The Current - Why Cree musician Adrian Sutherland calls Attawapiskat home

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Life in Attawapiskat is undeniably hard. But it's where Juno-nominee Cree musician Adrian Sutherland chooses to live and raise his family, even though he has the means to leave. In his debut memoir, The Work of our Hands, Adrian paints a portrait of his world that headlines about poverty, despair and a decaying water system fail to capture. He talks with guest host Piya Chattopadhyay about how the hard work required to survive in Attawapiskat allows him to find true meaning and freedom.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. When Crea musician Adrian Sutherland was nominated for his first Juno in 2022, of course his family was proud. But they were also disappointed because it meant Adrian had to leave his bird hunting camp early to attend the award ceremony in Toronto. Adrian hadn't shot a single bird yet, and normally he wouldn't come back from a hunt until he had enough to fill the freezer. Adrian didn't win that, Juno, but when he returned home to his first nation in northern Ontario, members of his community kept dropping off game for his family to make up for the hunt that Adrian had missed.

Life in Attawapaskat is undeniably hard, but stories like these help Adrian explain why he chooses to live there, even though he has the means to leave. They paint a portrait of his world that headlines about poverty, despair, and decaying water systems failed to capture. Adrian's memoir is called The Work of Our Hands, a Cree meditation on the real world. And I spoke with Adrian earlier this year. Here's our conversation. You write that there is a music to daily life in Atawapisket. What do you mean by that?

Well, I think there's a rhythm to how people live in the philosophy up there. You know, the work that we do with our hands by collecting one. water by holding a rifle to harvest food for your family, fixing building. It's all really hands-on. Life up there is really, really, very physical and also hard at times as well. You're a musician. What does the music sound like of Attawapisgat? Not the music, in which I mean the sound of your music, but when you think of the music of Attawapisat, what does that sound like? Well, for me, I think there's both hardships and beautiful things coexisting. You know, they've They don't cancel each other out, so I think they both exist together.

But there's also a peace and a quiet, and I really like that part of it, because the connection to the land is really what kind of keeps me there. And there is a bit of a noise, I guess, a white noise to that. And it's hard to describe unless you're sitting there. I'm listening to the wind, you know, how through the trees and through the huts and plains. It's certainly a very peaceful place at times as well. That's what keeps you there, because as I said, in our interest, production, you've chosen to stay. You could have left, but you've said, nope, this is my home and

this is where I want to stay and raise my family. Why? Well, I think the one reason it comes to mind is having a strong connection to my ancestry. I think this is where I was raised the creed traditional way and I was raised to hunt and provide. And that was something that we did almost daily as kids. You know, we were, as soon as we're old enough to snare small game, like rabbit. That's what that became our job. It became my so responsibility to collect water for the house. My grandmother made sure that I did that as soon as I was strong enough. So before school, we'd be doing all these different activities, either, you know, collecting water or going out and, you know, collecting small game. And that sort of continued on throughout my whole life growing up there

and then raising my family. I tried to continue that tradition with my children as well. So I still like that up there for your kids? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for one thing that hasn't really changed is water, the issue of water. I mean, I spent my entire life collecting either snow and winter and ice to melt for drinking water or collecting, you know, water from the main river through a hole that was kept open all winter long. So, I mean, the tools that I used to collect water may maybe have changed. Like I use a canister today, which is quite heavy, 80 pounds to carry that thing every day and fill it for, you know, to bring water to your family, it's very physical. When I think of water in Atawapiscat, I and others, of course, think of the trials of not having clean drinking water and so forth. I want to talk more about this canister, because each chapter of this book revolves around a certain tool

that you've used your hands that have helped derive meaning from your experiences. So let's talk more about this water canister. Tell me more about not just the practicalities of it, but the symbolism of the water canister. What's the story you're telling? Well, for me, you know, bringing clean, safe drinking water from a river to your family, to your home, is a deep act of love for me.

And, you know, I know straining it with a strainer is not really going to keep, you know, bacteria and other things out of the drinking water, but it's certainly going to keep debris and other stuff that, you know, comes with that water that you collect from the river out of the drinking water. So I think that was the first thing. that comes to mind for me is that I do it willingly, you know, and I don't complain about it.

And it's something that's necessary and has to be done. And yeah, so it's something like I've been doing, like, my whole life. You don't complain about it now, but as a kid? Well, yeah, I mean, it does, when Grandma sends you across the road with a little, you know, two-gallon white pail and to fill the washing tub, you know, you've got to go make several trips across the road to get the water. And when did it dawn on you, Adrienne, that, hey, this is my job as a kid. I do it every day. I don't love it every day, but this is what I do, that other kids in our country don't have to do that. Well, I think when I realized, as I got a little older, I realized that there were differences that I noticed. You know, when I went to the South, I went to high school in the city of Timmons, and I noticed that everybody had plumbed water.

They had water, green water. And even in the community, they had teachers. The non-indigenous people that were living there had running water and plumbing and were able to shower and do things like that. But the rest of the community didn't. And I wondered about that, you know, probably when I started to get into my teens. And it felt, it felt wrong, you know, when I started to think about it more. And I felt a little bit cheated, you know, in a lot of ways. and I started to feel kind of upset about it,

knowing that there were differences in how indigenous peoples were treated as opposed to non-indigenous peoples in this country. And I started to, yeah, I feel really cheated, you know, and I said, like, you know what I mean, this, me collecting water for the last, you know, whatever, 18 years old, for the last 10, 12 years or whatever, has been a huge colossal waste of time. You mean I could have had, you know, running water,

all this time. So it just felt, I felt really cheated, you know, that's how I would describe it. Resentful in some ways? Yeah, absolutely. I think you resent the fact that the people that are in charge of ensuring that, you know, Canadians have access to safe drinking water don't respect you enough as an indigenous person to bring you the same, you know, like access to water. Another tool you write about is the guitar and how it feels good in your hands.

I love holding and playing a guitar. I think it's a pretty magical thing. Where did your relationship with the guitar begin? Well, my very, very earliest relationship with the guitar was through my mother who played guitar. She also played the organ. So that was kind of like my first experience with being around the guitar. And I was very young, maybe five, five, six years old.

And she played the guitar in the home. So I got to listen to her and watch her play. And that's how I got really, that's how I first got interested in the guitar. And of course, I couldn't play. I was not able to even hold a note. It just sounded terrible, right? This racket I was making. So, you know, I tried playing it.

Obviously, couldn't play it. And then, you know, I got into singing. I had some records and a record player. And I sang to those records, I learned the melodies and the words. And like, I was really into singing a lot at a young age. And then as I got older, I was able to learn the guitar eventually. and it's kind of been my go-toeer instrument ever since when I want to do music, when I do songwriting. I love picking up the guitar and, you know, singing and writing songs.

You put the guitar down for the most part for some years. And so you get back to it in a more whole way when you're in rehab. Can you take me to that moment what it was like again, picking up that guitar, what it meant to you, what it did for you? Well, I think when I was in rehab, that's when sort of I had to pause my life for a little while during that period. And then it was also a reset. And it allowed me to sort of think about things a lot, especially with my life and my personal life. But it also allowed me to pick up the guitar again and to start singing again, something I hadn't done for a long time. And I really discovered that it was a way to.

kind of just go to a different place, you know, and be able to take whatever I was feeling and put it somewhere out and get rid of that sort of emotion. So that's kind of how I remember that first picking up the guitar again and singing on it and starting to play again. It really did help me let go of a lot of things, you know, and just kind of check out for a little bit and go to that place, you know, that helped. It played a pivotal role on your path to sobriety. Absolutely. I mean, when you go through, something like rehab, it's such a difficult thing to do. There's so many things you have to work through, you know, and you really have to take a hard look at yourself and look at that person in a mirror

and go through the things and deal with them. And then once you've kind of done that, you feel very vulnerable, you know, and everything around you doesn't seem the same. The people that you know don't appear to be the same as well. So everything is new. That's how I felt coming out of there. And if it wasn't for music and that guitar, I think it would have made things a lot more difficult for me, I think, coming out of there.

I was very lucky to have that, to be able to connect back with music. One more tool I want to ask you about, and that's the hammer. What has the hammer come to represent when it comes to your life story? Well, as you may know, I mean, housing is a big issue up in the,

north and I think, you know, home for me has come in different shapes and sizes over the years. And so when we first moved back to the community, we didn't have a home to live in. This was in 2009. So we crammed into a one-bedroom under our family's roof. So that was very difficult for us because to live like that is tough, right? So I had to do something about it. And up there, everything is 10 times harder to do. Logistics is the one big challenge, like to move stuff in, to cover the cost of shipping.

Stuff up there is just unbelievable. Things get lost along the way all the time. So that challenge alone is very daunting, you know, just to deal with that one part alone. Then you have to build, right, on ground that's shifting, you know, throughout the year because of the frost, you know, drives everything up.

And then it sets again in the spring. so things have to be built a certain way and done properly. Otherwise, if you don't have a good foundation. So you have to learn all these things. And then I had to gather the materials over the period of a decade to have enough to actually build a house. And of course, I had help from my neighbors and friends, and I had help from the local Ben office, housing department.

All those people came together in the end, and we were finally able to build this house. It took a tremendous amount of energy to do that. and I had to learn about everything from framing, you know, to plumbing to electrical work. It was quite daunting, you know, when I first started, but we did it. We'll be right back with more of the current podcast. All right. Summer is here.

You're out and about. You've got a barbecue to go to or you've got some picnics or, I don't know, maybe a concert. I get it. You are busy. Who's got time to keep up with pop culture? The answer is me. I do. I've got the time.

My name is Elameen, and on my show, commotion, we go. beyond the surface of what's new and exciting on television or at the theater or on a bookshelf near you. So if you need help, staying up to date, you can find and follow commotion on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell me about this house. It has provided you and your family a roof over your head, a stable one. It is safe. It's warmer for you and your kids. Tell me more about this house and this home? Well, I think when we back up a little bit before we had the house, we had come into some older, a moldy house that we, you know, quite often people are forced to just move into because

there's no other option. So we went into this one house. Eventually, we had to demolishing the house to build a new one. So then we had to live in the shed during that period. And winter came fast, really fast. So we lived in a 16 by 20 shed that was just basically a tarp roof. And how many of you are there? Well, there's 13 of us now altogether. That's including my grandkids, but we don't all live under the same roof. There were five of us living in that shed at the time. My two sons, my grandson and my wife, and we had to heat it with a wood stove.

And when I got cold, it got really cold. Anyone who's done any kind of winter camping in the dead of winter in Canada especially probably knows what I'm talking about. You know, when your feet, it's not insulate. When your feet hit the floor, it's like you're walking. on ice. So I had to keep the wood still burning pretty hot during that time. And it's very hard to rest, you know, you can hear the dogs barking through the tarp. Like everything you hear it's bleeding in from the outside. You can hear everything going on. So you don't get any rest,

you know. And you certainly don't really feel safe and living in, you know, a tent frame. So when we finally moved into the house, it was not done yet, but it had heat. We still had a lot of finishing. no cameras, no cabinet, no appliances, but we had to move in because it was just too cold for the kids. Just to remind people, this isn't some historical story you're telling us. What year did you live in the shed? What year did you get into your home? Well, we've been in the house. The house now, this is our 50 year, I think. We were just, this is our 50 year of the house now. So this was going back 2020. Yeah, we were just like, I mean, a lot of people are still, if you go take a ride in Anahuapskad, you're going to see the land. landscape riddled with these sheds, makeshift homes with tarps, and people heat them with 45-gallon steel barrel drums that they make stoves out of. This is what you see. And because there's

just so much overcrowding, people are spilling into these sheds. It's like there is some kind of sanity that you get even just, you know, from being so overcrowded that you get a little bit of a break from that, just even in the shed. But again, you have to, that comes with a whole other set of issues, right? And winter and cold work, yeah, all sorts of other things. But yeah, so like, it's a normal thing, you know, to see up there, especially in, in some of these far north communities. But, you know, having the home getting into the house for the first time, even though it wasn't 100% ready, it was certainly an amazing, amazing feeling for me knowing that we had a quiet place and warm and we felt safe in that home. We're using the words house.

and home interchangeably. But you write in your book that home is where the meaning is. Tell me about where that idea, that philosophy comes from. Well, I think home for me, like I mentioned earlier, has come in different shapes and sizes. My very first memory of being in a home was in a log cabin with my grandparents. And we all lived in, I think, for 16 of us in that small log cabin. And there was no running water, obviously.

in those days. It was, you know, when you had to expel your waste, it had to be done outside an outhouse. Like, that was how things were back then. And then, you know, a home could be just a tent too for a month while you're out on the land. You know, it's something that I really take pride into, just having a nice, flat, even spot to pitch up a prospector tent and to be in there. And, you know, something like that feels very homey to me as well. But the ultimate version of a home would be a house, you know, a place to call your own and to take a lot of pride in and, again, to feel very comfortable and safe in that home and protected and to have your children really enjoy that same, you know, something that I never really got to have as a child growing up and

even throughout my whole life. Like I said, we moved around quite a bit, you know, for academic stuff we were in the South. So we had rented apartments. So we knew what, you know, a nice place looked like and what it meant and what it felt like. But, yeah, I hope that answers your question. It does. And I keep saying, wow. And the reason is, Adriene, is because I keep reminding myself that you and I have grown up and live in the same country.

And yet our experiences are so vastly different. I've never had to think about, oh, where do I get water other than my tap? And I've never had to think about, is it clean or not? I've never had to think about, oh, a roof over my head might not actually be a roof. It might be a tarp. When you think of the differences of, again, sort of coming back to when you were young and you realize, wait a minute, not everyone has to go fetch water every day. What story of Canada do you think that tells?

Well, I think there's, that's a fair question. I mean, I don't want to list the failures of the federal government and the failures of the policies that are put on our people. But I think what I would say is that we're certainly not waiting to be rescued up there. I think we are actively surviving. We're being active in our daily lives to do things with our hands. like harvest food for our families to collect the water that we need through the canisters. But I think, I really, I hope Canadians do understand that it has been, you know, very, very hard at times up there.

But again, for me, being able to have the agency to go out and survive up there and to create my own warmth in the cold, I think is very important to me. What has writing this book, and in your words, as you say, retracing your steps out of dark places revealed to you about yourself? What has Adrian Sutherland learned about himself? Well, one story, I think one thing I would share with you about my grandparents, both on my paternal and maternal side, I think because I have my mix, that ethnicity, I think sometimes that creates, you know, some family discomfort. and I think anyone might relate to that, you know, people who marry out of faith or out of culture. I think sometimes, you know, they deal with these kind of things. So it was very hard for me, I think, to go and retrace those steps because for a long time, I felt really upset about how I felt rejected, you know, by both my maternal and paternal grandparents.

And then as I kind of went back and retraced those steps and revisited some of that, those emotions, I started to see that it wasn't really that bad, you know, at times, even though I felt that way. I learned a lot about myself going back and revisiting a lot of these places in the book that I go to. And it's been very very therapeutic. I feel like I've become a better person and I've learned so much about myself. And I was able to let go of some things that I probably should have let go a long time ago. That's amazing. You've got five albums under your belt now?

Yes, I do. And you're writing new music. That's right. Yeah, inspired in part by this book, by your memoir. Where is that writing taking you? Well, I'm really excited about this new album. It's inspired by the book. And I've been writing now for a little over a year.

And it's something I've been really not only being pushed to go deeper with the music and the lyrics, but I'm also pushing myself to do that. And it's been a little bit uncomfortable. I mean, I've always worked hard on music over the years. But this time around, I feel like I have to really just take the time and push myself even harder than I have in the to bring the music to, you know, so that's undeniable. So that's what I've been really focused on in the last little while, and I'm really excited to get this album out this year,

and there's still a lot of work to be done on the album. There's still, the songs are in shape now, but we have some more work to do in the songs, and then we're looking at going into the studio as soon as we get all the songs in shape. Most Canadians, most people in our country, will never set foot anywhere near Atta Wapaskat. I said at the beginning, we hear about the trials and the challenges and the hardships of people

up there. Just before I let you go, beyond all of those news headlines and stories of despair, Adrian, what do you want Canadians to understand, people in our country, to understand about life and at Wapisket? Well, again, earlier, I think I touched a little bit on it, is that I think that we find understanding, I think, as Canadians, I know, look beyond. the mold you see on the walls. There's a different dimension to how people live up there. And I think we all have to be active participants in our own lives when it comes to reconciliation in Canada. And I think that's what I would, you know, like to leave. It's been a real pleasure meeting you. And thank you for writing this book. Appreciate it. And my pleasure to be. Thank you.

Adrian Sutherland is a Juno-nominated Kree musician from Attawap First Nation in northern Ontario. His memoir is called The Work of Our Hands, A Cree Meditation on the Real World, and I spoke with Adrian earlier this year. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.