me and my mom, and she was very understanding and supportive all the time. So I didn't ever really run into somebody who was willing to just say, that's not acceptable, that's the wrong behavior. You shouldn't bring that into my class. If you're going to bring that into my class, don't come. And being pushed in that direction really helped sharpen me into a better person because I had to let go of some of those tools of the art of the conversation that didn't work for me and that caused harm to other people.

And I think that those are always opportunities. Absolutely. And I think feedback is so critical to growth and finding spaces of vulnerability to hear that feedback can be tough because I think me too. Like I sometimes feedback was tough to hear because it would trigger a shame cycle. And that's been a lot of the healing work that I've had to do that. However that feedback is given to me, I still need to consider it. Even if it was done in a disrespectful way, I also. need to hear what is the core message here and I can go back and say thank you for giving

me that feedback but next time can you please be a little gentler or whatever I still have something to gain out of this yeah I think that giving feedback is so important but you're exactly right making sure that you make it in a way that the person can hear you and really reflect on it because just calling out behavior does that person no good if they're going into a shell or if they can't grow and approach things differently in the future and I think that that's something that elders are very good at, giving information in a calm, understandable way that's easier to absorb than when you're at work and your boss is yelling at you to sell more or do better or do these things. It's really disconnected from the sincerity of what can you bring to the

table. And I think that that's what I really want to enforce for people is that what we're losing when people are struggle with drug use, what we're missing when people are struggling with mental health is potential, the potential of leaders that can make a positive. difference, the future lawyers, the future culture leaders that can really set a positive example. That's what we miss out on when we learn about 215 lost children is all of that

potential, all of that positivity that our communities desperately need. Absolutely. Well, I really appreciate you being willing to take the time. I think that this was a very amazing way to record this podcast because I think it does go to a lot of the river and our

connection with it through our lineage. And so I really appreciate you being willing to take the and I know that you're not seeking the spotlight anymore, so I understand that this might not have been on your top priority list, but I think that you've provided a lot of tools for people to do better within their own lives and just sharing these vulnerable moments within your life, I think will really make a difference for listeners and for people wanting to do better. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Thank you.