The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 223. Cruelty | Charles Joseph

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

As an alternative for those who would rather listen ad-free, sign up for a premium subscription to receive the following: All JBP Podcast episodes ad-free Monthly Ask-Me-Anything episodes (and the ability to ask questions) Presale access to events Premium show notes for future episodes Sign up here: https://jordanbpeterson.supercast.comThis episode was recorded on November 10th, 2021.Charles Joseph is a Kwakwaka’wakw artist known for his masks, totem poles, and canoes. His work can be found in homes and businesses worldwide, including mine. His “Residential School Totem” stands before the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for “all Canadians, not just residential school survivors.” It represents Charles’ “reconciliation” and his “story is on the pole.”Charles’ carving homepagehttps://charlesnativeart.caFacebook pagehttps://facebook.com/charlesjosephnativeart_______________Approximate Timestamps_______________[00:00] Intro[02:21] Charles’ background[03:36] Backstory: Jordan’s first non-native friend[09:59] Tough times at residential school; finding enough to eat[12:35] Being locked in as punishment[14:14] Isolation and treatment by so-called Christians; rejecting religion[16:35] Unmarked graves at Canadian residential schools[19:29] Jordan asks what could motivate such cruelty towards innocent children[22:08] Leaving & coming of age [22:19] Blaming the world[30:08] Charles describes more of what happened to him at residential school[34:24] Looking in the mirror[36:11] His grandparents’ influence [41:26] Creative process & dreams [47:08] The spiritual effect of art & culture[48:03] Carving as a personal church[49:38] History and cultural significance of specific elements in Charles’ art[54:36] The 55-foot totem pole sculpture[01:04:07] Seeking out the meaningful and positive[01:09:07] The Residential School Totem at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts[01:11:11] Reconciliation[01:17:26] Accused of racism and welcomed into a new family in 24 hours[01:20:15] Wrapping up#ResidentialSchool #Art #Native #Carving #Canada// SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL //Newsletter: https://linktr.ee/DrJordanBPetersonDonations: https://jordanbpeterson.com/donate// COURSES //Discovering Personality: https://jordanbpeterson.com/personalitySelf Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.comUnderstand Myself (personality test): https://understandmyself.com// BOOKS //Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life: https://jordanbpeterson.com/Beyond-Order12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-lifeMaps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-meaning// LINKS //Website: https://jordanbpeterson.comEvents: https://jordanbpeterson.com/eventsBlog: https://jordanbpeterson.com/blogPodcast: https://jordanbpeterson.com/podcast// SOCIAL //Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanbpetersonInstagram: https://instagram.com/jordan.b.petersonFacebook: https://facebook.com/drjordanpeterson// SPONSORS //For Advertising Inquiries, visit https://www.advertisecast.com/TheJordanBPetersonPodcast

Welcome to season four episode 80 of the JBP podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson. This is an intense episode. Today's guest is Charles Joseph, the first native friend, Dad Made in Canada, and unfortunately one of its victims. This was a deeply emotional conversation. Charles talked about his experience in residential schools, the way he blamed the world after getting out, rejecting religion, eventually finding God again, dreams, the way he blamed the world after getting out, rejecting religion, eventually finding God again, dreams, the meaning of reconciliation, carving as a religious experience and more. Charles came to visit our house when I was a kid and told me some of the things that's happened to him and it's awful.

This is one of those episodes everyone should hear. If you enjoy this episode or at least learn something, please subscribe. And if you don't want to hear me read ads, please visit JordanBPeterson.supercast.com if you want to sign up for an ad-free experience. It'll switch your regular podcast to the ad-free version automatically on whatever platform you use. It's easy, and just $10 a month or $100 a year. This episode was sponsored by Ladder. We don't discuss life insurance

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Without further ado, here's Charles Joseph. Hello, everybody. I'm pleased to be talking today with my friend and brother, Charles Joseph. Charles is a member of the Quakwaqawat people who have lived for thousands of years on what is now the west coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia. He's an accomplished artist who works primarily in cedar carving and has produced a body of work within and extending his native tradition, including a 50-foot totem pole which was installed in 2017 on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal, in front of the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, and which stands there to this day. I met Charles about 15 years ago when I intended a little craft fair in Comox on Vancouver

Island in British Columbia. I thought it would be all hippies and candles, and mostly it was, but my wife Tammy convinced me to go, so I did. Charles had set up an exhibit there in a tent on the advice of his wife as it turned out, and he'd placed a couple of his carvings outside. I walked by and thought, whoever did that is a real artist, not just a happy and went in. I told him how much I liked his work. I always liked that style of work, that native western style of carving, ever since I was a kid, and he showed me a photo album which contained an almost

unbelievably large range of carving style and motif. That day, I bought a couple of small pieces, but we made an agreement that he would send me a carving every six months around there, and I would buy it. And we just continue doing that for as long as we were both happy with the arrangement. That lasted for about 10 years before we started on a more major project together. I'll tell you the rest of that story as we continue our discussion. As I got to know Charles over a few years, eventually inviting him out to Toronto, he revealed more of his history.

And we're going to talk about that today, along with discussing his arts and traditions and sources of inspiration. I need to tell all you people watching and listening that this is not going to be an easy conversation. And I'm not saying that lightly. We're going to start by thanking the crew Chris Whitecott that helped Charles set up this interview from inside his carving tent to sugar cane just outside of Williams Lake in central British Columbia. The property owner there is Darrell Sellers. Hey Charles. Hey Jerry. Good to see you man. It's been a long time. Yeah. Really good to see you. Yeah. Yeah. That's been a couple years. Yeah, so why don't you tell what you remember about his first meeting?

Oh, okay, it was in ProMox and Art Show was called Nautical Days and I got invited to go by and was reluctant to go at Christmas because I wasn't sure what was going to happen or I'd never been to it. But I decided to care that I set up the table. And at that time, the first couple of days there was barely anybody reaching my table.

Sorry, I brought my bastard house. And my bastard's home, I'm bastard homes were there that day and you were and you year, where I showed up. I said, could I pet your dogs? And then you guys walked in and started looking at all the button blankets that were hanging behind me and all the art that was on the table. And from that day on, we became close friends. And I love it. Yeah, well, you told me something striking that day or

not long after that, I think you told me that I was the first white guy that you'd really made a friendship with. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. There's a reason for that. Jerdinand was lucky to have non-Neder friends because of my residential past. I wasn't sure if I could trust anybody that way. Yeah, well, you told me this story and that's one of the things I want you to do today. And that unfolded for us over a couple of years as we got to know each other.

And it was pretty damn harrowing to listen to, to say the least. And so I thought one of the things we could do today is, well, I'd like you to tell your story right from the beginning. You told me about your grandparents and about when you were young, and when you were in the hospital. People should know this. Well, we started off as I grew up with my great-grandparents and my mother and father gave me to my great-grandparents on my father's side. My great-grandparents were there and my great-grandparents were the ones that grew me up.

They'd have to be in anyone I could put into a residence to school. They were there trying to retrieve me back because they took me from the hospital, like the residential school people grabbed me from the hospital with three other kids at time. I was five years old just turning just about five or five and a half years old when they grabbed me. Yeah, well, you told me you'd spent quite a bit of time in the hospital because you got sick

with a number of things simultaneously. And at that time, you also didn't speak English. No, no, in visit on. I got chicken pox, measles, and lumps, right? All in one after another, say stuck in the incubator for quite a while. First, they took me out of a little bit and I can't remember where it was. You know what hospital was, but

I was in this This is an incubator Pastic and there's no blankets on you or nothing because your blankets are good stuck to me Or anything like that when I was had chickenpox and measles But when I was just strong boy and there's no be in the room with me, no one would seem to be allowed to come around me. But this young boy, I was a member of this story because he's the first one that gave me a toy to play with in his incubator. I had nothing to play with. He stacked up these books, we were reached the crib that I was in, that's our smaller

room, five years old. So I was in this bed, he stacked these books up in the zoo of a toy and he couldn't completely reach over so he was doing it and then climbed back down off of a book, and I had to turn my hand, and I guess I'm excited just for that toy and him for doing that, right? And I got to play with that toy, and tell him I got to leave that hospital, and then we're named back in order to be hospital, and all of a sudden I got kicked up

by this residence of school. Well, you, I think you told me, I think you told me that you were on the dock waiting for your grandparents, your great grandparents to pick you up. No, no, no, I was in the hospital in the waiting room. And they were down the dock waiting for a taxi, but they got there too late. Great, I was already picked up by these people,

and I never knew them. Now, I couldn't speak English to ask what was going on and where was I going. So by the time that happened I was in this residential school and it was a big red brick building. Now as soon as I got inside of those doors my life chain was in seconds. Cause I got thrown to the floor and I cut my hair, took all my clothes off and put these funny looking clothes on me and she was four times too big for me. And,

just a minute yep and uh Stuck it stuff. Yep, and I was sitting on my bed. They put me towards them. I wasn't sure what was going on Because I had these funny neck to clothes on and haircut and retreating me me three clockcase runners kids everywhere hanging onto my bed they're tight under what what kind of hospital is this? Why is this? Why are they allowed to run around? I'm not. And he's three boys and standing there. There's a new kid. There's a new kid. That was me. And from that day on, those three boys became my friends. My brother grew up together in their four or five years.

So to try to look after each other's back, I guess, I might say. And they were teaching me the root of residence, the school and what, what not to do and what to do. I still never caught on because I couldn't speak English properly. So I wasn't really, couldn't really understand what they're teaching me. So I got whipped and strapped and sewn in a closet private because of that not knowing. It's got worse from there, just like I heard by a non and then preach the following day so you were confusing none so the years ago whether I should be with a woman or a man because of what they did to me and I never got to learn how to read or write properly or...

You told me Charles that you had a hard time finding enough to eat when you were in the residential school. The um... Heh heh heh... Ah... Oh my laughing could hurt. Um... The uh... You could smell all the good food that corne the carb roast stuff like that in You've never seen it. It wasn't on your plate

But you could smell it and made the stomach grow really loud because you never got to eat like that Sometimes your porridge would be moving in here There's same porridge For days until it's all gone and it wouldn't change it or renew your big part of porridge until it re-aided off. And sometimes your bread should have been sewn away but they gave us some sand with bacon and now we had

with peanut butter. And to this day, I have a hard time with pickles and peanut butter because that's all you got for your sandwich and your lunch. There's no apple oranges or juice. You know, there's that in water. And the water came out of the tap from the school. You said you used to forage with some of the kids for eggs and so forth and try to cook them under the hot water taps. We used to crawl around on the beach and I sneak out at night and go down

and get muscles off the beach. I don't know why I knew that, but we get these little muscles and then we put them in our t-shirt and fold our t-shirt up like a bag so we could carry it in and sneak back. You know that then on the spring we go into the forest so we're sneaking into the forest and we'll take Robin's eggs and bring them back to the dormitory and boil it under our taps on the hot water. And we knew that the muscle itself, you could smell it too. The dormancy we got caught doing that, right? And we wondered, no, where's the shells, where's that food? No.

Well, the whole dormitory took a looking at that time. We got a strapping in the whip, because no one would own up to cause a new one, we were feeding someone hungry that day. So we all took a beating for it. Quite a bit of times. You talked about the closet. Blink, blink. I'm not sure.

Well, I wonder what kind of a sound. Lasting you. You're showing your closet for five. Five days. Start closet. We can't stand. Sit down. Drop your lead on you just sit

there and bend up to your chest you're darkening when they when you pull the other the closet is so bright out can't be a black out for all then you wake up on the floor getting kicked around. Get up to do your chores. Oh, you'll get put back in here again. And you wake up when we get kicked around. And you don't even know what your chores are because you're blacked out when you're telling you what they want you to do. So you get into more trouble because you don't know where your

chores are, what you're supposed to be doing. How long were you in the school? I was in there for nine years. Well, we've been three, four years of it. You want love to go home. What did you think about your family not being there? I thought, I remember really I sought more of them. I thought what did I do so wrong that they left me there. I couldn't figure out what, but it was it that I did that. I put me in such a bad place like this. And then wouldn't it seem

well be the third time they try to come around to come and get me and I've seen their RCMP escritting them away from the residential area escritting them right down to the dock. area. That's correcting them right down to the dock. I told them that they came back, they were going to be put to jail, come back and try to get me. So they never ever came back. So I've seen that. So before I've seen that, I was blaming my grandparents and my dad, because that's where I grew up with. I was mad at them for leaving me and I was in such an awful place. And then wondering why they left me there. What's the help of my older relatives that were there made it a little bit easier at the end because then some of the native people started getting

hired to work to the end of the one before it closed. But before all that, they're pretty, you start to wonder today, where do they find all these mean people? You know, to be like that. And then the other one is, is how could I be like them as supposedly a Christian or whatever,

you know, treat people like that? I'm sort of more drawn away from that than I want to know more about it because of those reasons. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Jesus. I don't believe in it because of such a thing. These things were not happening to us, kids. You said recently when we talked that these beans news in Canada about unmarked graves

found outside residential schools again and you said that although you'd recovered from a lot of this to some degree and weren't having nightmares about it anymore that that sort of brought it back and then you told me some pretty terrible stories about that situation too. Morning, I met you, Jordan and a couple of other friends. I started working and seeing because I trusted and they trusted in the words that you were asking me to do. I trusted that because we were friends for a long time and I started working on myself without going to treatment center or places like that because I do things culturally. You remember my grandparents, teachings and cultural forms?

That it made it easier for me to live my life without doing like a distinct and distinct and pure person. Inside out, you don't even know that. Because as a child coming out of St. Mike, she started to learn how to cover up those kind of pains and cover up your tears because you know, people know you feel ashamed of yourself or your just like yourself or what happened? Well, you told me, you told me a story about what was done with bodies at St. Mike's and the incinerator. Jordan knew it, they would wrap these kids up. I was like, if they died from Hep C or tuberculosis.

And wrapped them up and they would put them inside this big thing called the incinerator. There's a big drum, really huge drum about six feet tall. Maybe taller. about 60 tall maybe taller and you'd still let up with paper and put that rap child in there and it would make us like that fire. And the whole time would stink, the whole place of that area would stink. It could smell, smell the body burning. Charles, you're just, you must be how old are you now? You're 60 something. How old are you?

You're 62. So you had a long time to think about this, Charles, why in the world do you think someone would do something like that? Do you have any? You know, that comes from Jordan. I've never seen a often thought about that. There were, where's that much anger and pain come from? How does it grow like that? You know? And then I wonder, I'll come, these people never got put in jail for what they did wrong. You know, that was me doing that. I'd been jailed for a long time.

Or condemned from the world. you can't get a job and you'd be on TV, you know, this guy's a reprister and molester, but these guys have heard us, not one of them are on pictures on that stuff. Not one of them being shown that these are the guys that did that too Christianity. And hiding behind that screw.

So that's the things I think about Jordan. How come they never got charged for that? How come they didn't do time? Here we are suffering for the rest of our lives. And then when you talked about what happened like these bodies that they're finding today, they're nobody believed us. We recall Laird, that doesn't happen. People like that don't do that. You know, and that's the truth is coming out slowly, but there's more to it. You know, they're spending be more to it. By the way, there's one of these people, young ladies that were in there that had children from them being raped and molested in their, you know, those are the things that they're resurfaced to. None of that has been brought up and then having never ever to see that child, you know. Those are the things that are still having surface and why they're not doing that,

why they're not working with these women that are hurt so badly. As a child. So you look at the reserves, we all walked around and we got children having children because we don't know the difference from what happened as the result of this. You got out of there when you were about 13. Yep. And you were angry for a long time. Yeah, because I blamed the world after I didn't know who to blame, so I blamed everybody.

Mostly white people. You told me about going back to see your grandparents and recovering some of what you had when you were a kid because you spent a lot of time with them when you were young. The best thing ever happened to me. Jordan was having like great grandparents live when I went home for forever. They were in there and open arms crying. It's so scared because I wasn't sure what they were crying for. But it was crying and happiness that I got to go home and stay home.

So I wasn't allowed to go inside the house. They stopped me at the door. It was the wait. Issa was the wait. So I stood there and they asked me if I still know how to speak our language and they answered them. Please stop, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please We're going to go into the forest. You're going to go learn who you really are, not what they thought you should be. I was really scared. I wasn't sure what was going to happen. So as we were entering into the forest,

my grandpa asked me to take my residence to close up and leave it right there, wherever it comes off. So as we were heading up this creek behind Sam Charlie's house, Seeky's house. She was a creek behind her house and went up towards back on our reserve. There's these four big trees out there in the spot sitting in the middle of these trees. He brought me there and he sat me down and put a blanket on me. It wasn't any blanket, it was his chief blanket. Looked buttons on there, a story that told his story of what he had crests on his treasure box on his blanket. Sorry, I'm very proud to wear that.

on his bank. Sorry, I was very proud to wear that. He was sat there and he gave me a pebble, a feather, and a rattle. I'm sitting there, trying to figure out where are these. And then Greg Brothers says, you can't leave this area at night time, you've got to stay here no matter what. If there's ghosts or things that's curious through the night, you use your brother and your rattle and your pride, what's your brother? You ask your spirit people to come on to read. And you use your rattle to prepare the ground so that the spirit people come and look after their circle where you're at. When you get dry sun, don't leave the circle.

Put that pebble in your mouth. It'll help your mouth stay moist and tell you're done done what you're doing. Tell you how to leave that area and grab your bath and have a drink of water. So I did those things and then after about the fourth day these trees were talking to me. It was amazing that these trees were talking to me in our language and your own. The amazing thing was that when you look at the 12-step book today that they used for treatment centers. They were doing it in a language but in force, not one step but in force to me. And then feeding me a pause of affirmation about who I am. And then nurturing that little boy. At first I couldn't understand what little boy and that little boy was me.

When I got first put in sheet mics. And then. Worked my way up to. Been able to handle what was going on in my life without hurting myself. Watching, watching other people suffer the way they suffer today and knowing that there's just a little bit of comfort that you could find. You start that stink and thinking for all right. Charles, did you tell me that when that was happening to you out in the forest that your great-grandfather had got people to be behind the trees and talked to you? They're standing in the right place. Yeah, but I thought their trees were talking to you. But when I finally got up and

walked out to go walk home, these people were behind me and they looked back and there was these chief standing there behind these trees and they were nodding their head. And that means it's a kid who leaves the circle. Again, then we can go home now. Tell your grandparents what you're learning, how you feel. But when I was walking, I felt like I was on I was walking on cards because a lot of that pain and pressure that was inside me felt like some of it disappeared through them, through the positive affirmation. And then what were they telling you? What were they telling you? Why did it help?

Because they brought me to my childhood, they made me envision me myself standing there, letting me hugged and nurtured and looked after where I should have been. And you were speaking in our language in that form. When you speak in our language, it's different it's like it means more than just the sentence itself it means more than that like when you're sitting there listening to them tell you these good things about yourself you start to look at what they're saying, and what the other guy's saying,

and you go, the weather's like this. It's nice out. The smells and the forest. Who you are. What's your name if you? All of that gave me strength for some reason, and then they started talking about

who I should be today, what you should be learning, what you should do to make you feel more comfortable with life. And to meditate to the spirit people about strengths and be able to learn from what it is that you're doing here, why are you here? And why I was there was to let go of this pain that I'm carrying still today, but to be able to live through it with I've hurting myself for others. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Selling or providing an online service can be a hassle if you think about it in terms of actually physically moving and setting up shop. But pretty enticing if you do it with Shopify. It can be a bit scary, but that's part of the beauty. Shopify looks great and makes it easy. Their 24-7 support team doesn't

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for the price of three. Just go to Babel.com and use promo code Peterson. That's B-A-B-B-E-L.com code Peterson. Babble language for life Charles, can you talk more about what happened to you in the residential school? I know these are terrible things to talk about but people need to know. Is she a millisecond? Yep. Water's healing. Before we did this before I knew we were going to sit down and do this, I was meditating to my grandparents, but it gave them me strength here, up in Williams Lake. My family and my wife and my children are from here. So I wanted them to learn the shoes for a way besides my own.

So I wanted to, I like to say that sugar cane tribe for allowing me to be here doing this, because I'm working on some things for them about that. Residents of school that they had here in some history that they taught me here, what I could put on our panel for them. First of all, I think, if you could think of all the abuses you can say in English or whatever, it happened in here. It really happened. And it hit it so well that people didn't even know it was going on right next door to them. I was five and a half years old when I got raped by a nun and then I got raped by a preacher the next day.

So the... They said, shut me down. I didn't want to be around that. I didn't want to be hurt like that. I didn't want to live like that. So they didn't really agree and sing by that or what they're doing. They're being very mean every which way. think of. And they were telling us Bible study time and you never seen a Bible. So I really should have don't know what's in that Bible because I don't care about it.

It probably wouldn't have burned more about it if they actually showed us what it was that we were supposed to learn. But you get brought down to the boiler room and here we just break you and bless you and make you do things to them. If you're doing a bite by their rules, you're going to either get really hurt or you're going to be a memory. There's another kid you get gets scared of that stuff because you don't know there's nobody there to help you.

There's no parents to stop them from what they're doing. There's nobody there. Not even another child could talk because they would just get hurt with you. I can talk about today because it's not happening no more and I don't allow that kind of pain on anybody, not even my worst enemy. I still, when they found out about these grieves, I started having bad night resolver again. I started sweating really bad, my palms. Now I wake up mad because of what I was dreaming about. Hey Charles, do you remember when we talked about your dreams a few years ago and you're a little kid in your dreams? You told me you hadn't looked in the mirror for 40 years that you wouldn't look at the mirror. 20 years, I wouldn't see myself in my face or anything,

because I was ashamed of myself. You practice looking in the mirror to see how old you were and your dreams started to update. I've told you that time, I was a three years ago ago four years ago. I was living in Surrey And I told you that I was a fool. I told you that you know Jordan. I don't shave the king of mirror I don't look at myself for the mirror and I've very combed my hair I don't I don't even know what my face looks like.

And then it was funny that when I seen myself on Patricia's camera, that's me. And I realized when I was looking at the mirror and screaming with a face, I felt to my knees, and thank you because you were okay in. I mean, a big something. I could barely say I was okay without letting you know I was crying. I was crying because I missed out in 20 years of watching my fish and my hair and my body get older. I missed out and looking at myself and because of that, because of my shame of myself, of what happened to me, my grandparents. They're the ones, my great grandparents. they're the ones my great grandparents, they're the ones that were teachers at that time so I thought

When my great grandma, they went to the hospital when she had an injury on her left leg on her top of her foot She was a diabetic, she had a really hard time getting in and they wanted to amputate her foot that time. And she told us that in our culture when a person loses a limb or a finger or whatever in this world that you've done something so bad that you got to fix it in the next world next world. Next time. So there's no way you're taking my foot off.

So told the doctor just to leave, call my family. So she called me in, told me what she was doing in there, sitting there, I told me what she was doing in there sitting there, begging her not to do that. Because we are still needed to learn more from her. This is your moving. What's moving that moving? Well, this is the two of me. I have five members up here, a house right now packing you and your family out. I mean, you're moving in the last spare you're moving to Camerurban.

I don't want you to see me the way you're going to square I'm going to be. I want you to remember me. Who I am and what I'm now not when I get sick. And I'm begging her not to do that because we still needed her and I still needed more knowledge from her Which is that no son I'm tired can't be here no more So the last fairy came around and I was, I was on the fairy. I wonder what the heck I'm doing, why am I leaving? That was what she asked of me to do, so I left.

And then when I came back, but if you're in, I was, I was, I don't know. I became a drunk, because everybody passed away. You see, like, you see, like, everybody that I got close to or really, really close to and loved very much, you seemed to pass the wheel. So I started, Jesus, my, my jinx every time someone, they get close to either get sick and die or something happened. That. So for the longest time after my great grandmother died, I wouldn't take anybody as a friend for all that post because of those things. All right, and that's how I looked for all of a sudden.

Closet drank and then started drinking on the street with the street people for a few years. And then I sobered up because of my great grandfather and he said that we have to come home and learn who we are. How old were you then Charles? What's that? How old were you then? 17. 17. 17, 17, and still under 18, 17, 18 is old.

And then that's a lot of our, that they passed away. Sure, I was having our time with that, because I had nowhere to go and sit and talk to anybody, no more and no more elders to learn from. Sorry, I felt very well. Because I closed myself in and didn't want to, I didn't want to look for a new grandpa, a new grandmother to teach me. I just, I was too hurt.

So I stuck to myself for a while. I was too hurt, so I stuck to my software a while. And then, the first time I walked into a same room in the house after a few years and met up with Bull Dick and Wayne Alfred and those guys. So he woke up that curvy guy inside me. And since that time, I just, they're looking for it and how it'll look better. I feel better for myself. And looking for people that are positive, so I could inhale some of that positivity and

learn what it feels like. Let's talk about your carving. You said that when you met Bodic and he was a famous carver and the people that he was with, that woke something up inside of you and that was associated with what you'd learned from your great grandparents when you were a kid. They were artists, they were all curvish. My great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, and my dad, they were all curvish and go... you know, professional dancers, they were called professional dancers. And I've seen it, and I wanted that. I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to be like my grandfather. So I was when I got to hang out with the elder carbers, it felt like I was sitting with them.

And then when I was sitting at his elders, learning how to carve, and then started sitting with bull and weighing the people out of grubbless, and amongst others, another of the elder cars like Doug Kramer and Bruce Ophard, and watching how they create these beautiful things and make it look really easy to start. Jesus, I don't want to be that guy one day. I want to do that. So I started carbon more and more and more and then started missing out on my job that I used to have. I used to be a logger and a fisherman and I. and the fishermen. I just recently sold my boat because I like carbon more than I would fishing. So, um, and the thing about the carbon lifestyles, I'm still sitting here and waiting for it to take by myself, carbon, always by myself, but I don't feel like I'm by myself. Sometimes I feel

sometimes I get scared to tell the story that a lot of the stuff that I do come from my dreams in my dreams, my great grandfather and my dad come to my dreams and great grandfather and my dad come to my dream, Jane. They correct me and my car ranger, if I get stuck or there's something that I think is wrong, go remind me how to fix it. When you told me to that, like I was really struck by your carvings, but when I saw that photo album and I've got a lot of them now and while that whole project really exploded, we could talk about that later. But you told me that very often in your dreams, you dream in the images that you're carving, that those animals and those figures and people, those spirits as well, that you carve, they're

there in your dreams, and you can see them. Talk to me, yeah. Let's say for instance I'm sitting near and I'm working on a bear and raven or an eagle. I'm always start from the bottom up, bottom up my pole or bottom of my black and I'll work my way up to the top. Storyer that I always start with at the bottom and work my way out. Sometimes when I'm sitting near anywhere dreams these bear come to life jump out of the plaque jump out of the wood and they're there right in front of me and the designs that are on and are still on it's just weird how they're speaking our language not English to speak speaking or language. It makes me feel good that I could practice my language without getting the whipper strapped.

I guess that's why that's there. Yeah, dreams are really helping out on both the streams that I get from my great grandparents and my dad. I was looking forward to it at the next night because it's always giving me something that I want to learn, you know, teaching me from it. And sometimes it gets scary because some of these big animals that come to life, I know

they're like, like in my dream, like hurt me or eat me or because they're very huge and while women's huge, you know, these things are massive, like in my dreams, they're real, like you know what I mean? Like the story that your tale is that, it's not the carving itself, it's the story that is given to us for that and the legends and how it stands and years and saying that's what brings the strength of that air. Because it's greater than what it actually looks like when you're using your dream. He's bigger as a host, he's bigger than the car, right?

You know what I mean? That's how big the grizzly bears are in your dream, in my dream. And the wild woman sees tall as a tree, and that means she's massive, but big tall people, and then you got the book, wasn't it? They're so tiny that they're under three feet feet tall and it could

disappear just like that. Those are those come on my dreams and when that happens I always wake up where I'll try to wake up right away and sketch it before I forget it. If I do forget it then the reason why I don't forget my dreams is because as soon as I wake up back to talk about it, I think you're not going to let it until I get it. Now, how do you understand the relationship between your art and your dreams and your ability to stop drinking and your willingness and wish to straighten out your life? And you haven't had a drink for how long now? I went drink for 31 years.

I think, I think the reason why I quit drinking and drugging was because it didn't go hand in hand with what I was doing with art and culture. It wasn't there. It didn't have those feelings that you have when you're sitting around or watching the dance go on or the singing. It means more to me when I'm in control. It feels like it's my church. It's put it down. Yeah, I think that's how I want to pull it. It feels like I'm in my church when I'm doing these things.

It feels like when they're singing and the drums are going in. And there's from young kids to our elders. And when our elders walk into the ceremony, how? whether they're on a wheelchair, they got a cane, that just gets put down and it's like there's no cane in that outer because of that singing and drumming it just... Okay, this is how my great grandfather told me one time is that, you draw the energy from your guests and then when you're dancing you give it back So that energy is going around like this so them through your guests and then on the floor to the dance and then back to the guests back to you back to there like that to the energy of positive feeling good feeling

Just goes around and around and when you leave You leave feeling like that. Like you're that dancer, you're that singer, you're all but by witnessing that. And I think you witnessed some of those feelings that we've done at your house and plus that ceremony of placing back in Corupac, where I had a pilot. And that was like, I was in my glory when those things go on. It just feels really good. None of that child who were paying surfaces

when I mean that zone. One of the things I found really fascinating about the carvings was the relationship between them and your dreams. That was extremely interesting, but also the fact that these figures that you create are associated in your tradition with songs and with dances, and that your families have songs and dances that are specific to them, and carvings that are passed down that are specific to them, it's very remarkable. And so maybe you could talk a little bit about that if you would. Geez, that kind of art goes back generations after generations, but we're always told when you first

get put into a dance or a mask and your name is you're not the owner of it, you're just a carrier of it, you're carrying it for your chief, your family, your treasure box. So when you put all of that in one box, like the treasure box, you start to look in there and see what your family, how it started, where it created from? Why is it wrong to, why don't we use these ones? In the Grand Brothers, I would say, when you learn who your son does no end to learning. So when you're doing cultural work, there's, or, or being a native, and doing cultural things the way we do to stay, be a survivor or a hunter, fisherman, or just to being a father,

those teachings are inside those carvings. And when I dream about those things, there's always something like, like for instance, Jordan, when we were talking about your holes in your house there, and you know, when you were talking about your bear, so in mind, dream that bear is holding you and letting you know that you're the you're the chief of your house, you're the speaker, you're family, you're that man, you're the teacher. And then when the eagle, if your wife won't let eagle change to the house, came to the house. So it was your wife's story and so we put pretty that eagle and her and your son and daughter into that for wrapping around them wrapped in son daughter wrapped around your mother. Because that's what you know Charles Charles. My friends used to call my dad Wally Bear.

And so that's interesting and then I didn't realize until after you've made those poles for me that are up on the third floor, that, and I didn't know this, I should have, my middle name, Barant, is from my great grandfather, and it's derived from the word for bear. Yeah, wow. Yeah, good one. Yeah.

And then the reason how things come together and it fits the story both sides like mine and yours. Yes, it is amazing how things come together in stories at times. There's no doubt about that. Right, okay. So that that story was already yours. I just put it in that form. That same love that was her to floor. Yeah, and seeing with any wife that was her equal story so that I just made it what I how I heard it. Right in how I've seen it in my dream. And in a lot of times, my dreams gave me my own answers to how I want to carve or draw something and then I'll show my client, I guess often clients that say, have a look at this, this just came from a dream and my dream told me this. So some most of the time, oh, we should go with your dream.

Because it means something, there's a story that comes with that carving or that dream and it ballers that carving. And I said like this sitting ponder and how the story is going to come to life when I'm carving as I'm carving I can see it coming to life. But I can't see it when I'm just looking at this block of wood or this blog But once it starts forming into a totem pole or carbon mask Then I start to see that story that's coming from that That's when it comes to life is when I start to curb it actually So I can't tell you that sometimes the full story of Tom actually finished drawing or carving what it is.

Because as I'm doing that, I remember stuff in my dream, what they're saying to me and how I should say it in English. So when you came out to Toronto, we started to talk about my third floor. Tammy and I had kind of had this weird dream of putting a log cabin on the top of her little house in Toronto. And, you know, it's an absurd thing in some sense, but that's really what happened because the whole inside of that now is wood from my great-grandfather's barn. And it's full of your carvings. I think there's 30 of them up there. A lot of them from the potlatch that you hosted

in on Vancouver Island, and that we had the privilege of attending, which was an amazing thing, a completely amazing thing. And when you came out here, we won't mention who he was. But I introduced you to a good friend of mine, and he commissioned a lot of work for me, including that huge totem pole. And so maybe you could tell the story about carving that,

that 50 foot totem pole. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, 54. 54 feet. Yeah, and it just before speaking with the horns on stuff. It started off with when we're first brought me to Trondor and then we were talking about Sheemi and his name is also Charles. Another rest. It passed away on a train introduction. Anyway, when you guys are calling that story, at the dining table there, and then you are listening to the story there,

you're just, how do they know me already? I thought you guys were already talking about it. We could be brought up, they brought up Charles's name a few times and that's Shemys name and that's my name says that you guys were already talking about me. So I thought, I don't even have to say nothing you guys already know. But then you said, oh Charles has a similar story to shimmy's. I was looking at you and I was looking at you know and it just, and I said just give me a minute. I need to go outside and I seen there's trees out there right close to the house we were at there and we were having lunch that time. So I went over those trees right away and went out there and asked for my grandparents to come,

give me strength to come and talk about this over here, will we're trying to, and then it felt that big breeze come through and I, oh, yeah, they're here. And then I went back in and then we started talking about that day, about my residential school. I just sort of gave it to you guys in a short form that time. I think you danced then too Remember that It wasn't long no

Striking, you know, I was really and I was really amazed to watch you dance because you fell you fell into it in In so in such a deep manner that it was immediately entrancing. It makes a feel like we had square love, the cultural dance, the way we dance and how we use our masks and what it is that I carry from my family today. It's the Hamas, right? And that's a very important dance that our chief carries and he puts on his son to become the next chief up and coming chief. And I was really,

really thankful that I'm grateful and honored to be asked to be at Hamlet in our pilot site we had with you guys there in 2016, I think was 2015. 16th English or 15th. That was from the Joseph side of the family and I was very My great grandfather Billy Joseph chief and chip And my auntie uncle asked if I could Be that dancer that day because we wanted to put it on my son and then put it on There's there son because it belonged in that side of this family, but the family said we want it on my son and then put it on. Oh, there's there's son because it belonged in that side of this family, but the family said we wanted on you. I mean, I said I got so on back by that because I thought they would point at my son. But they

said no, we wanted on you first. So you could put it on him. Later it on the road. Oh, the leader is on the road. Oh! But it bronched your sun. Just know we wanted on you. My sun can't dance. My sun's not ready for culture. So I stood up for the... That's probably the problem.

The first time I ever really started crying, hugging people was around that time and I still do that till you know. I'm always sorry. I'm not a hugging guy. I didn't like it. Yeah, no wonder. Anyways, but at that time I was honored to be that guy and then when I started dancing with Bull Diccon, Wayne Offert family and different ceremonies up in our hometown like there's must have been invited to about maybe 50 different pauses in my lifetime. So, yeah, so when I was, you know, when I get into regalia and become my sort of,

I transform, I feel really good. I got no arthritis, I got no pain. I'm really happy. My heart just jumps for joy when I'm doing cultural work. Makes you feel really good. Makes you let go of all that stuff, right? You know, yeah, it puts you in a different place. It's partly why I like having that art around.

Well, and good art period because it has that capability to that beauty and that depth to take you somewhere better. Yeah, yeah. This part, now this poll, you carved some Christian religious figures into that poll. Okay, I'll tell you a certain story starting from the bottom of the poll. The bottom of the poll is the owners of the pool and the family. I'm still not allowed to use names because of the media and stuff. So by any way, then on after that is there, it's a cedar rope carved like a cedar rope underneath the bottom of the woman's legs.

And that cedar rope was to for a six year, wherever that pole goes, I feel. Because us as a clock, clock, clock people were used cedar bark for dancing and for ceremony and for healing. So that's why I put that there. And then there's a woman on top of that zero open. She's kneeling down and she has her arm and underneath the arm she's got a boy and a girl. And that's welcoming the kids from residential school. And then above that, it's a whale. And on the whale, it has faces on that whale.

And the faces represent the children that got adopted out and never got to come home and be themselves. And why it's on the well is because that well goes around the world and comes back to where it belongs. I thought that was feeding that the children did that when somewhere and then came back and then feel like they belonged. So I put that on the well. And then after the well, I made a raven and a raven in our scripture. You know, they're very smart, Ravens.

They like to play too. So I thought what would be fitting on it, Raven was I'd put a preacher in a nun on the wings. And then I put a cross down the middle of that raven's chest. And we used to raven with because of all these Christianity people tricked our people and taken our elders first. And it didn't work. So they put the elders back and took the children away and put us in these residential schools, but they first tried to do that with elders, and then they put us back, put them back because they didn't,

they were kids were still learning. So they put the elders back and took the kids away. That's when they found there was more effective. So you know, it's that thing about when your life changes over and over. Like when I first met you guys, I want to live like that. And I want to feel like that. So I look for people like that now. I look for positive people. I feel good about themselves.

And I'm not trying to brag or anything, but it's good to feel like that. It makes me feel good that when I'm like that, I can curb happy master. I feel good. I'm not frustrated inside or hurt inside where my mask is going to feel like that, right? Where my car meet. So when I do tone pulls, I want to feel like that. And when I'm not feeling good about things, I won't go to that pole that next day or something, but I'm feeling down

that oh, there's something sad or our death's going on. I won't go around my art and tell I feel better. And I don't know why I do that. It's just something out of respect for the spirit people, out of respect for the teachers that taught me the art. Guess that's bringing, learning how to deal with respect in that way.

God, learning what to respect too. With alcoholism, there's a scientific literature on alcohol abuse, and one of the most effective treatments for alcohol abuse is spiritual transformation. It's the only, it's the only treatment, so to speak, for alcoholism that's really being validated. And so that's that's really quite something. And you know, you said that you found something that was more important, fundamentally. I mean, there's more to it than that, but that's to be taken seriously. You know, I quit drinking when I was about 28, and the reason I quit was because I was writing. Well, there was a couple of reasons I was having kids and I wasn't going to drink when I had little kids. That just wasn't a good idea.

And, you know, the only time I was doing things that I would be ashamed of the next day or a week later, something it was always if I was drinking. And so I thought, well, maybe I'd want to do things I'm ashamed of anymore. But also because I was writing, and I was writing about mythology and stories and all of that, it was very hard work and very emotionally demanding, but I couldn't do it well if I was hung over. And so I thought, well, which do I want to be? Do I want to write this book or do I want to be hungover?

And so I stopped. And I stopped for 30 years. I guess I drank a little bit again when I was in my early 50s. But I quit again after that because I found that even though about 25 years had gone by, if I drank again, I usually drank too much. And then I was likely to do something stupid. And I thought,, I usually drank too much. And then I, you know, was likely to do something stupid. And I thought, well, no, it's just not worth it at all.

It's not worth it at all. Yeah, yeah, but after you. Yeah, yeah. No, I understand. And so how many people worked with you on that, on those, those big polls that you produced? I mean, you produced some eight footers for me eight and 10 feet I guess. The welcome figure must be nine feet about. When I worked on your stuff, Jordan, there was just the family, me, Usana, James, and Frankie. When I worked on that big 54 foot project, there was Usana and James, Frankie and myself, my brother Leonard, my brother Gordon, my late nephew Johnny and my nephew Mike and Orbit, Leonard Jr. And it's it, it's it's it was like, like I've always done, I've always family effort, right? I make sure to keep my family involved

and so they keep in touch with culture. And then when we had that ceremony, a lot of my family members didn't make it, but I wonder ones that did make it, they would never introduce to the culture because they lived in Vancouver older all their lives are urbanized. So when they got to come home, they were just a big teaching to them too, right?

Cause they were never, never been involved in it. So it was good to see that it works. Was it good for them to do the carving? Oh, Jesus, you're citizen. How they felt when it got stood up. They were so proud of being part of that. You know what I mean? And I was proud to see that how happy they looked when

they've seen the creation that we did together as a family. Stood up somewhere where we're never going to probably go again, you know? Who knows? Yeah, that was it. And so what do you think about it being in Montreal and the busiest street there, pretty much sharebrooks a major street?

I mean, it's one of the main streets of Montreal. It's beautiful street and it's in front of the museum of Fine Art, which is really something, because that's definitely one of the finest museums in Canada. It doesn't look like it's going anywhere soon. No. Well, I mentioned to them that, you know, when they you guys should return this pool and get your own.

But, and I tried to approach them with another idea as that as I like to take a log there to the Mohawkawk people, a raw log, and then work with the Mohawk artist and see what we can come up with. And that's one of the ideas I had, just to... Are you having Moh the court? The administration? Certain reconciliation with another tribe.

I don't know if I want to call it that. I think it's just to rekindle what our elders did before us. And get go back to being related in all the nations across Canada, I guess. So when you approached the museum with that idea, what happened? Because that's a great idea. Do you have Mohawk carvers that are interested?

I know of a couple that were, and then we were gonna first get that idea on a table then I was gonna bring it to the Mohawk chiefs that I didn't invite it to the poll reason and then I was going to bring it to the mohawk chiefs that I didn't invite it to, they're pull-reason, and then see what would become of it. Yeah, so I haven't heard nothing back from that yet, but one good thing that came out of that since that time, though, is they had this thing that they were talking about, the Toad and Pole, inside the museum, and then they had people make footprints, and what they saw about the story of the

Pole, and then they leave their footprint behind. I think that's one of the things that they did there, and then, when there's 30s of last month, they weren't a national with the story of the pool. Well, they've got any feedback on my site and stuff about it yet, but soon I guess. So, can I ask you a political question or two? Yeah, why not? Well, you know, Canada is hypothetically engaging in this soul-searching process, this reconciliation process. And I'm kind of curious about, I mean, there's parts of it that I really not very, I don't feel good about. Like, for example, now, before most ceremonies, before most public events in Eastern Canada, there is a statement about

the land that this, the people this land once belonged to it. I don't like that because it seems hypocritical to me and not real. I think it's showy and false. Well that might just be me me but I'm pretty curious about you're looking at this from well from a completely different perspective than me and like what do you think about this reconciliation effort and has it been helpful to you and to people you know and is it real and okay Jordan I need to ask you something to just be on my mind for a while and I wanted to ask you that quite well ago, but what does that mean reconciliation with this that,

in my mind, that means two parties that are, are two parties that are saying they did something wrong and Trying to fix it That's that's what why such what reconciliation means, but that's why I don't agree with it Because we're not the ones in the fault. They're there So it's not gonna tell you a story Charles, okay, I want to tell you a story, Charles, okay? Great. I want to tell you a story. This is a story that a friend of mine who committed suicide wrote. He lived up in high-level, I think it was high-level in Alberta, and there were a lot

of native kids there. He was probably around 10 or so, and he used to get beat up fairly regularly and was often by the native kids and he wouldn't fight back and the reason he wouldn't fight back was because he felt guilty and that guilt you know that guilt about I don't know it's the horrible hand of history I suppose Charles that guilt like that eventually ate him up and killed him. Now, he had other problems, but... So, where did his guilt come from?

Well, he felt that he was an interloper and he was an occupier and he didn't have the right to fight back, so he wouldn't fight back. And you know, then he decided when he was a teenager, that anything he did that was sort of masculine and achievement oriented and ambitious was wrong because it was associated with all this historical cruelty. And so he just stopped himself from doing anything and it killed him. It's not that uncommon. And I've been thinking about this a lot. You look into the history of mankind and it's pretty damn bleak, you know.

There's a lot of horror in the past. Bloodshed, a lot of warfare, a lot of cruelty, a lot of benevolence, and we all have to contend with that. And like for me, if you asked about reconciliation, for me, it's getting to know you. You know, I had some native friends when I grew up. It was hard. There was a big gap. Yeah.

You know, I'll tell you a story. I'll remember this, man. So I had this friend, often on friend. He was a native guy. His name was Dennis Helle. I think Dennis is still alive. And we kind of had a friendship in grade six. And he was a big rough kid.

And I was a bit afraid of him. But he was a good guy, good looking kid, and he was smart. But, and we were trying to have a friendship, and I had invited him to go to the movie with me that night, and then we were sitting in class, and my dad was teaching the class, and Dennis was chewing gum, and my dad said, Dennis, stop chewing that gum. You sound like a cow, and I said, Dennis the cow, ha, ha, ha, ha. And then he looked at me, and he, like, and he meant, you're dead after school.

And so I was terrified the whole damn day, and after school, I zipped out by where the bikes were, and Dennis came after me, and I was sort of running around the bikes and trying to stay away from them, and I sort of hid behind this, I don't know what it was, there was some structure there,

and he was on the other side of it, and I said, Dennis, you know, we could stop fighting. I'd still like to go to the movie with you tonight, and he broke into tears and ran home. Yeah. So reconciliation, that's a hard thing, eh? Yeah. And maybe that's kind of what you and I are doing.

I think so. But what I wanted to know. It's not easy, you know, because there's a lot of bad blood and there's a lot of horror and none of us really know how to do it. You know, we come from very different places and we don't know how to make that work. It's not a simple thing. Or why it happened, you know,

why were we so separated? And then the greatest thing is knowledge together. Not just that something isn't it and they're told and pulls in Montreal and not something to. Not just friends with family. Yeah. That's what I mean about the greatest thing for me is how we reconnect is right in how you and I met and why. Now I think a lot of this sort of thing has to be done at the individual level, you know.

And then what I love about it is that we're still connected, we're still growing. Yeah, we're doing our best man. Yeah, and I love that. It makes me feel good that I'm part of that. Yeah, me too. It's really been something, Charles. It's all these things that we've been through.

It was hard. I've been sick for about three years now, and I haven't talked to you much. Didn't have the stamina for it. I was pretty isolated myself from pretty much everybody except my immediate family. But we'd be known some great adventures you and me. That potlatch was really something. That ceremony, you know, when you and your guys came and your wife too, your whole family came to my house to do the ceremony to open the third floor That was the same day So that was when I was inducted into your family

And you know people have made fun of that and said that I was lying and well, it's not a lie and And that was the same day that I was being accused of being a bigot and the racist at the university It was the same goddamn day the same day the debate the, there was a big debate there when everything blew up around me. So I went from this debate where I was basically being accused of being a racist and a big it to the ceremony in my house where I was inducted into your family. It was a pretty damn weird day. I can tell you that. Okay, one, we've got to change that word. Adopted, when we had,

I chose our family, we had a meeting, and we had a meeting with all of my Joseph Brownian, some heritator chiefs, both adopted in you and your family, into our family in the ceremony house. And then the chiefs had asked you me what was the reason for doing that. And I explained to him, how we've met and how long I've been friends with you and your right-footed kids.

And then the importance of hanging on to that friendship and the importance of what I was not just sharing with you, but also learning from you and your family. And what it was was that I really was yawning for was that living in a happy positive way that you guys lived in and I wanted some of that hungry for it. So I wanted to inhale all I could for me guys and learn from it. And it makes me feel really good to be part of that because I would have thought that I would understand I was feeling but I do. I would understand I was feeling but I do. And it's an awesome feeling to have, it's been able to have positiveness in your feelings, even if it's just for a moment.

Yeah, no. Charles, I'm going to say goodbye for today. Hey, Jordan, it's been awesome talking to you. It's good to see you, bro, and you keep up with good work. Hey, I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce in your dreams for my new house. you