Nuanced. - 54. Caroline Phelps: Skwachàys Lodge Aboriginal Hotel & Art Gallery

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Caroline Phelps is the Artist In Residence Program Coordinator, Cultural Liaison Lead at the Skwachàys Lodge Aboriginal Hotel & Gallery in Vancouver, BC. Caroline Phelps is from both Nuu Chah Nulth; Sto:Lo Territories and of Hawaiian descendent. Ancestral Name is QwAACWA which comes from Ahousaht BC. Caroline promotes and will always love the summer traditional Tribal Canoe Journeys, where they support their youth in guiding them in a good way using our culture protocol, also welcoming every culture to this wonderful celebration and keeping our traditions alive. Caroline has been working with textiles for over 24+ years now, whether it’s a star-blanket or a block quilt or working with cedar bark. The blankets that are custom made are for many different reasons such as new born baby: life’s achievements and or in time of memorial to honour peoples loved ones.  Aaron Pete and Caroline Phelps talk about the Skwachàys Lodge Aboriginal Hotel & Gallery, how it came about, what guests can expect to learn, and supporting Indigenous artists. The two also discuss the Tribal Canoe Journeys, Hereditary Chiefs, different First Nation communities, Indian Day School and so much more.   Listen on Spotify.Listen on Apple Podcasts.Listen on Google Podcasts.Watch on YouTube.Chapters: 0:00:00 The Skwachàys Lodge Aboriginal Hotel & Gallery 0:37:18 Tribal Canoe Journeys  0:52:26 Learning Indigenous Traditions 1:07:23 Indian Day School 1:24:56 Artist In Residence Program Coordinator 1:35:21 Upcoming EventsSend us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

This episode is sponsored by the Real Estate Foundation of BC. REFBC is a philanthropic organization that supports sustainable, equitable, and socially just relationships with land and water. Learn more about the foundation's grants and initiatives at REFBC.com. My English name is Caroline Phelps. My ancestral name is Kwa. I come from the Natchanath territories. from a house at. I also come from the Stala Nation from Katsy, Katsy First Nation. I currently am the program coordinator for the Artists and Residence Program at Squatchez Lodge that's located in Vancouver, BC, right? We support about 24 indigenous artists that can live in our housing program there. So my job is to look for these artists to help support them by

providing low-income housing. I don't know if you know about SquatchEyes Lodge, but SquatchEyes Lodge is owned and operated by the Vancouver Native Housing Society. We are one of 21 buildings in a city. Squatch-Ey's Lodge is the only building that has the two social entities of having a hotel,

a 18-room boutique hotel and a gallery attached. Both the hotel and a gallery subsidize the housing for the 24 artists that come through the program. This is amazing. I was fascinated to learn about the work that's going on there. I want to make sure I get the name right. It's Squacheyes Lodge. Yes, squachy's. Okay. So how did this start? Because it's such a brilliant idea. I had the opportunity to interview Carrie Lynn Victor, who's a muralist here. She's done murals in Vancouver. And I really love indigenous artwork. It tells such a beautiful story. Can you tell us how the Squachey's Lodge kind of came about? Sure. Squatch Eyes Lodge opened in June of 2012. So we are celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year at Squatch Eyes. We've had 110 artists come through the program since we've opened, and each artist that comes through the program can live there for about three years.

Wow. And so what impact do you think that that's had, or what has it been like to kind of see the development of this? There are some great testimonials that have come out of Squatch Eyes. Some of the artists are, some of them were already established that came through the program, and some of them have become established by Squatch Eyes Lodges, support in relieving that stress on rental. Rental units in Vancouver is really expensive. What we provide is a bachelor unit for the artists, and they only pay $375 a month for a bachelor unit in downtown Vancouver.

Wow. We top it up by subsidizing that house in for them. Yeah, and then that allows them to live there. And I think from my understanding, they're able to do some programs and kind of work on their craft while they're there. Can you tell us about that? Sure. We like to have a personal development plan before they move in.

So every six months, my job is to look over their professional development plan and see how they are doing with their plan. If they need my assistance, whether it's grants they need help with or workshops or making those partnerships with, let's say if we had an artist in that's in theater or like a playwright, I would make those connections because we've already have partnerships with the theaters in Vancouver. So that's part of my job, is that to help them and feature them as an artist. Wow, so it's not just like when people think of artists, perhaps they think of drawing or painting or something like that. It goes beyond that, it sounds like. It does. There are many different mediums of art.

We've had photographers come through. We've had filmmakers come through. We have actors, actresses, of course, the visual, traditional. Co-Sailish and West Coast artists come through as well as carvers. We've had Jerry Sheena, who's a Tonepole carver, has come through. He stayed for his full three-year term. But we also have other testimonials like, do you know who Jolene Mitteness? No.

We supported her. She came through our program. She's the founder of Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, and she's also the founder of the very first Indigenous modeling. agency called Supernatural's Models. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. Please continue. And one of the other testimonies that I love to talk about is Gracie Dove. She's from Prince George. She finished her program at Squatch Eyes, but when she was in the program, she was able to focus on her acting career, and she filmed The Revenant with Leonardo DiCaprio when she was in the program.

No way. Yeah. That is incredible. So how does that kind of work? You, it sounds like, work with them to develop a plan. What is that application process like for somebody who's interested in attending? We have everything on our website for the application process. One of the main things is a professional development plan. I'm not here to tell any of the artists how to be an artist. I'm just there to help them to feature them as an artist in their medium.

every six months then I sit down with them and go over it and if there's something that I could do like an administrative side then I will step in and help them with that. Okay, so they fill out an application and they're interested in being in Vancouver probably for a variety of reasons. Perhaps there's more opportunities. There's ways of connecting with networking and building new relationships. And so they get a place right there and then they also get to kind of build their skill set and work on there.

Is there like a space for them to work in the area? There is. We have a lot of students that come through. Being a student, full-time student, and then trying to pay rent in the city is pretty stressful.

So when they come, we try to support a lot of the students. I just met with Capilina University to see if I can get some applications in from them. There is a shared studio space. in a basement. We do have three people use in that shared space right now from the program.

There's one section just for like the visual artists, the carvers, the jewelry carvers. And then we have another little room set aside that is for film, photography, and textiles. Right. Yeah. That is so interesting. And so how does it work for them to, do they often sell their art? work, or how do they go about kind of sharing their work or getting it out? One of the things that the gallery does.

So the gallery works with our visual artists. Like this June, June 10th, we're having an art show with three of the artists plus the playwright. So we're going to launch and do an activation for their artwork. Also, the gallery will purchase some of their items on consignment. So we're always in support of the artist. The gallery is a fair trade gallery. We always want to make sure that we're given the artist what they're worth.

You know, we don't take advantage of our artists. Even our relationship with artists that never took the program, we still buy from local artists directly from the artists. Yeah, that seems to be a challenge. Right? When you're starting out, often people, they sort of want half price. They want something. You're just getting kind of your bearings. And so there's this kind of mentality to kind of undercut the value of the work that they're doing. And it's tough for them, since they don't have a name yet, to sort of negotiate and make sure that they're getting what they're worth. Exactly. In September, we are having another art show, and we're also including artists at the gallery. works with, not just our artists in residence. We do support a lot of the artists that we work with. Okay. So what is like a gallery or kind of an event look like? How do you go about, because you're the

person who kind of goes about choosing, what are you looking for or what are kind of, how do you go about making those types of decisions? Well, this year, because we didn't have any art show since 2019. Right. And then we're finally opening up again. This year we decided to go with a variety. We'll do a visual artist, a carver, and then the playwright, of course. And then Dana Bellcourt, she specializes in murals, but she also does smaller versions.

She'll be doing some visual art for our art show. Amazing. The part that I find always the most interesting is the person's story. Their sort of journey into their craft. Do you get to hear about those stories and kind of get an understanding of the person's background and where their passion comes from prior to bringing them on? Yes, yes, I do. Actually, I started at SquatchEyes as a front desk clerk, front desk agent in 2012.

And so I was there right from the beginning of when it opened. And I stayed there for about three and a half years, so I was able to see a lot of the artists establish themselves and showcase themselves as an artist. And then coming back and then looking at the alumni, it's amazing to me at how far they have come. Yeah, what does that mean to you to have your, it sounds like you're, you had the opportunity to kind of see it just as a bystander, and now you're moving into helping select people and bring them in, what has that journey been like to be able to watch these people, kind of in their craft, get better and better over time?

Oh, it's super excited. I'm making all kinds of connections in the artist community in Vancouver. And that's exciting because a lot of First Nations, that's part of our culture. That's a big part of our culture is art. And that is our resilience, our artwork. You know, if we didn't have that, where would our stories come from? And I'm super proud to be able to help and support these artists in any way that I can and feature them.

Interesting. Can you tell us perhaps the background of some of the indigenous art that you've gotten to see? Because that's the part that really interests me is highlighting. Because for some people they see like a frog or they see something and they don't understand sort of the depths of it. You get to hear kind of what the artist was kind of envisioning when they were working on the piece. Can you tell us a bit about the mindset behind some of the artists? Sure, there was one artist I remember, and I know he hasn't been practiced in his artwork, but I was thinking about him prior to this interview, Gary Morin, who's a Métis artist,

and he did visual artwork, and he did paintings, and his paintings were all around, the bees and how important the bees are to Mother Earth and how if we lose the bees, then there's a lot of domino effect that's going to happen in our climate. And I really wish he would bring that art show back again. And I thought that was so beautiful to see all the paintings about the bees and how they're really important. Actually, I just interviewed Paul Van Westendorp, who's our provincial apiculturist. He's basically our provincial beekeeper. He manages all the bees in British Columbia

and make sure that beekeepers have all the tools they need and all the information regarding pest control, how to care for them, what to do if you get stung. He offers webinars on that, and he was actually breaking down some of the challenges with monoculture and, like, having one crop and not being willing to kind of make sure that we have a spot for bees just to live.

the mindset is like I guess we ship in bees from Alberta and the south and we don't take care of them properly and we just kind of use them they come in they pollinate and then we take them out or we just let them sort of die off rather than making sure that okay you're going to be here year round kind of like making sure people have a place to live when they're working on their artwork that you're just going to be okay and everything's going to be safe and you've got this bush to live in and when it's time to pollinate you pollinate but you have a spot regardless to live. And I think it's unfortunate that we aren't taking care of the bees the way we should, and we view them as just another utensil for our agriculture. And I think that's such a dangerous mindset. And when people are able to visualize that for people, it seems to hit a deeper spot than just explaining the pure facts to people. Yes, and I truly believe that, because when I did go to his art show and I seen what he had painted and the story behind it, and the story behind each painting, it stuck with me, like, and it's been 10 years now since his art show and I'm, I still think about his, his artwork. And I wish that he, he would come back and do, do more,

more of his paintings. Right. What has the reception been like? Because, um, it seems like we're coming out of this pandemic, perhaps things are opening up more. But what has the reaction you've seen from everyday people been like that we now have a spot for indigenous artists? We have a space. It's been pretty interested in this year has been changed quite a bit because of the findings through the residential school. It's brought a lot more awareness. People are wanting to learn more, which is really, really great for us and our artists at the lodge. We've had a number of people companies come into the lodge to rent our meeting space because we do have made in space that we rent out. And most of the time, the groups that are coming in,

they would like to meet our artists after we tell them our story and who we are and where their funds are going. Like, when people stay at the lodge, the money is going back into the artist community. It's not going to a big corporation. It's going to the artist to support them. That's incredible. Can you tell us about the hotel? Because I think that that's really exciting. And maybe you can walk us through the different rooms and sort of the different styles within each room and sort of, yeah, the mentality behind developing this hotel that's so unique. Sure. There was a gentleman named John Zawickle. He came along and he teamed up with our CEO of Vancouver Native Housen. John Zawickle brought six interior designers from Vancouver and our CEO brought in the six indigenous artists

to work with these designers. So when they teamed up, the designers did all pro bono and volunteer. Of course, the artist did get their payment and undesigned in these rooms with the designers. We've had Clifton Fred, who's Clinket, and he did three of our rooms, and he worked with an interior designer. I think he worked with B&H. Chill, so they're big interior designers in Vancouver. And then we've had Richard Shorty.

He came in, and he did three rooms. Jerry Whitehead, who's from Saskatchewan. He does beautiful, colorful paintings. I don't know if you know Jerry Whitehead. He does a lot of murals in the city. And he did three rooms. And Luann Neal, I don't know if you know who Luann Neal is from Aller Bay. She did three of our rooms.

You may remember her. She did, I think it was last year. She redid the BC flag with indigenous art. Oh, right. Yes, I have seen the flag. Yes, that's Luan Neal. And then who's the last one? As Clifton, Richard, Jerry, oh, Corinne Hunt, the one that designed the Olympic medals when we hosted in 2010, she did three rooms.

Interesting. Can you tell us about the rooms, how they're kind of set up, what people would expect or can expect to see if they were to stay at the hotel? Sure, so there's 18 rooms in total. Each room is designed different. There's not one room the same, but when we do sell our rooms, we sell them by bed type. We don't sell them by theme, but if you request a specific room, we can put notes in the reservation, say, like, they would like to stay in this one, but we can't guarantee that you'll get that room. Okay. When you come into the lodge, we do have ten king beds. We have three rooms with two double beds, and then we also have.

have three clean beds. The sixth floor actually has, like it's set up like a loft. So if you want it to bring your family and you need it more than one bed, there's like a foyer that you could create and then one room goes on top of the other. Oh, wow.

So then you can have, it's a pretty interesting, it's a pretty interesting building. It's a heritage building. That being said, I must acknowledge Francis Horn, Sr., who carved the Dreamweaver pole, the 40-foot totem pole that's on top of our building. There's a pole on top of the building? Yes, there's a 40-foot totem pole on top of our building.

Oh, my gosh. Can you tell us about that? Sure. Francis Horn Sr., who's co-Sailish, and he lives here in Chilac, he still practices his carvings. he connected with our CEO and he carved our dream weaver pole. And we always have to acknowledge him because that's the main focus of our building is that dream weaver pole with, and it has a depiction of a long house, and then in the middle is the totem pole. That's the top of our building.

Right. What is a dream weaver? Sorry. It's what he named it. This is what Francis Horn named the pole, the dreamweaver pole. Oh, wow. And so it's a totem pole. Yes.

That's incredible. Yes. Interesting. And so what else is in each room? You said they're all unique and they've all got their own sort of features and you can't choose which room you want. But what are some of the unique aspects of each room? Some of them, like if you go into Jerry Whitehead room, it's absolutely beautiful, very colorful because he does use rainbow colors in a lot of his paintings. birch bark you'll find birch bark in his rooms

um this being Saskatchewan right and um sorry that's common in Saskatchew I'm not sure I know it's in a caribou there's tons of birch bark interesting but he incorporated that into his his rooms we do have one wheelchair accessible room which is a Jerry Whitehead room okay and so what are the other rooms

The other rooms, like I can talk about the paddle suite, which was designed by Sabina Hill and Mark Preston, whose clinket. So they collaborated with an interior designer. So when you go up, because it's up one flat of stairs, when you go out, then you see salmon carvens, like a salmon stream. There's a bunch of salmon hanging from the foyer when you're going up. And then when you look, there's to the right where the two single beds are, they did a wallpaper with paddles, paddle designs on them. And then if you go to the left, there's a door there that brings you into a queen bedroom. So you have two separate rooms for a family. But you can also stay in the suite below if you had a bigger family, if you needed four beds, right?

then you would close that first foyer door and then you'll have like a townhouse type with the Clinket Hat Suite which is designed by Sabina Hill and Mark Preston as well. Right. Where is Clinket from? Clinket is like upper Alaska area. Oh wow.

Yeah. I must admit I don't know all of the communities across Canada as well. So do they change or have they been pretty consistent since the opening. It's been pretty consistent. We did do a touch-up renovation about two years ago now

or two and a half years ago. There was small changes. They did touch up on the paint work and some of the furniture got replaced. The beds for sure. Because you need to change the bed to, you know, being a hotel. You can't have the same bed for 10 years.

For sure. So when people think of staying in a hotel, they think of like, Every room is the same. It's pretty bland. All the paintings are like drilled into the wall for some reason. It doesn't seem like that's what the hotel is trying to do in this case. It seems like it's trying to make it a really meaningful experience

and so different from what the industry standard sort of is. It is quite different. We do give tours. So if a hotel guest comes down and they ask us for a tour, we'll give them a full tour about the building, the history behind the building and how when Vancouver Native Housing

took over the building, they gutted the whole inside, but because it's a heritage building, the facade on the outside wasn't allowed to be changed. There was a lot of red tape attached to that when we tried to get the tonal pole

on top of the building. So it ended up being a meeting back east with the government to try and get the approval to have the tonal pole installed. It is a heritage building, but also the totem pole is a heritage for indigenous people. And when that was mentioned, they approved for the totem pole because what's more heritage than the totem pole, right? For sure.

Can you tell us a little bit about that history? How did this building come about and how did native housing choose this building? It was set up previous before SquatchEyes Lodge. It was set up as SquatchEyes Heelan Lodge. So originally it was set up for remote people that lived in remote areas to come to the city for medical reasons. Oh, wow. So if you had a loved one in the hospital or if yourself you needed to be near a hospital, then Squatchez, Heelan Lodge was the place to come.

And it was one of those, everything that's the same and very bland and very plain. Heel and Lodge, it wasn't what it is today. Right. And so they decided to move away from that. Was there any reason for that? They just wanted to start to bring the culture forward, because that's what I really admire about the building, is that I'm seeing this beautiful resurgence of indigenous.

art work. I feel very proud to be able to see these developments and this intricate artwork with such meaning behind it. And so what kind of made them make that pivot? It was the CEO actually. He noticed that a lot of indigenous artists needed support. He was doing it out of the office, you know, purchasing products from indigenous artists that needed that support right out of his office. And him and he came up with that, like he started thinking like there has to be something. There has to be something we could do for the artists.

And I believe he teamed up with the Van City. Van City's been our main sponsor since the beginning of Squatjice Lodge. And they talked to him about Social Enterprise. and then John Zawickle came into the picture and I believe that's how it all started was the three. The CEO of Vancouver Native Housen, Van City, and John Zawickle

that came up with the idea of the two social entities. That's incredible because this is fairly unique, correct? There's not really something similar to this that's doing the same thing. This is the only one in Canada. Wow. Yeah, we are known around the world because a lot of travelers from different countries

or going on a cruise ship, they know about us. We're not very well known in our own city. We are slowly getting there. People are starting to know who we are and what we do there now. But if you ask somebody from Australia or our main demographic, I believe, came from Australia. No way.

Yeah, when we were up in pre-coctuary. Pre-COVID? Yeah. Is that potentially because they have their own Aboriginal people there? I think so. I think that's a big factor yet. And they just want to connect because if this is one of the only ones, it sounds like in the world, like if it's the only one in Canada, you can't imagine that there's a ton everywhere else. And so this is somewhat of a unique cultural experience.

And I think that that has been my frustration is that people seem hungry for like The term reconciliation is becoming more and more commonplace. But accessing Bannock, wild salmon, candied salmon, experiencing the culture still seems difficult. And it seems like Squatchez Lodge is doing something unique in that they're making the culture accessible. Yes, they are. We don't have a kitchen right now. But we do refer our guests to having in Bannock for sure, I-Ness cook. And then also we're trying to connect with one of the local tourism walk-in companies.

She does a walk-in tour through Stanley Park. I can't say her name because she has it in her Squamish language. But we like to build those relationships with the indigenous tourism in Vancouver. Yeah, that is so important because when we're talking about learning about the culture, I think the challenge is that people don't understand the complexities of it. And I've had the opportunity to sit down with people like Sannie McKelsey, Kerry Lynn Victor, who kind of show how brilliant the culture is. And I think one of the challenges that we still have to overcome is that we've got these

terrible ideas about indigenous, like John A. McDonald, described us as savages. So there's almost this starting place for people to underestimate how brilliant our culture is. Like, I'm just wrapping up law school and one of the things I was learning about is there's this assumption since it's an oral tradition that it's less complex. But it's quite the opposite. Since it's an oral tradition, there's nothing written down, which means you have to remember a lot. And when you're talking about the complexities of like geographic locations and just wrapping up a paper on First Nations economic development and kind of the history of our economy. We used to travel between California and like Alaska, and we'd walk those distances. And we can't even imagine having to walk like 100 kilometers today.

And so to think about the work that you'd have to do, but also knowing where to go. There was no Google Maps. There was no way of knowing exactly when you got there. So you have these brilliant stories of like transformers and people being transformed into different things that help us remember where we are. Oh, yeah, that's what, this is where the transformation of the medicine man took place, or this is what took place here. And that allows us to remember where we were. And that's sort of like Helclamalam is considered an endangered language.

And I think that it's so valuable that we have people like your team working to preserve this information and kind of revitalize the language and the culture in so many ways. Exactly. In the program, we haven't had a ceremony, because we do have a smudge room at the lunch. Can you tell us about what, for people listening who might not know about smudging, can you tell us about that? Sure. Well, it's a burning of either sage or sweetgrass. It's more like prairie, kri, Lakota, Ojibwee, cleansing. We do offer that.

We do have an elder about, we have three elders that we work with. And one is from Saskatchewan, one is from down the state, and then Robert, I believe, is from Alberta. And they come in and they'll do the smudge ceremonies for us, for our hotel guests that want to experience a cultural cleansing and learn about this cleansing. There is a relationship, like once they request for a smudge ceremony, we connect them with the elder. The hotel doesn't get involved with the two. So it's between the elder and the hotel guests. But this year, we've implemented that the artist and residents should have a smudge in the circle at least once a month. And I finally got an elder, Curtis Henniekew, who's an actor, Knowledge Keeper.

He's from Saskatchewan. He's going to come in and start working with our artists and residents by having these smudges. and cleansing ceremonies once a month. Amazing. For people who might not realize, like, smudging is something, I guess, comparable to, like, meditating, to reflecting, but it's a bit more involved in that there's this beautiful scent that kind of takes over the room, and you're supposed to sort of let go over that negative energy, if I'm not mistaken.

Exactly, yes. Okay. So what else kind of goes on for the experience of that guest? What can a guest expect to learn about the culture? It all depends on the elder. The three elders will share a little bit of background of who they are and where they come from and about the smudgeon ceremony where they learned it from and also their elders that they had learned it from.

I don't get involved in that part because that's between the elder and the participant because that's more spiritual between the two than me coming in as a third person. Right. What have you learned as a consequence of being able to kind of be involved in these events and being able to work at a place where you're getting so much of the culture in comparison to so many people who are sort of disconnected from their culture? Yes, I like to speak about that because when I did move away from my home community, it was like a cultural shock.

Sorry, can you tell us about your community first perhaps? Sure. I was born in Stala Nation, but I moved to the Natchanath Nation when I was one. So I grew up in a house just off of Tifino. And being engulfed in my culture there and my elders and my people. When I did move to the city, I was probably 23, 3,000. three years old, and that was quite the culture shock for me, not being able to practice my culture in the city, and not being able to eat the foods I grew up with, like, any type of

seafood that you can. I've tried a lot of different seafoods grown up in a house, because we have easy access to that there. And I developed allergies, food allergies, because I didn't have access to the regular food that I grew up with and I bumped into this Haida elder and he talked to me about allergies and and he he brought up that that I did have a culture shock my body went through a shock because I'm not eaten what I normally would eat so he gave me seal oil capsules and he told me to take one pill a day, one capsule a day for six months. And at this point, I had already gone to the doctor and I had already found out I was allergic to a whole bunch of stuff. And I did the six month treatment because I truly believe in our guidance of

our elders. And even though he was from high to glide, I listened and I tried it. And my allergies went away. Wow. So maybe about three times a year, I always make sure I have seal oil. Because I don't, like, my body wants that. My body craves the oil, the natural oils from seafood. That's brilliant. And I'm assuming that the doctors you spoke to, they had no plan of getting rid of your allergies. They were just letting you know this is what it is. Yes. And have Benadryl on hand. Like if you have allergy, then take Benadryl. Yes. And I truly acknowledge that,

Haida Elder, when he talked to me about that. And I truly believe that that we really need to be connected. Whether it's through food, like you were talking about, where can we get the salmon, where can we get the seafood, or

through the arts. And that's what Squatia's Lodge does, is where we're connecting through the arts. And every different culture all across Canada. We have an Inuit artist coming to the lodge in September, and I'm super excited because her work is beautiful, and I can't wait to work with her. Is the artwork unique? Because for listeners who maybe don't know, there's First Nations, there's Métis, and there's Inuit. And that's sort of why we have this overarching term called

indigenous is because there's distinct indigenous communities within Canada that are unique. They are not the same. And it's even interesting to realize the complexities between being like Stolo and Hyde Guay. And I think these are the challenges I think Canadians are going to face is we're not a cookie cutter community. What's Hyde Guay is not what's Stolo. They're unique cultures that have develop unique foods, unique ways of cooking things, unique artistic styles. They had, I didn't know this, but I recently learned that cedar is plentiful more in the lower mainland of BC. It's not, again, common in Saskatchewan or northern BC or certain areas across Canada.

And so then there starts to be a development of how do we use this cedar, how do we develop skills around this, how do we make clothing, how do we make artwork, and it becomes unique to that community. And I think if you could just elaborate on what that experience has been for you to see just the vast array of cultures. That's one of the things that when the artists come on board, they do have to do mandatory hours in the gallery or other areas of the lodge of eight hours a month in return for subsidized housing.

and when they do come into the gallery, they'll start to learn the different artworks from different nations, because you can, like, if I look at something, I can kind of figure out what nation they're from, whereas you would have the acrylic painters from Saskatchew or Ontario. You could tell that they're from back east.

These paintings are from back east. Whereas the West Coast, side, you have the Haida, you have the Niska, you have the Nchonath, you have the Stalo. You can kind of figure out between the, like, the, um, people that speak Hokka-Mail, because there are the artworks and the, um, I want to say, form lines that they use are very distinguished compared to, like, if you looked at a Haida, uh, painting or Nichon with Payton. I've traveled through tribal journeys.

Sorry, tribal journeys? What are those? There's tribal journeys. It happens every year, and usually it's in a state. During a pandemic, it was supposed to be in a Nimo. So they started that a few years back where they wanted to keep the youth involved and engaged in culture. and each canoe family from each tribe will travel to the next community to the next community

and then each one, and they're all going to the one destination. And at each stop, sometimes that community will join them. So at the end, you would end up with over 100 ocean-going canoes at this one destination, and then they would celebrate as a pot watch at the end. It's usually about five-day celebration. But the tribal journeys, depending on where you start from, you could be on the canoe for two or three weeks or a week. Oh, my gosh.

And you've done this. Yeah, I've traveled with a house at. I've traveled on land, like being land support. Even myself when I was younger, I did go on travel journeys. What were those experiences like for you? It was, I thought it, you know, it's amazing. It's life change and you really self-identify and connect with where you're from when you go on tribal journeys. But you also learn the difference between the cultures, because at the end is the protocol.

the protocol at the pot watch, then you start learning about their protocols because they get to share on the floor and talk about who they are, where they come from, they introduce themselves, they practice their drumming and singing, and you get to learn all of that in the five days. Right, and it sounds like there's a lot of work going in if you're canoeing along this. distances. So there's like an exhaustion. Like there's, you're going through hard times together, it sounds like, even if you're on my end and you're, you're being the support, it's still a lot of travel, it's a lot of time. And so perhaps the barriers that you might feel when you're in a room with people you don't know, they're sort of reduced when you're all exhausted and you kind of all have a common experience. And yeah, you have to be in sync to right, when you're paddling. Otherwise, if you're like that, you're not going to go forward. Right.

I remember this one time we traveled, and I think we were on the water for 15 hours. And we were on the outside of Vancouver Island, so there was huge rollers coming through. And you just had to, like, concentrate. There is escort boats. You know, you have to have safety in place, and they would have people relieve you. So you're not on there, the full 15 hours. But still, even if you're relieved, that's 15 hours, pull is. a really long time. Yeah, how long would you be without a break? Like, what are the breaks kind of

look like on that? Probably about half an hour, 45 minutes. Every maybe three to four hours, they would take a little, they would just sit in the canoe and take a break. I just think of when I'm using that rowing machine and I usually stop at like 10 minutes. So 45 is so much, especially to try and be in sync. And then to be able to experience like, realize this is what like my ancestors did like this is what my grandparents would have had to do but they didn't do it for just an experience they were doing it because they needed to get somewhere and being on on tribal journeys um taught me about um it taught me history um had no clue that the macaw the nia bay people spoke the same language as nuchanath people sorry where are they

from that's the united states the united states Oh, wow. So there's Victoria. Just across from Victoria is Nia Bay. They're known as Makkah, Makkah people. But they speak the exact same language as Natchanath people because they were part of the tribe. They are still part of our tribe. But the U.S. border put them on the other side.

And then, but if you go past Makkah and you go to like squim, Sukwam, Niskwali, all of them we call Kamala all the way around to back to us here in Stala Nation. Wow, so where are those

where are those spots you just named located? So if you're looking at Seattle and then you go around to where the open ocean is on this side

just right at the end here is Nia Bay and then there's Vancouver Island where Victoria is. So Nia Bay, the ocean, just past Nia Bay all the way around to Seattle, and then back up to us, they all speak Haukamele.

And I didn't know that until I went to tribal journeys, and I went to the protocol potlatch at the end, because we did stop, and Mucklachute was one of the destinations, and Lami was one of the destinations, and that's when I found out that they spoke Hocamilam. Yeah, I knew that, like, Stahilis has a place down in the U.S. that's called Cheshirema. I know Chahaelis kind of did a name change in terms of like the lettering, but in the states they have Chahaelis. And that they're actually related was super interesting to learn that this border was sort of arbitrary to indigenous people because the trade routes previously called the Ulican Greece trails, they would trade all along and have these long distance connections all the way down to California and all the way east to Alberta. Yes, exactly. Yeah, then at these protocols, I've learned quite a few stories about the relationship

and how we're related going down to the states. Yeah, and then there's the Chinook jargon, which sort of connects everybody together in this sort of very, very basic language so that everybody could trade. And again, I think that there's this assumption that we need to kind of overcome that indigenous people did not have sophisticated trade, again, that Johnny McDonald described us as savages, this is not the case. We had, it was interesting to learn, dentallium shells, I want to say. Oh, dentalian shells, yeah.

Yeah, and that was our sort of currency. And then along the water, perhaps your families, they hunted whales, which blew my mind because I have no idea, like, if you were like, go hunt a whale, Aaron, I have no idea what the first step is, but there's families that have identified and figured out how to hunt for whales and how to utilize the whale. That's pretty interesting in going back to the gallery and distinguishing the artwork. Natronath people, they do a lot of paintings and drawings around the whale or the hunt or the cedar rope. A lot of Netronath chiefs, the The name that they carry is related to Whalen, like Atenchut, who's Shauna Atleo.

He was one of our Grand Chiefs, right? That was maybe about eight years ago. But his name, Otten Chet, means the rope, like the cedar rope for Whalen. If you meet a nuchonath chief, you'll find out. that their names actually are related to the whalen because the chiefs look after the people and how they looked after the people was the whaling and feeding the people. Yeah, my sonny McKelsey, who's a relative, was explaining how our community and perhaps my great-great-grandfather would have been a bear hunter, a grizzly bear hunter, and how you put

something in, you get the bear to, like, come at you, and then you put something, So when the bear bites down, it has like a stake that kind of goes through its brain or something. And it was just like, whoa. Like, we're just so not used to that in today's culture. No, I don't think I could be a bear hunter. Yes, that would be scary. I feel like hunting whales would be equally as scary, though. Perhaps more so because there's a lot of other things in the ocean.

Yes, true. So have you had the opportunity to travel to various communities? It sounds like you've gotten quite a bit of travel through, through those experiences, but have you gotten the opportunity to really just learn about these different cultures and the unique aspects? And what have you taken away from that? I have, through tribal journeys, I went through a phasing in my life with tribal journeys and traveling and learning about the Lakota people. My father took me down to South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana

and I learned about I was there for maybe two months and we learned about their culture and about their artwork and how they are as a people and it's beautiful like when I've learned about their ceremonies that they do

and then they also had brothers in the Blackfoot Nation so I was able to connect So I had a very diverse connection with different cultures and not only in B.C. in the United States. Whenever I go somewhere, I always acknowledge and tell them who I am and where I come from

because that's how I was grown up. My father told me you have to introduce yourself. Even if you're just going to another land and you're there by yourself or you're going for a hike or something in the woods or you're by the water, just stand there and introduce yourself and let the mother nature and that land know who you are and where you come from. And I've always carried that with me anywhere I go.

And I always acknowledge, like, if I'm going into woods, I'm not here to harm anybody. I'm not hunting. I'm just here visiting. This is who I am. That's so beautiful because there's this feeling of disconnect. I think people feel towards. nature and the environment and I actually just wrapped up an interview with Chris Koo and he's in love with birds. He's a huge fan of all the different types and he was walking me through the

photographs he's taken and what he sees and the beauty, the unique aspects of each one. And it's so easy for us to go for a walk and not notice all the intricate beauty around us. And I'm not a huge fan of how land acknowledgements are done today because they feel so fake they feel like so many people I've seen read them off of a piece of paper and go I hereby declare I'm on that and it's like oh like you don't have to do it if it's going to be like this is very not what we want you to be doing we want it to be genuine and honest and there to be a feeling around it and so what I try and tell people who don't understand is just connect with the nature around you learn about the beauty of the waterways, the importance, because when I've spoken to people like Andrew Victor,

they describe our waterways as like a bloodline. Because it runs so much of the food, it was our way of travel. It wasn't just a river, the way we look at rivers today and go, that's just a river. And who cares? It's like, this is so important. This is a highway to us. This is the way we travel. This is the way we eat.

This is important to us that we take care of it because we are. understand how important it is and that seems like perhaps what we're waking up to today is like oh if this doesn't have any more fish in it we don't have any food and so we're like starting to figure out and it seems crazy that people are like taking very very basic steps and going oh my gosh if we don't have any like fish in the ocean we don't have any like salmon sandwich is from subway or like whatever it is like we realize it impacts us it should it should always be um you should always acknowledge. Even if I leave here today, I silently introduce myself. It's a way of respect to the elements of Mother Earth. And that's how I've always grown up to learn about that,

growing up with my father, grown up with my mother, teaching me about respect for Mother Earth. And then also going down to the Lakotas, the Dakotas, and the indigenous people down there, they do the same thing. And it was just amazing to learn about that culture. Same with going on tribal journeys. Yeah. You're always making those acknowledgments to Mother Earth. So you had the opportunity to learn from your family and have certain values passed on. Could you say more on that? Because my mother was part of the 60s scoop. So she was somewhat disconnected from her culture and those traditions that are passed on. And I think many people feel that way. So it's always a pleasure to sit down with someone who has those values passed on from their family. So could you tell us about that?

Sure. It didn't start out that way. I did go to residential day school in a house at up until grade 6. After grade six, my father was on the board of directors for the school and they implemented him in a group of elders from my community implemented the cultural ed. So right away, once we opened our public school, when I hit grade six, it was mandatory for us to take this cultural ed to learn about the foods, to learn about harvest and to learn about a culture or language our, like, anything that we would need to survive in our community, that's what they taught us.

And I'm truly grateful that when I did hit that, that grade 6 level and got into that public school to be able to learn that and to understand who I am and my identity as a house at woman as well. as coming back to the mainland, growing up with my mom, and coming back to my Stallone Nation to my grandmother's territory. She would do the same thing. My grandmother would be hands-on teaching me about Longhouse, about our ceremonies that take place to look after not only our family that's here, but also to look after our loved ones that have gone on. My grandmother was able to teach me that any time I came over to the mainland to visit her. And I was very fortunate to be able to take that in and to be able to practice that, even though I did go to residential day school. I still feel like I'm still moving forward with being engulfed with Squatchy's

lodge, being engulfed in culture, being engulfed in the art. work, it's a big passion for me to be able to to keep moving forward with that. That's amazing. Can you tell us a little bit about Indian Day School? When did those sort of end? And what was your experience? Our day school closed in 1986, I believe it was. It was, it was how people tell stories. I don't normally talk about it in public only because we did have a lot of

my classmates and my siblings. We all had the same experience with a couple of the teachers. And I truly believe that that teacher didn't take my power. I took it back.

I've had surgery on my hands when I was like nine. and then again at 12, and then again at 18. That's how bad it was. Surgery on your hands. On my hands, because she used to hit us on our hands, and the boys would get, like, slapped in the ears,

and I can talk about it, you know, it just, she didn't break me. I can still create things with my hands. I work with Cedarbark. I work with textiles. I make blankets. I have a blanket in a maritime museum right now. And I always tell myself, she didn't break me. I'm still here.

I'm still able to create something that is cultural-related. I don't normally sell any of my cedar work. It just goes to family or if somebody needs something, then I'll make it for them. and gift it to them because that's my resilience towards a residential day school is keep moving forward with our culture. That's so beautiful. And I think something we just need to hear more of because there's this pervasive viewpoint that

indigenous people are down and out and that we're waiting for people to come save us or something like that. And I hate that mindset. Like if your takeaway from what indigenous people have been through over the past 100 years is that we're down and out, you're not reading history to me properly. I guess it's somewhat comparable to what Jewish people went through with World War II, that they survived. They kept their values and traditions. And it's the same with indigenous people. Every step of the way, there had to be people during Indian residential school, Indian day school, that were willing to

endure hell to pass values and positivity on to their children. Now, obviously, there's a very spectrum of experiences and ability for people to process what they went through, you're like a shining example of like best case scenario, is that somebody is able to say, I'm going to hold on and do my best and utilize my skills in my body and not let this person define the rest of my life. Because that's the tough thing is that we start to get defined by what happened to us. And so to me, having this place where people can make art,

These are all statements of like, no, you didn't win, your assimilation practices were unsuccessful because look at how things are turning around in the very opposite direction. And seeing indigenous people throughout, like, my law degree, seeing them use the legal system for good for their benefit. Like economic development corporations are brilliant. And Natchaluth, I believe, uses one because they have their seafood company, if I'm not mistaken. And I think that's just a shining light of like, we're going to use your laws now and we're going to go build everything back that you tried to take from us. Yes, exactly. It's been a struggle. But, you know, I think what kept me moving forward is reconnecting by doing the tribal journeys, by doing the traveling down to the states and keeping that resilience and keeping my spirit.

My spirit is who I am. I truly believe in my spirit. And I always remember tell myself, okay, I'm having a difficult day today, yes. I'm struggling around what's happening in my environment right now. I always put in my head, okay, my grandma taught me. I have ancestors behind me. They're here with me all the time, especially when you're in a hard, hard place. They're here to

help you. They're here to help you through your journey. And I was trying to remember that when I go through a struggle. But I always like to do affirmations every day and to keep that positive thought

and that helps me to have a better day. That's brilliant. Can you tell us about that and perhaps tie that with the seven generations principle or what your community or what your values were taught in regards to that? Well, respect, honesty, all of the seven ways of life.

Sorry, the seven ways of life? Yeah. I haven't heard of this. Well, the respect, the honesty, you know, being true to yourself, love. I'm also part Hawaiian, and one of my great grandmothers is from Hawaii, from my mother's side. and there's that saying from Hoopono Pono, I'm sorry, I love you, please forgive me. And I always try to do that, especially when there comes a difficult time in my environment on that day,

and then I repeat that to myself and say, remember who you are, remember your spirit is here, remember your ancestors, here behind you. So we have like a lot of like the anxiety rates and the depression rates, they seem very high right now. And there's this sort of like we're more connected on these apps than ever before, yet we seem more disconnected than ever before from anything that's meaningful. And you'll see videos of like five ways to live a better life. But it seems like the thing that's made you so strong is having deep roots into your community and the culture and being able to have those roots tie to other cultures and understand sort of your place within that. It seems like we sometimes

underestimate the value of that though. It seems like since my mother was a part of the 60 scoop, there was a payout for the experiences people had and it was like loss of culture. And when people hear that, they go, oh, you weren't able to like play with your beads. Like you have this instant thought of like simplicity towards the idea of like what that culture means and how that helps you through tough times could you could you tell us about what that's what how that's impacted you to be able to go back to these roots when you're having tough times um it is i do it every day i don't um i don't um i don't set a date and i'm like okay sunday i'm gonna be indigenous. I'm going to do that on Sunday.

No, it's an everyday thing for me. I practice my spirituality every day and affirmations every day. I'm not on a schedule for being indigenous. Even though the government gave us National People's Indigenous Day, that's one day, but I'm indigenous all the time. And being indigenous all the time, you should practice your spiritual. all the time and yeah I understand about the anxiety I do have a millennial my daughter and she does she grew up in the city she did have some anxiety when she hit her teenage years that's when I

started to travel more with her on tribal journeys to have those reconnections and I truly believe our culture is, you know, culture does save lives. If you start, even if it's just a little thing, you're going to, oh, I'm going to go to the powwow today. You're going to get involved in the spirituality of the powwow and the ancestors that are there. That's another way of doing, you know, even though if you're your west coaster, I'm still going to go to a powwow because there's ancestors there. Yeah. There's this feeling like your life doesn't really matter. That's like that's the overwhelming feeling I think people have because there's this feeling today that so many things are replaceable. Your phone, if it cracks, you know you can go get another one

for nearly free. Like it's, you have a plan, but it's not that expensive. When you lose a job and your boss is like, yeah, we're actually going to lay you off, there's this feeling of like, oh, I don't matter. If you work at a big place like Walmart or something, you're a number. Your boss doesn't really know your story. I think there's been a challenge with, like, parents being really connected with their kids. There's statistics that come out that, like, parents spend, like, an average of six meaningful minutes a day with their kids each day. So there's this feeling of, like, who cares about me?

Like, where do I fit into all of this? And one of the brilliant things, and I think that's probably one of the challenges, like, other religions like Christianity run into, is because even at church, you're just a participant and the most important person, perhaps how you feel in the room, is the priest, is the person at the front talking. It's not you. And there isn't this feeling of like, you matter. And the decisions you make, they're going to impact your community.

They're going to impact your family. They're going to, for better or worse, impact other people around you. And that matters. And if you reach your full potential, thank goodness, because then you're the entrepreneur, you're the artist, you're the person making dinner for everyone. and you're making everyone's experience better. Like, we've all had an experience of going into a store and having the person serving us not treat us very well.

And then we go, oh, that is not great. And you leave with that feeling. But the person standing there doesn't realize their broader impact on every customer they serve. They can make them laugh and happy and have a better day. Or they can make everyone go, oh, like, I don't want to go to this store anymore. Or, like, do we have to shop there? And that's where I see this feeling of like, shop local is because the people who seem to have the least amount of joy are in those big

companies where they don't matter. And so the ability for indigenous culture to kind of situate you and say, this is who your grandparents were. This is what they did. I was just talking to a guy who does leather work. And he was talking about how like real leather work, it can last 100 years. So you can pass this on to your children. You can pass this. Like this can be a generational thing. recipes are another example of like being passed on from generation to generation and that seems like what my generation is perhaps missing is this feeling of like you have these intricate ties and you have a responsibility and the opportunity to carry on these beautiful traditions these stories to wear the boots of your great-grandfather who endured world war two or who

overcame Indian residential schools and that this is this is all like now on you that's sort of why I started this is because there were these impactful people that changed my life for the better, and who's going to hear that other than me, and who's going to carry on their story? That's on me. If I don't tell the story of how my grandmother survived Indian residential schools and how my mother survived the 60s scoop, then I'm not playing my role in my opinion. Yeah, I truly believe that. I struggled with that telling my story going to residential day school. It is really hard.

But I do counseling for that, and I'm starting to be able to speak about it publicly, but not as much as I should. My daughter does know about my story, and my parents know about mine and my sibling's story because they supported us, and they knew what was, you know, they knew what was going on. My father's a residential school survivor.

My mother, she had, her parents, didn't put them in residential school. Like, my mother and her siblings didn't go to residential school at all. They fought against the Indian agents, and they kept them out of there. Wow. They did go to a Catholic school, but most of the time they were in public, school. My father and his siblings, they all had gone to residential school. Same with my mother's father went to residential school as well. Do you recommend anything to people who are interested in learning more on these topics from your perspective? The one that I have mentioned

to people is the Indian horse. It's an amazing book. It's an amazing movie. But are there anything that has stood out to you as to help people who don't understand? perhaps have a better understanding because the terrible things we sort of hear is that it happened in the past, like, oh, like, I'm sure you've heard get over it or something like that. And these are dark, dark things to say because you wouldn't say it to, again, like perhaps Jewish people who endured the Holocaust. You wouldn't tell them to just get over it. They carry those traumas with them, whether it's in stories or being passed on.

Do you ever give guidance to people on how they can learn more on these topics? I wouldn't say Indian horse is one of the best ones that are out there to learn and educate people, but there's also We Were Children, it's a little bit more darker history about what happened in residential school. If you do watch We Were Children and you should have somebody and a support person with you. But also doing your research, I had the privilege of me to meet any. with Phyllis Webb's dad. She came to the lodge and we did an interview with her and she's a beautiful person and she shares her story all over.

She's the founder of Orange Shirt Day and yeah, she's an amazing woman and she has, I believe, three books out now about her experience in residential school as well as her journey with her family, which is really important to learn. about because, yes, indigenous people are labeled. You know, where I work is the downtown East Side. And we get a lot of comments about, you know, the downtown East Side, and everybody has a story. Every indigenous person that's on the street that are struggling with addictions right

now, they have a story. And a lot of it goes back to the residential school. and the traumas, like for the children, for the grandchildren that have domino affected from residential school. And I think doing your research by reading these books and watching these movies will help you understand. Yeah, I think it's really important for people to understand that, like, these are human beings, and it can be so easily lost when we're,

slightly inconvenienced. One thing that happens in Chilliwack is like small property crime. Somebody took your, I don't know, your weed whacker or something and, oh, what an inconvenience. Let's keep in mind that these people are often paying for coping mechanisms. And do we need to agree that these are the best coping mechanisms? No, but there's like, there's traumas that you go through. And when you're not giving the tools to, like, overcome it and to address it in a meaningful way, you're going to find your way to cope. And it's really tough to say that, like, we need to understand people are important and that when they aren't able to reach their full potential, if they are on the downtown east side or struggling, that we're missing out on their potential. Like how many people could have been amazing artists or entrepreneurs or lawyers, accountants, but weren't able to, you. even put that into the cards of what their future could look like because their parents weren't

able to love them or support them the way they would have wanted to, but they were carrying such trauma. Like, my grandmother was not over-close with my mother. They've always been disconnected, but my grandmother survived Indian residential schools. So you could look at her as, well, why wasn't she a better mother? But you could also look at it as, thank goodness she survived, because then my mother wouldn't be here, all her sisters and family members wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be here today. So she was carrying on the best she could, but she wasn't able to instill the values that we were talking about before, but she did do something good. And so now we just need to fill in those gaps. And if we do that, if we start helping these people do better, then our communities

are richer in that there's more culture, there's more stories. Like, everybody loves the story of overcoming adversity. Like when you watch a movie like the Indian horse, it's incredible to see this person endure hell and still succeed. That's the story we love. So many of the boxing movies that we like, they're that story. I was down and out and I rose up and I survived and I ended up succeeding despite all of my adversity. We love that story. So now we just need to support people, and that sounds like what the lodge is doing, support people in reaching their full potential. And the more we do this, the better off all of we are. It's not. not like it's a it's an over there problem because we hear this term I'm sure you've heard it like

the not in my backyard people well that backyard is going like it's going to come into your backyard unless we go and find those communities and lift them up and help them succeed however they define success for themselves but creating that space for people to reach their full potential is vital for us all to be empowered like where would we be if the people who created salmon and Benick chose not to or had difficulties where they decided not to start that business. We would have missed out. When people don't do these things, like our communities are worse off. Exactly.

And Squatchez Lodge is, you know, supporting all of these artists is a type of resilience in keeping the culture alive. Because if you go to any community, it's language and arts that are keeping our cultural life. And truly, cultural does save, culture does save lives. And I truly believe that. And support in the artists the way that we do, I'm really fortunate to be able to be part of that and helping them in their journey.

Absolutely. Can you tell us about both of your communities and just a bit of background, perhaps how they're different and how they're similar from your perspective growing up perhaps north, What was that experience like? A lot of, some of the language is similar. Like if I go to Natchanath, I say Muich for deer. But if I come to Hakamailam, it's mawitch.

There are some words that are very similar. Growing up in a house, it is more like ocean going. Like I always say, I go home to put salt water on my soul. You know, because I grew up around the salt water. water. I grew up respect in the ocean because the ocean gave me the food that I like to

eat, to seafood. And also like tribal journeys we use the ocean for that. That was our way of getting around. Like you were talking to me about walking to all these different places. The West Coast side of

Vancouver Island or even like West Coast side of Canada. That's how we traveled with through canoes and then coming home to my stala nation is is quite different i'm still learning i'm still learning about my stala my stala culture and who i'm related to and apparently i have a big leon family in jihilis and jillowack i haven't met all of them yet but i know there's like over 10,000 leons in this area and eventually i would like to come up here and see where my grandfather grew up, where my grandfather was born.

My grandmother, who is actually from Coquitlam, her father was Chief William Cunningham from Coquillum. I haven't really made those connections with Coquitlam until there was a family reunion just a couple of years ago, just before the pandemic happened. I went to my first Cunningham reunion. and I was able to reconnect with some of my relatives there. The culture is a lot different, you know. We have the potlatch houses in Natchana territories.

Over here we have the big house, the smokehouse, they call it. I'm not too involved with the big house or smokehouse, but more what my grandmother taught me was taking care of the loved ones had passed on, she had taught me some of that and I've participated in memorial ceremonies in the big house for my grandmother, for my grandfather, for my uncle's but I grew up in a house of culture

and grew up with the headeratory chiefs. Katie, I know I'm pretty sure way back in the day they did have Heditary Chiefs but right now they only have the elected chief and council so that's a little bit different for me

because we do in a house and we do have elected chief and council but we also have our Heditary Chiefs Can you tell us about that and the differences because I think that that's where it's valuable for people to understand sort of the differences Heditary chief is you were born

you were born a chief, your father was a chief, then the oldest son becomes the next in line. Or if you don't have a son, then if their sibling has a son, so then a nephew would become a headitary chief after that. And that headitary chief, there's different roles of heteritary chiefs in the Notre Dame culture. You'll have a heditary chief that's the greeter. So if you had a visitor come in to you by canoe, there's a headro terrier chief specifically for that greeting. He'll be the one that greets you when you come in.

He's the one that's on the beach with his speaker greeting you and inviting you in to come and celebrate and eat with the community. And then you have your main chiefs that are there that are, we call them our hot with, so our chief, and we also acknowledge the chief in the sky. So our creator, we call that our hot with as well. And being a hot with, that's a really great honor, because you're there, you look after your people. Whether you're feeding, and they do, our hereditary chiefs feed us. even though I live in Kukwitlam, my Heditary Chief, every year they send me salmon.

They'll bring salmon in whoever's from a house that they come and the Heditary gives you salmon every year. Wow. Yeah, that's what a Heditary Chief does. That's incredible. I had no idea the involvement that a hereditary chief would have and going to that extent still today is very encouraging. Yeah. I'm really privileged to be able to say that I'm from a house at and also from Katie and having those connections. I do have a big family in Katie and Chehalis. And like I said, I haven't met all of them yet. I eventually would love to meet more of my relatives out here. That's a big difference between, like I believe that there are things Canadian culture can learn from indigenous culture and the weight that indigenous people.

people place on family in comparison to everyday Canadians, it's a vast difference because the common question you get asked in everyday culture is like, what do you do? In indigenous culture, it's not that. Could you tell us about your experience with that? You work in Vancouver, which is one of the most urban sort of settings, yet you carry that indigenous culture. I did. And I have to mention I did work in big corporations and I lost myself in that and wanted to come back to being able to identify myself as an indigenous person and engulfed myself in a job that's around indigenous arts and culture was like that's what I do. I'm myself. I'm who I am as an indigenous person. and I'm helping other indigenous people with this housing program. And when I did work in these bigger corporations, it was like I used to have to do workshops to be able to be a customer service person.

You know, it was like I was groomed to be able to speak to a customer. I wasn't allowed to be myself. You would have to take these workshops how to do body reading as I worked in a bank. So I would have to know, is this person going to be okay? When he comes in the bank, is this person going to do something stupid? Then they taught you how to do body language reading. But they also taught you, okay, they gave you a list. this is how you greet the person.

This is what you should say, whereas I couldn't be myself. And I left that career. I was there for nine and a half years, and I went into Aboriginal tourism management and operations. And when I finished that, that's when I ended up at Squatchez-Lodge. And I was able to be me because that's what I wanted. I wanted to be who I am as an indigenous.

woman in the tourism industry. It's so crazy that we ask people to basically like strip away who they are so they become like an automaton of like you just represent. Like the day that we're able to have like Elon Musk's robot that greets like a lot of people are going to be out of work because that's the dream for corporations, this standardized approach, this consistent, everybody says the exact same thing every time you walk in. I'm thankful to be with a credit union. Van City is a credit union because it's so crazy to me to see peers go into a bank and have to insert their card before they're able to deal with their

financial institution because the financial institution no longer expects to know the person on the other side. And I'm still with Prospera. And so we still have this relationship where they know who I am, which seems like such a low bar. When you're like with this, when you go to the same place every week, like, to think that they don't know who you are just seems so, I don't know, landish, to be like, we can't, like, you can't expect us to know who you are. And it's like, I'm like, come here like a fair bit. Like, this doesn't seem like a high bar. Yes. That's so true. I'm with Van City, too. We switch from the bigger companies and Van City is more about community and, and yeah, I, yeah, I truly understand about switching over

to Van City. Yeah, and just having that connection. And we're just so lucky to have people like yourself who are stewards for the culture and the history and promoting people who are indigenous to share their passion. Because some people don't realize how, first of all, it's tough to be an artist. It is not an easy task because people, the early stages, everybody's like everybody's an artist. Those early stages, it's tough to differentiate yourself. And people are like, are you going to make it?

Are you not going to make it? And so I know that those early stages are tough for people. So to be able to have support, just having, there's been a few people who have come and like seeing the podcasting on, this is something special. And it's like, that means everything. Like, that means so much. Like, I feel like when I was starting this, I was like, am I a crazy person? Am I starting something?

And am I a crazy person? Because you don't have this confidence that, like, I should be doing this. And when you're dabbling in something or you're like, maybe there's something here. When an organization is able to say, oh, there's something here and we'd love for you to come make this for us. And we're going to try and support you in your development. It's like, well, then there must be something here. I really believe there's just a lack of encouragement for people. And so when organizations like yours are able to come along and tell someone, you've got something, we're going to help support you, that can make the difference for someone following their dream or saying, I'm going to go work at the bank.

I'm going to go just carbon copy myself like everybody else and not have my unique qualities. Exactly, yes. And there are quite a few testimonials still that I haven't even mentioned because there's, like I said, over 110 artists that come through the program. And I just touched on a few of them. Yeah, please dive into them. There's Sharifah Marsden. I don't know if you know who she is. You'll ever see, when you go into any indigenous store today, you'll see gift items.

She's one of the main artists in these gift items. She works with, I believe it's Native Northwest, and she gets a royalty for her products that are sold. She is established now herself. Her and her husband are artists. She does murals. She does jewelry work. Her silver jewelry is absolutely beautiful. Sharifa Marston LaRocque, that's her name.

And then there's also Maynard Johnny, who's a co-sailish visual artist. He just recently finished. He got a contract with BC fairies, so his artwork is going on one of the BC fairies. Oh, wow. I think it may have already come to Canada now, I think that fairy is here now.

And then you have the actors and actresses. We had Eric Schwigg and Justin Raine from Blackstone. They were in the program. I don't know if you know who Eric Schwigg is. He's the main character on Lasted the Mohicans movie. Oh, I have never heard of that movie. It's a pretty old movie.

Okay. But Blackstone is a TV series on APTN. Okay. Yeah. And they're one of the main characters on that. and I believe Justin Rain is in the fear of the walk-in-dead, not walk-and-dead, but fear of the walk-and-dead. He's in that TV series, and then he's also was one of the wolves on Twilight, the movie. That makes sense, yes.

I think, yeah, that person has received a lot of, that's really cool that they did that in Twilight. Yes. And, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty proud to be able to connect with all of these artists and watch them on their journey. Yeah, so what is your sort of involvement? Like, how do you, do you see these artists daily? Like, what is your day-to-day work with the lodge look like? Well, let's say take a Sunday, for instance, I did end up seeing four residents in a day.

I normally don't see them as much as I hoped. because when they do their hours in the gallery, because they do have to do eight hours a month. What does that look like? Volunteer hours. They just help in the gallery. They make sales or they work on the inventory or organize, like, anything that needs to be done in there.

But we also have some artists that shine in different areas. We have Kwanah Style, who's a singer, songwriter. She does all of our artists in residence social media pages. So she'll promote our alumni of what they're doing now. Or she'll promote events that are coming up. And then also she focuses on the current artist in residence and she'll do posts on that as well on our Instagram and our Facebook. I think we're going to eventually get a TikTok for the artist's methods.

But currently it's just a two for now. And then there's one of the other artists, he looks after the studio space. So he just makes, when he does his hours, he just makes sure that it's all tidy and clean. There's nothing hazardous or anything there that needs to be taken care of. And the cleaning supplies, because there's sink and everything there, that's all in stock.

And that's how he does his hours. Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody has the customer service experience where, like, if you're an artist and you don't, you're not good with customers. service experience, um, we don't force them to come into the gallery and then, and then not succeed. Um, whereas, um, if they shine in other areas, we want to focus on where they shine and not make them feel uncomfortable, um, by, by putting them in the front there. If they're not

comfortable with speaking to the public, then we won't force them to do something like that. Yeah, that makes sense. When I interviewed Carrie Linda, she talked about how that was something she sort of had to develop, which was this comfort with, like, when she's doing a mural, people are walking over and they've got questions, and they sort of want to be, like, for, like, I'm sure, for her, it's like, I'm here to paint this mural. And for other people, it's like, entertain me, explain, you. your artwork to me and like elaborate everything for me and it's like oh i didn't i'm here to

paint this mural i'm not here to you're just walking past i didn't sign up to entertain you and so it's like you kind of have to put on um i don't think for her she'd call it a mask but you have to put on like a hello it's nice to see you beautiful day we're having yes this is my like you have to put on something so people understand what's going on because they're they're well-intentioned interested. But for the artist, they're like, I'm just here, I'm just here to paint this, I'm just doing my work, not here to entertain anybody. And so there is that like dichotomy of like people's instinct is to want to ask questions and learn more. And then the artist can be put in that kind of weird situation. Yes, that's so true. We, we, um, when we do our events,

um, we use a couple of film writers and producers to be our emcees because they are, they shine in that area. They're really good emcees when they do step into that light. Yeah, that makes sense. So do you, you said that you're working on kind of sharing this with people more locally because it's well-known, perhaps. Worldwide. That's interesting, but not as well-known here. No, we have a lot of, during the pandemic, we have had a lot of Vancouver rights, like local people, coming into the gallery. we ask them if they know who we are, what we do, and if they don't, then we give them the whole elevator pitch about who we are.

And then they're like, oh, wow, I had no clue you were here. And we're like, yeah, we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year. We've been here for a while, guys. So this, since I, I, we started to really open up, I've reached out to all of the universities, all of the colleges across Canada, I've sent out emails. I've reached out to all of the Acton schools, the film schools, the visual art schools in Vancouver, and let them know that we're here. And then I reached out to all of the museums and the theaters and anything to do with arts in a city.

I reached out to them by email. So I've been just engulfed in meetings because everybody, wants to support this cause of support an indigenous Métis and Inuit artists by helping them with this housing program. Interesting. Would you be able to give us that elevator pitch for that person who has no idea anything about this lodge? What would you sort of say to them so we can get like a quick understanding for people

who might be listening? Sure. I would say, well, where Squatchez Lodge is owned and operated by the Vancouver Native Housing Society, We are one of 21 buildings in the city. We have an elders building. We have a youth building. We have a number of family buildings and some single buildings. However, this building alone, Squatchez Lodge, is the only one that has the two social enterprises

of having an 18-room boutique hotel and the gallery attach. So both the boutique hotel and the gallery, we subsidize the housing for the artist and residence. The Artisan Residence Housing Program, they do not receive the same funding as all of the other buildings that are owned and operated by Vancouver Native House, and they are solely supported by the two social entities by the hotel and a gallery. That's amazing. So with where, I want to say coming out of the pandemic, but I don't know if that's the right terminology. Things are looking up. Are you looking at putting on more events?

Can people expect to hear more from you guys because you're going to be able to host events in person again? What is that kind of future look like in terms of providing opportunities for people to learn? We've opened up, well, since we started to open our meeting space up, we've had a lot of meetings come through, people renting our meeting space. And then also we're doing an art show on June 10th.

And that's going to run all of June. and I am currently working on the National People's Indigenous Day event at the Lodge. I can't really say what that looks like just yet, because I'm waiting for some permits to go through from the city of Vancouver. But we do have support from sponsorship, from partnerships, to help us with these events. We have five events scheduled for this year. Art Show, National People's Indigenous Day,

orange shirt day for the Truth and Reconciliation Day, and then Métis Day. And then in September, we want to do another art show, and that's us hosting. That's the five events, arts and cultural events that we're going to be doing this year. Other than that, though, we are participating in the BC Cultural Days, and then also the cultural crawl, east side cultural crawl, which is in November. So that's seven altogether with those two partnerships. Sorry, what is the indigenous crawl? It's called the downtown east side cultural crawl. So it's run by East Side Art Society, which is downtown east side of Vancouver and they

have partnerships with a number of galleries in the city so you can go during the time frame of the art show you can go to all these different galleries and do like a cultural crawl and go see all these different displays and exhibits That's brilliant and can you also

tell us a bit about orange shirt day I know I'm sure people have seen the shirts but they might not understand the context behind how orange shirt day came about and what it means. Orange Shirt Day was founded by Phyllis Webb's dad. We did have her come to our gallery last year to talk to us about orange shirt day and her story behind Orange Shirt Day.

She, when she was being brought to residential school, I don't remember if it was her mom or her grandmother got her this really pretty orange shirt. and I guess when she got brought to the school they took that orange shirt from her and she never seen that orange shirt ever again and she just loved that orange shirt and I believe that's how this whole campaign started was because she never seen that orange shirt ever again

and she started to bring the awareness of residential school and what it means to indigenous people and I believe that's how the campaign started was by her orange shirt being taken away and now everybody wears that orange shirt. That's beautiful. One of the challenges, and I'm sure you've seen it, is inauthentic indigenous artwork.

I've seen people trying to sell the orange shirt who have no affiliation or plans to donate the money to any indigenous causes. Do you have any thoughts on that or advice for people who want to support indigenous artists and creators. How can they go about doing that? I think that you sell some of the work from the artists on your website. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Sure. We do have an own shirt that we sell. What was designed by Shoshana Green, she's one of our artists and residents. And she actually met and sat with Phyllis Webstead about her design. And so what happens with our orange shirt? When it comes in and each t-shirt that's sold, a portion of that is donated to IRSSS. And then also Shoshana Green as being the artist, she receives a royalty for every t-shirt that is sold.

Sorry, could you say what IRSSS is? Indian Residential School, Survival School Society. Right. Yeah, we did get an interview with Phyllis Webstead and Shoshana Green when we started to sell our orange shirt and started our orange shirt campaign. Because not only is it supporting Shoshana as an artist and then also the Indian Residential School Survivor Society, it's also going back into the community with supporting those artists that are in-house. else and subsidizing that housing for them. We always say when somebody buys something in the gallery, we always say, thank you for

support in our artists, because that's what they're doing. They're our stakeholders, our hotel guests are our stakeholders. They're people that come into the gallery that buy something. There are stakeholders, and we always thank them for support in the artists. Yeah, that seems to be what's missing from so many other business models is the belief that your customers are bringing value, that you have a relationship with them, and that they could contribute something positively to the organization and make a positive difference. And like having that social enterprise and having that social impact on others, it seems like

that's what people want to see more of, is to know that they're not only purchasing and like you can go to Walmart and buy a piece of, I guess you'd call it art, wall decor. because it's not really art because it's mass produced. Art should have some sort of deeper meaning. And to be proud that you purchase something that has an impact farther reaching than your typical purchase, it makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you're having a positive impact in the world and that I'm a big believer. People complain about voting and I'm a big believer that you vote with your money. You vote your, the ideas that you believe in with your money.

If you choose to support local, support indigenous, support green initiatives, that's all you voting for what you believe in. And when the indigenous artist is able to say, I sold out of my products, you made someone's day, you played an impact in somebody's day. And I'm sure that that's sort of what happens behind the scenes. Exactly. And our gallery assistant, she outsources like artwork that goes into the gallery. because not all of the artists that are in the residency program sell their artwork to the gallery. So we do have relationships with the artist community and work with like beaters, silver jewelry carvers, plaques, paddles, stuff like that.

And there's this one beater that we have a relationship with. She has, I think, five children. She lives in Vancouver, and we support her quite often. And she does beautiful beadwork, and we've been buying from her for the past maybe three years now and support in her that way. And we always give her fair trade whenever she asks for. That's what we give her, because we truly believe in support in every artist that come through our door. That's amazing.

Can you tell us about perhaps what people can find on the website? What people, because some people might be like, I'd love to go to this hotel, but I can't afford to perhaps stay there. What can people expect to be able to buy? You mentioned beadwork and stuff. What can people support perhaps if they're a little bit more frugal with their finances? We do have a online store, so you can purchase online, and we do ship. You can find beadwork, you can find carbons.

Everything that's in our gallery is on our online store. Yeah, every picture is on our. We have one person that's on our team. His name is Alan. He does all of our marketing, and he's always updating our website, our online store, with the new products or with products that are sold out. Then he's ensuring that it's not on our online store anymore. But you can always go there and onto our website and take a look at and support us that way by purchasing. and something, and we ship it to you. Amazing. Can you spell out the hotel's name for people so they can find it online? Sure. Squatch eyes. So it's S-K-W-A-C-H-A-Y-S dot com. Amazing. And you're also on Instagram and Facebook? Yes. At the same name?

Yes, under the same name. Perfect. Caroline, I really appreciate you being willing to come out and share all of this information. I'm so, when my partner actually was the one who showed me the hotel and I was like, how did I not know about this? Like, this is not even like an hour from me and I didn't know about it. And once I started looking into it, I was like, this would be a terrific guest to have on to learn about the background of how the hotel came about, how people can support indigenous artists. Because after interviewing Carrie Lynn and interviewing other general artists,

knowing how much work it goes into trying to become an artist and the work to try and get name recognition and grow your work and get fair trade for the work that you're putting in. It was like, this is such a brilliant idea and I want to learn more about it and to hear more your personal story.

I'm really grateful you set such a good example in your willingness to share some of the adversity you've overcome and not let that define you. That's why this is called The Bigger Than Me podcast is because you've made it bigger than you, and you're trying to set the example for your family and for other people around you. And I think we're just, we're lucky to hear your story and the hotels. So I'm just,

I'm so grateful that you were willing to come on. Oh, thank you so much for inviting me. And I know it went through a chain of emails before it got to my desk. And I was like, he's Dolo. I really want to go and meet this person because I don't know too many Stalo relatives. And I was like, I bet you I'm related to him somehow. out. Yes. Well, it has been so cool to hear about the different cultures. And I think that for other people, it's nice to learn of the complexity, but also what that culture means to you and how it impacts you personally, because I do feel like there's so much to learn from people who are seeking to have deeper roots in their life. And that seems to be the thing we're not talking about. When we talk about anxiety and depression, we're talking about quick tools to fix it. And it's like,

this is a journey. This is where you have to develop yourself. It's either you go deeper or you keep kind of floundering. And I think you set the example of trying to dig deeper into all of the different roots and being willing to travel to learn more and share that with your children. I think that is where other people need to go. They need to start figuring out who their ancestors are, who their grandparents are. What did they do? And how can they learn from their story? exactly yes yes thank you again for inviting me today absolutely it was such a pleasure thank you