Ahnishinahbayeshshikaywin: a worldview practised by the Oji-Cree of Lac Seul, Ontario (Seminar)

Archaeologist Alicia Colson and GP and mental health researcher Sophie Redlin will be joined by a panel of Oji-Cree anthropologists, scholars and artists (via ZOOM) including George Kenny, Michael Auksi, Mary McPherson, Adar Charlton, John Bonnett and Susannah Cass.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wxu7kJIjjk

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Good evening everybody joining us on Zoom. Good evening, especially to everybody in North America.

So, this is a really special occasion for the radical anthropology group. We're a community based class. We've been running in Camden North London in England for 40 years, free and open access to everybody and this is tonight going to be talking about a community-based research project and collaboration with speakers and a panel who are rooted in the Oji-Cree community of Lac Seul Nation and in Ontario and though I believe that people are based across North America, British Columbia, Las Vegas and George Kenny. I hope George is there and ready to chip in.

I'm going to hand over straightaway to the London end of the collaboration, which is Alicia Colson here the archaeologist and Sophie Redlin who is here, and we'll hope you joined by Susanna who is based in Cambridge.

So, just to introduce our team, this project all started when Alicia began working with George George Kenney and his teaching circles that was about back in March 2021 and that group that teaching Circle includes and Doctor add our Charlton Michael Alski, Mary McPherson, myself and John Bonnie, Alicia, obviously and Dr. Sophie Redlin, so we're quite a multidisciplinary team.

Mike is the sort of facilitator and local negotiator with the knowledge keepers of the Lac Seul First Nation Community as he's a he's a bear clan member and a band member of The Lac Seul First Nation and he's studying indigenous ice hockey histories and Community community-based participatory Sport and wellness programming.

George from whom this all really originated is a knowledge keeper the Lac Seul First Nation and he's given us the opportunity to capture the lived experiences of the site or and Outsider and inside a perspective and he's learned obviously in English and Odie Creek and has been very kind to share this lifetime of knowledge of blacks all the area the First Nation the topography protocol language everything with us and Mary contributes and legal indigenous law information.

She's also practicing artist and a member of the coaching First Nation and in Northwestern, Ontario and John is a Canadian researcher at Brock University and he specializes in 3D modeling photo grammatory and those sort of applications devoted to being able to reconstruct Heritage in a digital area and I'm an ecologist by background PhD in agricultural technology in a European context and also have an interest in Environmental Education and through a European perspective with outdoor education with young people trying to see that from from other perspectives as well and Sophie Sophie Redlin is an expedition medic and she's also studying currently a master's in medical anthropology and with an element specializing in film as well and Community communicating through that very different media of film in a medical and anthropological context and Alicia is one of the Explorers Club 50 top 50 of the year and a ecologist. Oh, sorry archaeologist and ethno historian as well. So we brought together this very interesting collection of people and we're hoping to visit the Lac Seul fascination in June 2023 that time of year picked for the season where the the birch bark is rising and Breeze flowering and that time of year when Birchbox Scrolls canoes those kinds of items are traditionally manufactured but they better cooler temperatures and apparently also were promised slightly fewer flies in the in the area as well and you know, is she going so you want to go George? And I think Dad I think you just need to unmute there if you can just click that unmute if you can there.

Okay, can you hear me now? Loud and clear awesome. Okay.

So we're looking at initiative is today when? and people believe in some it's similar or is like animism, which is another worldview.

out in the wide world The community of loxol is Richard cultural knowledge resources while race monomen is the native way of saying it and of course wood from the forest.

Our areas don't per belief in the number of medicine people.

Shamans men and women these medicine people were considered very powerful by other groups and communities.

Our medicine people were feared by the people in the North.

The Salman had many festivals to Feast of the dead and the shaking tempt.

Okay.

Okay and I believe there's a two worldview too abuse that exist.

from The Outsider and from The Insider View and Outsiders are those people who are not like our people the missionabic the edible the eggs, but did somebody else want to jump in here? They're like the eggs you get that like a buffet, huh? Well, they're good. That sounds good. Yeah, so you salt and peppermintics. He just makes I think George you carry on hold. Okay, let me carry on. Oh, yes and the world the national Ave people believe exists and it's in parallel with the physical world the everyday reality and of our lives and now on at some point I will be talking about this.

This photographic you can see it and later on in this presentation.

I'll be able to explain how initiative viewed their non-physical spiritual world. And I'm gonna be well or an association with her physical world their everyday.

world and Earth and the physical announcer and I should not be people are able to bring the non-physical world and understanding of it into the real world.

through dreams and visions I think somewhere in our presentation.

There's a space.

The George we've got the you remember the shaman you've got done. It talks about animism from we had a problem with the slides. So now you've got to the one the next one where it talks about the concept of spirit soul and ghosts.

Do you remember you're very powerful image where you we had to Mike did a version of it? Okay, well and really a broth painting Sage we're studying with our group here in Canada.

This is an image of a shaman and was painted with with a substance called red ocher and I believe it was done.

Oh, well, it was a guided by the shaman ammo one allenant, and he commissioned My Father John Kennedy and another Apprentice called the Anderson Cape to go to red root Lake from loxo by Water by canoe and the camp there and had their Vision quests and when they finished a vision cost they painted what they saw in their dream when they were very in their vision and my father told me that bookie and Anderson dreamed of a shaman like their teacher.

I'm one and so I think that I don't know.

Okay, I'll leave this all means but this should I be people believed that each of us each individual human being consists of a spirit a soul and then also the form of a ghost in a mission obvious fear known as the money to and the soul is the dark and the Roses Chair by we have these terms written somewhere in our presentation.

But anyway, so when when the human being passes on or dies their Soul and Spirit leave their physical body and travels up to the sky world.

Which which is a physical world, but also believe exists in the mind of the nishinaabe people. They believe it's their therefore it is there although we don't necessarily see it with your eyes.

unmute and this is just a quick map to kind of situate where we're talking about. So George has just introduced nishinaabe sgawin, which is the kind of beliefs belief system.

That we're talking about and this is the location. So the Red Dot, this is Canada. The Great Lakes are there and you can see Lac Seul First Nation in Northwestern Ontario right there.

Okay, this is the left school was first met by Third Trader from the Northwest company in 1785 and it's pointed up here and it's around Circle but it's not present shape because it was subsequently flooded and became on the wolf system and how hydroelectric power program run by Canada. This month was the first map in the outside perspective. And if you look at Birth, she's in French Dutch and English on the French one, it will say Land of the bear which is the big plan is the biggest plan here this luck, which is on the Library of Congress doesn't have that information. So it's very interesting when you see the different ones the different types of information in there. So that's always right here.

We also just wanted to introduce that the language as you can tell already. Some of it is peppered throughout the talk. As George has been able to share it with us and the language is anishinaabe Moen or also known as ojukri and it's part of the Algonquin language groups and the Algonquin speaking people. So this this map kind of maps out the language groups a little bit, but the language really migrated for their East and kind of expanded Okay, so there's a mixture of interrelated languages of Ojibwe kri, and a few Sue in the area as well and kind of conflicts as lots of that migration West happens as well.

Okay. This is a quick sort of synopsis of the history. Now. The reason being is when outside is in here, we always tend to think cannons having a long history. But however the very short history in outside of history in comparison to the indigenous history. So just a quick sort of overview and it's a flash in any questions ask me later. So in the English and the French were argument very settlements, which is why we have roommates land which is why you see in this first month you see France in England and they are very plain and 1760. So it's kind of flame over a good portion of the land here and the French were elsewhere and just couldn't be sold to Spanish.

So this way you see shape of Canada changing walking into what you might know today.

So here you have the development of local Northwest Territory and Greenland items are here. There's Newton and gradually this is where in the this period they have just the creation of the 49th parallels the international boundary between what we know now as us and what we know as Canada and this is an argument. They're very three disputes on the international boundary line walking around with one overview Brunswick and one of Washington and Southern Columbia.

so so you can see gradually the places change walking into what we now know is the province it and So eventually you get to 9:49 you will by then. It's a country's running itself. It's already separated from the UK. And here we get to settled accountants is what you know, this and number treaties.

Yeah, so we wanted to show just the the kind of juxtaposition. Obviously the fluidity of these Colonial boundaries and borders as they were established all the way changes being made till 2001 and underneath it is the second map which is a map of the numbered treaties. There are also treaties in Eastern Canada that aren't shown on this map and a few more in western Canada, but there's also a lot of unceded territory in on the west coast as well. But basically just to show that the treaties are the basis for Colonial occupation and settler occupation of of Canada, but they're very different than the colonial settler borders and boundaries that were we're set over top of that and that's where we get kind of different layers of what the land is and how it's divided and division. So the treaties themselves were the agreements with indigenous Nations so that England could ship settlers here and that's why people Like me are in Canada today and yet there's kind of this juxtaposition between all of the types of boundaries and divisions of land and that continues I think into the next map. This is a map of anishinaabe territory. So this is the indigenous division of the land and you can see it's a large chunk of land going all the way into the states as well. So that 49th parallel we see as a colonial boundary as well and not how the land is divided by the indigenous Nations there and then further on in the next slide we can get there.

This shows similarly not just anishinaabe territory itself, but all of the individual communities that are now also reserves but really showing the diversity and the distinctness of each of these individual communities. We're also talking about one indigenous nation and one indigenous language group the initial day, there's tons all across Canada, but then even the distinctness in individual communities as well and to recognize the diversity in these nations in their belief systems and cultures and ways of living and not just as a homogeneous community of all Canadian indigenous people, so to show just the diversity there.

Okay, so we've got two views of black soul what it is You can see the one looking at traditional map where it's a Google map where I just annotated the edge of the First Nation and then you have what you're looking for classic Maps photograph of the area off and for example, so this is used for fish plane and just very different and so you can see you have different perceptions depending on who you are.

So this is where you can see that the Lac Seul is one of many First Nations in Northwest Monterey. So it's actually over.

here so you see very different.

Okay, this is the Forum Forest Susanna.

Yeah, so we're looking at this sort of area and referred to as the Boreal forest.

It is an area that that takes up probably about 30% of of the world's forest in the subarctic region and circularing the the top of the planet, but actually it's a much more complex pack work of habitatments and so in terms of the royal forests really talking about an area characterized and by about 10% canopy cover where the trees are with sort of still below that temperature Tree Line trees to label and to go up to the sort of five meter limits of to give real Forest but actually a much more diverse habitat of wetlands and lichen forests Lakes huge amounts of water water systems and that's sort of controlled and this this and Recession of different habitats relating from the different moisture conditions the the seasonal conditions 68 months Frozen of the year and also then quite a fire Dynamic region as well in the in those few hotter months and with the the fires burning out when they do happen burning out really large amounts of biomass as well and creating those successionary ecosystems and really rich environments in terms of their and the wildlife the and the fish and Aquatic resources in the Water Systems and plants and seasonal berries, and the wild rice and as well in these really Dynamic systems that have and being so integral to the lives of the people's living there but also managed and influence by by those groups as well in managing the resources there.

Okay, this is just how is this week? So you've heard all about the forest the Royal forests, which is the diversity. So how is it seen by outside as it was represented predominantly by the group of seven pages who really building Canada's Identities explanation those were also they painted Edition nothing with their Wilderness and reality been curious actually a lot more complex. So these are just two paintings that are often show to show you created essential.

So this is a history of black soul.

Hello, George.

He's on mute George.

Okay, did you jump way or in this study? I've been in Larksville obituaries, then they should have any or at least 6000 years.

According to Peter Lambert who published the paper in 1980? 83 and on page 145 to 146 and in my Master's thesis I'm saying that the nationality arrived at lock so Circa 8000 years before the present so if they've been there 6,000 years and 8,000 years deep. I think that's when they first got there, but they began to do their living on the lake 6,000 years before.

2000 years after they are right in the territory.

Today there's a approximately 5,000 locks to band members.

Approximately 3,200 live after reserved like myself and Mike we live we don't live on there. He's there but the moment and the rest of they're all over the they're all over Canada and the United States and galaxies appeared on peers Peter Pond map of 1784 as Loon Lake lone Lake.

Which is a translation of locksul.

The Grand Chief Henry Cole Martin and Dave. She signed for the lost soul trees three on June 9th There's a picture of the chief and English changed his name to John comedy.

He is my great-grandfather and according to the treaty commissioners.

Mr. Comedy stood six foot 11 inches in height and then there's also there's also from 1850s to the 1930s the Civil or Dakota teepeed Nation.

Came along English River from pointers of prairie invaded the luxul area to make war with the ultra creep people.

Are people led by the Grand Chief Henry culmartin managed to chase the quarterback to Manitoba? and the Dakota so we're originally from from Minnesota and North Dakota, but they came to Knoxville for first and the rich economy of our territory.

actually, the whole of Northwestern Ontario is full of First Nation stories of having war with the Dakota Zoo since at least early 1800s, probably even before before written records are kept in a territory.

I can't see all of the screen but basically the lock so people have been there for quite a while and in Ontario to 5,000 band members makes it.

One is not the largest community in Northwestern, Ontario.

Sorry, go ahead. Sit down. I mean Alicia so this is a we've been talking about as a group and talking about painting it right late. So just show you quickly we talk about one. But actually we're talking about Lots. They're all that's one of many site wherever the Canadian Shield of Hills gray was it the sites are actually the darker gray just to show you the way you have the red the ours is where large concentrations have already been identified by different reasons outside of researchers.

across the Canadian Shield because Alicia yeah to grow now.

Okay. Yeah, right. I don't know everybody knows but I have cancer now prostate cancer and I have to go to the hospital right now. So thank you everybody for being there and please Can contact Alicia who knows how to reach us? if people want to ask me questions or say anything about a question about missionary society and people I do have a Facebook page.

George Kenny on Facebook if you send me a question I can answer you, but you have to send me a friend request first and I promise I won't blow you. Wow. He died a list of because I didn't know exactly who she was her on her on their pirate ship on her company of explorers. So that's how we got together because she was sailing on their pirate ship so good.

It's bad. If I live I'll see you all in kitchen, which is a word for heaven.

Don't be playing might my son.

I'll talk to you later.

Yeah that I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for going so you get well so we can go skating on Maxwell. We're gonna go play hockey.

Okay.

George we'll see you later my dad.

Hi Mike. Yeah, I got it all about the boss called. Okay, say hi.

In our home my wife in my home. The wife is the boss.

Really you Association is and she's concentrations quite and the blood being river which is emphasize what we take one and by Mike.

but okay.

This is I think what do you want to help me explain this? Oh, yes you well Do without me to be a little bit more to the nationally system around particularly. What happens about the death and in his word this is because of the doc there I witness that passage from lights to death, which I have and I always wondered obviously What that's advanced? There were no belief system as George said a very much believe that a human life spirit world and as he's dead and for them it's in they visible World innovative.

They actually further than that believe that Spirits can return to Earth and pink habits humans on Earth and Jewish will say that he knows many people who are sold in that. This is the case.

So the physical world in the human world and the non-visible world. They think of as in terms of Dreams Visions where people from the spirit will hear from the rock painting with the sort of core and hearts of the project that has started with our seen as a conduit from which we non-physical world is represented within this.

The people who See Vision streams are drawn to we create them.

such a big ense of creating and therefore the art in this in the this belief system has a very much sacred thing and we can compare that to you. Look at the image on the other side of the screen. You can spare that to you art from The eurocentric View specialty does not have that lead to the same world in same way. Yes, or Another contrast is that we've been and an issue our issue game and practicing that words and there's no hierarching enough.

So if you look down there kind of image there in our society like we might categorize our say Ing, I'm happy even and in their world, there is no privacy. Everything has a collective meaning and if you say very much connection to people know which gave the relationships here.

The next slide and I'm going to take over George's bit. This is actually we talked about how different people.

To paintings and there so here you have cheap word problems with cousin Albert and here he's offering back into the naming questions.

Very people.

He's stored refers them as space people. That was the image that you saw on the Birchbox on the previous slide. So this is because these paintings sacred so this is actually from Which is by selling Dooney and Kenneth kid, but George knows Roy Carpenter.

He's a good friend of his and he's one of the people who really seeing when we go to let's all next summer.

So I'll move over and I think tonight.

All right. Well, yeah, well, thanks everyone again for being present and being understanding of my Dad's health as being his priority so super thanks on behalf of our family and the research team. Um, I truly can't speak to the shaking tent ceremony. I've never partaken in in this ceremony. Um, my dad's one of his favorite jokes and our team is probably heard it. Well over a dozen times was that he has this intention. I almost don't want to share the secret but I will was that he wants to like do sort of shaking tent ceremony and what I do know about it. It's kind of like a sweat lodge, but but he want he wanted me to track down like a holographic specialist so that we could like project a spirit popping on the walls and to sort of like, you know make you think we knew something you didn't perhaps and actually People do see spirits in shaking tent ceremonies and in sweat lodge ceremonies. I myself have not but if we shift over to the the image on the right, I mean, I'm gonna talk more about the sweat lodge a little bit later. So I'll just just tell you what's happening in this photo and it's just looking at it fills me with a lot of strong emotions, so Those are the sort of exoskeletons of two sweat lodges that I was a part of constructing while working at the University of Toronto. Dalalana School of Public Health walk up and S Bryce Institute for indigenous Health that took a lot of practice to nail U of T public health and One of my mentors is the director there. I'll talk about her a bit later. But the smaller Lodge on the left. Yeah, we constructed that to perform ceremonies with our our team over at the Health Institute. Just being a part of constructing a lodge being a part of chopping wood heating of the Rocks all the protocols required. They all go into that experience of why you enter a sweat lodge. What's your intention and what you get out of it and Like I said, I'll talk a bit more about it in a few slides time and just quickly these the lodge on the left was about eight feet high and I think 37 Feet. I apologize. I don't know what that is in metric offhand, but it was a huge Lodge. And again, I'll talk about the ceremony that the series of Ceremonies that happened later and the location is the heart House Farm which was land donated to the University of Toronto and it's in a small quaint town called terracotta off the Niagara escarpment kind of near.

Orangeville Saint Catherine's Niagara Falls.

Anyways, not too far from Toronto little Northwest of Toronto.

Next slide please.

It's you again.

This is me. Um, so yeah, so so I what my dad like when when my dad mentioned something like that the concept of pan Indian pan indigenous what what strikes me as significant is is and it's really close to home is that I represent sort of someone whose.

Managed to you know, sort of navigate my life.

By embracing a sense of pen Indian isn't pan indigeneity whatever. However we'd like to frame it because I didn't grow up with my dad, you know.

My dad moved up north when I was quite young, you know, he is a residential school former attendee and Survivor and the city was a very difficult space for him to navigate, right? and everything that we do like people like me and my dad we put ourselves on the line and we'll tell you personal things. I'll tell you something personal right now within the boundaries of appropriateness that I didn't grow up with my dad. I grew up with my Estonian mother in Toronto and honest to goodness. It must have been six months ago. Maybe less when I finally came to the realization that he himself was taken away and sent to residential school when he was six years old. He was separated from his dad as well. And when you get those kinds of perspectives, it kind of just allows you to Kind of be at peace with the way life goes and I'm gonna talk about it a bit later, but some of what like the experiences of someone like myself in urban anishinaabe person is we seek culture and Community within those Urban cities those spaces.

At universities as you'll come to learn about my life community centers, you know what I mean? Because otherwise you'll just get lost in the city and community.

Powwows whether it's in the cities or in communities this photo taken by cousin Brent Wesley was from the a massive power every year in a community called Eagle Lake First Nation, which is if I can get my directions, right? I think a little bit West of black Sewell towards a near-town called Dryden, Ontario. So I'll leave it there for now more to come in a bit.

Just looking at the question in the chat. I can I can address that briefly but even though I don't actually know but it's all you have to understand like the disruption of of like like anishinaabe world view that my dad was talking about is directly tied, you know to the residential school system, which was the assimilatory, you know agenda of the government to take the Indian, you know kill the Indian and save the man I think was the words of our first prime minister John McDonald and so it's the reason I don't speak my language. It's the reason there's a little piece of me that feels Shame about that.

It's not that prominent anymore, but that's how it is, but I couldn't tell you exactly when but you have to understand too that ceremonies were all so legally banned ceremonies had to go underground and to this day. It's like you perform a ceremony in the park and it's like it's beautiful but there's still this weird.

I don't know. I don't know how to put it but that's just a snapshot if if I can leave it there.

This is a size of George is Going this is actually.

Safer festivals the scroll the backbone and it's made by sort of fish which means Nightfall it's a Birchbox spawned shows in additional plants. Now this Laura is text as inside. I took it from George's Facebook page. It is Laura's husband in the 1913 as she was she was John this was also shame and now the time in 1930s, this is before ceremonies were bad.

So they she made she's wrong and his favorite clothing in his hand and she's well known for a lot of the Birchbox cross that you see in museums and in publication you will talk about the story but They do it today the names of balance. So just and so this really speaks and what I was saying for that we were country revision and being People to draw her vision on a Birchbox world and other than before this is a way of bringing non-pacific.

Incident is ago and say yes, so this role is from the 1930s. And now I don't know the names of all plants but George and things were just white Mary and why believe and Alice is very obviously symbolic of you know, the the painting The depictions on the Scrolls really speaks to the whole world being wonderful culture in one store, which is the interesting for sharing and knowledge about and scoring floor was immense woman and as you said African and obviously I mention this time so people who make and you know, Ceremy and joy speaks that a lot of shamans and I think it's right the highest concentration of mental and in the area.

So yeah, it's a really kind of interesting thing for us to look at to get a taste of the worldview and how the world.

Oh, okay.

Um, yeah, so I have to admit I sprang upon Alicia I was wishing to switch switch the slide a little bit. So apologies for for throwing that on you. I was gonna I was my intention was to switch the the slide name to hockey is my medicine and that's actually me picking medicines on lack Sewell. So so I'm trying to get really clever with my with my talks and be super engaging as I can and the first prompt that I had that I wanted to speak about for the next few minutes here was speak from the heart son.

Whether it's my dad talking to me or me talking to myself.

That's how that's how I like to go about my life. Um.

so I'm gonna go back to the sweat lodge because because it's really what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna tie Ceremony and teachings the sport of ice hockey which my dad and I swear saved my life.

My first wet Lodge terrified me. I exited the lodge afraid and somewhat ashamed.

most recently that large Lodge that we saw a few slides back that was part of a huge undertaking. I mean we brought it was like 80 people, you know to stay on the heart House Farm there and to run a series of seven sweat lodge ceremonies in the large the large Lodge there over a span of six days. I was asked to be a great honor to be a firekeeper which requires basically 7:00 am to 9 pm for all all seven days roughly chopping wood go a driving over the Quarry getting all the rocks that There's a sacred fire and you have to you have to cut thin, you know, one inch pieces of wood to start that fire and to heat those rocks up takes about I don't know six seven hours. So it's it's just a really beautiful process you dig a hole in the middle of the of the Lodge Lodge is covered in tarps. The floor of the lodge is covered in Cedar one of the Sacred medicines.

um There's so much. There's an altar that lines up directly with the center of the lodge and the fire and when I got summoned into the lodge, I didn't want to go. I was really scared something about like small spaces dark hot spaces. I kind of get claustrophobic. My parents are kind of like that, too and so I walked in and I was legitimately petrified and Suzanne Stewart the director of the Public Health Institute. Just kind of she was on her knees and she just rose up and said hi, Mike and it was gone and it was gone. And so when I went into the lodge and they closed the door and it was dark.

Really powerful words were spoken and quite literally in that moment. I was able to connect with my ancestors and my my deeper.

Self my closeness to Spirit all became one in an instant. I never felt that in my life or since I don't even think I would need to feel that again. That's how it was for me.

um Yes, hockey is my medicine. So the bullet points on the slide here.

I'm just gonna speak to them quickly. I'm just gonna take you through a little timeline if I may.

so In 2002 20 years old. My dad called me. I had just been fired from VIA Rail. I was working at at the at the train station. Well a month later in March or February of 2002. I took a 24-hour train ride from the place. I got fired for going to the Montreal Toronto hockey game might I add it's kind of fitting for my life.

A 24-hour train ride to be reunited with my dad. I didn't sleep. I knew something was gonna happen.

Again choked up. I like when this happens I do so, my dad just takes me straight to black school and we play hockey together with old blue lighting the way his old Chevy truck.

I played hockey for the actual Eagles my love of self and hockey career revitalized.

in 2004 My dad talked about dreams and Visions. I used to walk by Varsity Arena at the University of Toronto and I would stare it down and say I just I'm gonna put on the blue gloves the blue helmet the blue sweater the iconic sweater of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, and I did that I got into I never finished high school, but I got into this really wonderful Access program called the transitional year program.

lots of indigenous authors black authors a very non-neurocentric curriculum was this one year Access program turned my life on a dime just like my trip to sue Lookout.

um I in so I spent three years at U of T. I took some indigenous studies. I was half done my degree when I decided to switch schools because I wanted more ice time in hockey.

At Ryerson University since renamed Toronto metropolitan University. I acquired my undergraduate and graduate degrees in social work my life theme of giving back.

I finally got into game action playing a full season for Ryerson and one night one fateful night.

at Varsity Arena I commanded the coach to put me into the shootout and I scored the winning goal against my old team and everyone was booing me when I there's a video of it.

I'll share it in the in the chat if you're so inclined. They're all booing me when I go to shoot and then they were all cheering after because they knew what it meant.

To the kid who didn't get a chance to play while he was a Varsity Blue whatever. It's not about me and hockey but it kind of is from 2013 to So all the time leading up to this point was Like really wonderful, you know discovering my sense of of being anishinaabe where I come from reconnecting with my dad. Okay like and so for after I finished my masters, I was like all right time to go to Talon Estonia and reconnect with my mother's country of birth. I embarked on a two-season mission to qualify for the Estonian national team. I worked as a personal trainer and an off-court kids tennis coach.

All my dreams came true. I finished as a three-time IHF team Estonia Defender today.

I work with the Estonian Ice Hockey Federation in the capacity of global Prospect Recruitment and Player Development and just like my career. It's all on my own terms.

Presently PhD candidate at Mcgill and I'm just really thankful to be here. That's it.

Sorry, I was that I also I also asked Alicia she would take the slide out and I think the PDFs were already hot off the press but please it it's not a problem whatsoever because there's a lot going on here the drum groups. We we ran and still do run out of the University of Toronto indigenous public health research institute. It's so beautiful, you know, good memories come flooding back. I mean look at our space, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely wonderful place. I might land after finishing my PhD one day the theme of land-based learning I think was quite prominent in that series of sweat lodge ceremonies that I spoke about earlier and all kinds of really excellent initiatives one woman out of the University of British. Columbia is doing some really incredible community based participatory research and on land-based learning I chatted about the meaning of modern day powws within my autobiographical autobiographical account.

Yeah, and like within ceremony, there's no workers. There's no community members. We're all just people and I think there's something really unifying about that and to that point. I find that ceremonies teachings and land-based learning opportunities. Also do a wonderful job of bringing indigenous non-indigenous people together. Absolutely. I've seen it and I just know this um everything that I do and at this particular point in time with with awareness of Canada's residential school system coming into the public.

Consciousness is is very beneficial because for a very long time and it still happens today indigenous peoples in Canada have a really unique distinction of being both invisible and resented for reasons that newcomers and settlers don't even understand. So I just wanted to be transparent about that the last point about pluralizing the singular narrative in Canada is kind of a plug to my doctoral research on ice hockey history among indigenous peoples in Canada. Where there's a lot of really fantastic hockey histories in Canada that aren't the usual like speaking to the singular narrative the Excellence of the Pelican Blackhawks the Su Lookout Blackhawks, which is based in the region of lack Sewell the town of su Lookout these young athletes became excellent hockey players within two years going up against some of the best young teams.

In Ontario because they grew up living land-based on the Trap line snowshoeing hundreds and hundreds of kilometers. I called them meta-humans, but that's kind of like a DC Superhero reference, but I feel that and that's that's how I can see their excellence and how I intend to capture it. Thanks very much.

you know, I just wanted to like I didn't do it suddenly, you know and let me see and adren.

But just like I see you. Thank you Mike.

I know I see where Alicia okay, when it's such a privilege for us to chat with you Mike and your father and every week or we can and you know as my as Mike says it near the talking circle of Swords. We say we share a story and this is a good day. We definitely and we think that's really, you know someone in this and I've just learning the whole different kinds of Community to speak you might be saying in that last slide and another big part of the project as we can about.

you know how it can share it's even more younger man as well and that will be a part of Excellence which ways to Really admission? So yes, it's a big. Thank you from us, and I hope you thank you.

But we got some questions in the room and I'm just going to look at chat as well. But And someone tell me what the differences between spirit and soul in ashinabe belief.

So the question did you hear that my and taking a question here about the difference between spirit and soul in ashinaabe Lee? That's out of my scope. Unfortunately. Yeah.

No, I wouldn't know but I be curious to know what my how my dad might respond to that.

Okay, and any more questions that must be able to answer? I'm going to stop the screen share so that we can get more people on the gallery.

Catherine Square us Catherine Williams you want to say something? Hello, I just want to say first of all thank you to the team for a fascinating talk. It it's so rich. It's it's quite difficult to take in and also very moving. Of course.

Um, I'm just excited because the idea about the idea of the rock surfaces being a membrane between parts of the world's seen and unseen because that makes me think of the work of David Lewis Williams in in South Africa on San rock art and the layperson with regard to that sort of academic knowledge. I don't know how well regarded that is or whether that's that's seen as as an idea that travels around the world, but it just struck me as a parallel and I didn't know if that was something that the team was was already talking about and discussing.

with sort of lost his name chip with with George and others Excellence that question. Um, we have I looked at myself privately on you don't I don't really it's an interesting model. I think it works for some degree, but it's not really particular to the edictionary. She came in really? Yes, there's similarity in the sense that there's a painting so our acting as several worlds, but that's I think that's far as you can go into comparing it with what David do is really doing.

because I don't George and we're comparatively comparing that you yeah, wait is Williams here psychology? Yes, that is very much.

Yeah, you just very much specific to yourself. So that's when's and there's some similarities but it was similarities several of It emotionally they're just not really.

Yeah.

Thank you to the question. Yes, very worthwhile question. Yes.

I've got more questions on Zoom or anyone really.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering whether my you know, you probably don't but the extent to which the sweat lodge was part of what really did obviously We were kind of trying but we did it when I talked for many years and chemicals around every single Easter.

He would go take about 30 of our students from the University standardizes.

into words and Western and wonderful man called Tony wrench It was just initially in touch with himself and traditions very strongly.

the environmentalist I don't take too long to say but I mean this you just brought back to me extraordinary freedom.

Of getting the stones and to be about this High takes six hours to get the money like this.

You sweat lodge, but I just say this that what I remember is.

Not you feeling scared. But I mean, we're all sort of if I just found in as he's sort of Hardy greens getting so much I'm dying.

That's really good thing about this because we're all touching each other people. It's all our sins. But at least we're all down together.

I'm driving everybody else and wasn't very very and of course everything come out and we started to this school would go back in again and we did this every single year another start for about what 14 15 years in the 90s.

So I'm just I'm just saying that taught us something and for me, that's where.

Very very very profound experiences and I say what you say you have feelings and connections and sensors kind of unity with the world around the water. That's right the father that's it the same reasons to go round and they just minimal thing but just whatever really really need to say we share those things.

Very very powerful and I haven't met you before.

But not saying seven. It's not the indirect way.

Some of the most meaningful experiences of my life came from around where you are and so I'm kind of saying thank you because they're very very important to enter many of our students and each year here.

Not excited. Maybe you want to say anything to that. Hello there. Yeah.

I was just wondering.

the the medicine using of the Seder on the floor of the lodge is he told me what you made the lodge is out of like you know that you say talks and which Timbers would you build the Frameworks from? Would sure okay. What a significance in the thought maybe you to hate the stones. Was that the wood for that any any significance in the particular word or just yeah, yeah like and I'll respond first to Chris if I may because that was that was a really wonderful share and it brought a lot of good memories back on my end too. So quickly then because because for people like myself who grew up in the city and this was all really new to us or the young people that I've worked with in like my many jobs within the urban community like the skill of a knowledge keeper of a sweat facilitator to Whether you're building the lodge or it's already built.

but to set the tone with teachings and to understand where some of us were coming from where like we didn't know we didn't grow up with this that there was a lot of It just you have to be really safe, you know and tell them that like I always ask like hey if I start freaking out, can I exit the lodge and if the knowledge keeper says no, I might not go in and being strong enough to be okay with not going in and say I'll do everything else I can so to respond to your Carlos your question there. Yeah, so every Friday when we were building that that massive 37, I think it's actually circumference Foot Lodge the eight foot Lodge. We we picked out specific saplings or bows.

I don't know if that's the right word just from right from the farm there obviously with the permission of of the university and you know, there's all kinds of really cool. Like I don't know like like the doorway has to be in the East the Eastern direction is where the sun rises that's the spiritual direction that I do know, you know, and yeah, no, they're just you just you get the saplings.

You connect them with rope or or red ribbon.

There's a significance to like ribbons when it comes to ceremonies. I can't speak to that too much.

Yeah, there's all kinds of.

It's just it's actually very.

Like architecturally or like from an engineering perspective. It's actually there's so they're really sturdy structures. And again the doorways in the East you know, and I guess they they must they use tarps, you know before like actual hides before in the in the modern world. Like, you know, tarps are what we use. I believe they're canvas. Um is what is what we use there and the cedar.

Um, so I know the theater is one of the medicines I think it's high in vitamin C. So people like they'll some of the knowledge Keepers will say hey take a seat or bath if you if you're in a tough spot and you need healing Cedar tea, so I think the idea was just to have you know, a type of medicine that would that would be conducive to the healing propensity of the lodge.

Okay, well.

Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to say as well quickly, but just to share I mean I was a student of Chris's Camillus and used to do The Lodges with Chris sometimes and that as Chris said absolutely can be quite a scary experience. You know, you're in no hardwood together you pour some water on the rocks and one of them might explode and said shards all around large and stuff.

Yeah quite an experience.

Those are the ones that are that were like soaked in water. That's why too. It's really important. You get the you get the not water soaked ones. That sounds so scary. Yeah. Yeah, definitely scary.

very wow.

It's quite such an experience and thank you.

That yes, but thank you so much for talking about that and sharing the experience because that is something that we really did link to in this sweat Lodges of Wales and I had the experience myself as well and they weigh of everybody joining the building the going and cutting the sapling the building and creating the lodge together. Sometimes things done as all women and men sometimes it's done separate women and men and so we did it very different ways and but the experience is always intense and very powerful and wonderful.

It's something very special and so it's a wonderful thing that we can share and there are some questions on the chat and it was something that I wanted to ask about too. So Jennifer Walker's asking about gender and hierarchy in the trials and I was particularly interested in the Birchbox role and the Flores this was it the Medicine Woman and clearly there are kind of parallel Traditions or knowledge passing down and men's Traditions women's Traditions or it's that a correct representation.

Just about like traditional gender roles. I was looking at the questions just now.

Yeah, I mean like I can't speak, you know.

Like please don't quote me on what I'm about to say. But yeah, I mean like I know my dad's dad my grandfather John Kenny.

He was the hunter Trapper the fishermen right? He was the one delivering mail from actual to Red Lake snowshoeing a hundred kilometers.

A night, you know what? I mean? So that is to say that my grandmother like would have been doing a lot of the work like around the home and that was very hard work. No question about it. And I've actually heard too that one of the really difficult roles of women in a lot of First Nations was like the repairing of canoes actually a very hard thing to do. That's what I don't know. I heard that recently somewhere. So yeah, there was like prescribed gender roles and that but it wasn't like You couldn't do something. I don't think it was just kind of like it's just it made sense. Everyone had a role duties and responsibilities and I Yeah, I mean.

I know.

I don't know nothing. So I'll stop there.

You are actually working on a paper with George the relation which he says a relationships of key to schnariation you were talking about the shamans all the past and today.

So we talked about the relationships and Shaman is identified each names their apprentices and what sort of types of things they do and so if you I know obviously I'm like, what's the question but I still be careful. That's right. So we're working on those. Yeah.

It's a kind of biology or family tree. Yes.

It seems to be abandoned each thought.

A reef is good.

All right. Okay, right.

course Harry do you want to go? Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much Mike and thanks to your dad as well.

there must be thousands if not tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of people have like like you yourself in Canada.

Who were robbed of their cultural identity and so I'm wondering whether what you're experiencing in terms of reconnecting with your indigenous heritage.

So the weather that's a widespread phenomenon now in Canada and whether it's also linking to ideas about indigenous sovereignty and you know land back and reclaiming your rights in Canada.

Yes, yes it is. Um, so yeah, I mean like I want to be like I just want to answer like in a way that doesn't put everyone on a downer but there's a lot of young children youth.

that I've worked with that are single parent homes in the city east Scarborough.

There's these beautiful pockets of communities of like families that like if you when you you work with them, you're like Like they're always fighting, you know, there's there might be those those elements of dysfunction and then they could we come together for like feasts or to do sporting events. And it's just like all that just goes away and it's just like so that sort of stuff doesn't just come from nowhere, but the love is real and the kinds of programs that you know, I've been fortunate to be a part of it's like you make a little difference in a Young Person's, you know, life doing Recreation programming doing teachings giving them opportunities to we took a group Whitewater paddling.

You know those kinds of experiences are fantastic in North America. I'm actually involved with a pre North American indigenous games.

sort of conference and basically that that the nag North American indigenous games brings together like indigenous young people from like Provinces and territories in Ontario states in the United States and gives them opportunities to compete in archery canoeing wrestling basketball volleyball. So a lovely little mix of sort of like traditional and sort of more, you know, Euro Canadian sport mainstream Sports. The opening ceremonies are going to be something this summer.

Seeing all those young athletes together.

Because I'm a proponent that sport when sport done right doesn't view excellent life skills transfer.

Really? Thank you.

Thanks.

Sorry and any questions I just hopefully Express how.

Well moving that whole picture and thanks to Susanna.

So thank you and Susanna as well and putting that picture together with Mike and Angel is now going in George of the these different the disparate Nations and how many disparate nations are actually up there on Canada. And these these very different experiences as Mike's been drawing out of the urban living kind of distance. That's what alienated and yet this this Resurgence and recovery of wanted seeking culture and particularly indigenizing academic and Community spaces. It seems like a Arena of a really great. Hope we saw some of those pictures the beautiful spaces that the First Nations people were able to take too bad and yet we've also got this this intricate research the admissions talking about the doing with with George.

Trying to recover Heritage and tradition for really deep time really ancient work in.

OG Korean emission are the culture of such Antiquity of culture living on the land of 6,8000 years.

It's just astonishing lens of time. And if you think that in terms of our landscape and okay Stonehenge, which is still by people that just aren't hearing.

Is the order for 5,000 years, so we're talking my children actually and so it's an amazing project that it's trying to both and yeah be part of the Regeneration of a Modern urban setting but also to recover Heritage from the deep connections landscape, and that's what I'm here.

which is what to add into that and so Yeah, it's very moving for us and a lot of us have been following the whole development.

So the last year or so more than that now of the residential school and the visitors the poem and so forth and the responses to all that and so in it has really been very moving to hear about that. And of course over here, we feel quite a lot of responsibility for the kinds of traditions that were imposed by our very patriarchal ancestors and very imperialist ancestors pointing and last Nations people and from the people and indeed the change of the name Toronto metropolitan University is part of this process of the colonization.

yeah, so we just wanted to express how extraordinary it is to hear these very poignant histories coming across and Into being a sense of great positivity and hope in that.

But there is there is very forms of recovery and that's fantastic Camilla.

I you know, I was I got some breakfast here on the Strip. I've never been to Las Vegas before it's it's pretty something else and I was kind of scrambling. I was like be ready be ready and then I had just found out that my dad obviously had to go to Physio like we really need my dad to be healthy. So we appreciate everyone again for that. And so I scribbled down on this piece of paper.

What what you just said about about like, you know, well the theme of resurgence and you know me discovering my indigeneity. So I dug up an article by hinzo and Clark 2018 on digital survivants and surviving was a term is a term conceived by anishinaabe scholar out of Minnesota Gerald visitor and it's kind of the way that my supervisors sort of supported me and framing, you know the ways in which like young indigenous people write to this day have used hockey as it means of expressing, you know, indigenous survivants and whatever and what have you and so I just jotted down on my little as I was eating my breakfast on this receipt paper here visitors concept of survivants is analogous to the old two-piece hockey stick with the shaft represents resistance and the blade stands for survival.

Further the suffix ants denotes an ongoing active and ever-present framing of literal survival and then I guess the article sort of the the point of the article was that digital survive and is the ways in which the people are able to use technology to fight against you know, like Dakota pipeline.

I think was the example that they wrote about. So yeah, that was just me trying to like justify my my academic, you know grit, which I sometimes avoid to this day.

It's wonderful to hear about the Hulk is medicine and you know, the meanings of that as well just as much as to hear about the Patrick lives.

Of ancient because so it's really educational for us to hear about that.

I think we've been given might not quite a hard time because he's had to be building all these questions. And so what we've got to do is to say thank you. Thank you to all the speakers a does not hear. Thank you, especially to George and we're absolutely praying that we're going to be able to hear more from him in the future.