Important TRU events & courses completed:
Winter 2021- Special Topics in Anthropology 3990: Secwepemc Knowledge
This course changed my life. I enrolled in it during COVID’s isolation to learn more about my younger family members’ Indigenous heritage. Due to the ‘60’s Scoop’, their mother’s were not raised (in care) to be proud of their Indigeneity. I wished to assist my nieces, nephews, and grandchildren to become proud of their First Nations and Metis heritages. Like it’s a one-size-fits-all fix. Nadine Grey not only ‘schooled’ me, correcting some ingrained misconceptions, but brightened and broadened my horizons by suggesting I research settler Dr. Nancy Turner’s ethnobiology work, which led me straight back to the lands I call home and Neskonlith’s Dr. Mary Thomas, a personal hero, who felt so strongly enough about this ally’s work as to adopt her. My final assignment was to create a visually assistive tool for my Neskonlith friend Delores Purdaby to use in teaching school children how to coil traditional baskets of Ponderosa pine needles.
The confirmation of unacknowledged burials on the grounds of the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops came shortly thereafter. I felt compelled to coil 215 individual tiny pine needle baskets as I processed this news. As my fingers cramped, I would remind myself that this was nothing compared to the pain of the parents of the stolen, ransomed children who did not make it home.
A call came out thereafter for BFA students to participate in a REDress exhibition at TRU’s gallery. I applied and was accepted. I estimated that I invested around 300 hours in the baskets and dress. It turns out that soon-to-be fellow cohort Karie Russell was the one who organized this exhibition and invited Mukwa Musayett to speak at the media-covered opening night. We met, and she invited me to coauthor an article on allyship for the Canadian Journal of Social Work.
Winter 2022 – Granted BFA in now defunct Visual Arts Program, despite resistance to this settler artist weighing in on the MMIWG2S+ crises- as it ‘isn’t my story to tell”. My graduation portfolio was nonetheless well-received. Mukwa Musayett became caretaker of my REDress InStead, and Thompson Rivers University purchased the baskets 215 – Le Estcwicwey for their permanent collection.
MAHRSJ: When Nadine Grey learned I was seeking temporary housing in order to undertake this program, she graciously offered a room in her home.
Fall 2023 – HRSJ 5010: Foundations of Human Rights and Social Justice
This course literally almost ‘done me in’.
I survived one traumatically, deep, dark night after researching into Pol Pot’s genocidal influence in Vietnam, the Sri Lankan civil war between the Sinhalese & the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and my own personal, mature settler’s quest for the shared Herstory in Canada’s Patricolonial foundation = the ongoing MMIWG2S+ crisis.
This course presented both the steepest ‘learning curve’ for this old academic (picture an ancient ant with three broken legs looking up at an immense stone cold rock wall) & the most profound ‘ha-ha’ moment.
When we began in September, I didn’t even know how to turn on my brand new laptop, let alone remember/understand how to split a screen, the difference between the various forms of references, or any of the research skills that seemed ingrained in my younger cohorts. When I (the intentional social media luddite) objected in class to having to respond electronically to not only one but two postings by cohorts, Dr Monica Sanchez calmly responded with something along the lines of “You absolutely don’t need to, but then you won’t be eligible for the full credits”. I got schooled.
I was simply ‘gob-smacked’ when our co-teacher, Dr. Rob Hanlon, demonstrated, in real time, before our sleepy faces in class, how his worldwide alert system worked. A report of a human rights violation occurrence was registered somewhere ‘else’ far away, and he, via the magic of the interweb, activated real people to engage immediately toward a solution, simply by pressing a button on his phone. That actually, really happened!!!!
Please, let’s ensure the MAHRSJ program highlights, if not actively focuses on such solutions, rather than perpetually dwell on historic and contemporary horribleness, and let’s not allow the closure of such important student support services as the wellness center!!!!
Fall 2023 – HRSJ 5020: Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Resurgence of Land-Based Pedagogies and Practices
This is one of the most important courses. Ever. To have a super-charged, brilliant academic provide herstorically accurate synapses of local historic and contemporary injustices executed by ‘our’ Canadian governments against a particular minority, balanced with real, hands-on, land-based experiences of ‘educated’ (both in lived experience & in the colonial sense) Indigenous community academics, is incredibly powerful, important, and needs to happen more. Always and forever forward. Not just in this particular program, or on this particular campus, but throughout our nation’s communities. All Canadian citizens are treaty people, and international students also need to be made aware of our true and shared herstory. We are not our internationally projected persona.
The most impactful and devastating reading was on Dr. Jenna Woodrow’s extended reading list – the legal proceedings of a Supreme Court ruling in an Alberta case. Cindy Gladue was ‘accidentally’ murdered in a contracted sexual encounter – an eligible ‘rough sex’ contract gone bad. This particularly ‘hit home’ as I lost a girlfriend named Cindi in Gr 10. In the late 70’s, we teen folx just considered ourselves all to be friends. The term ‘ally’ was not yet in place. We came of age together in rape culture’s shadow. Skin colour was not yet significantly on our radar, as the interior was (intentionally kept) white at the time. Residential Schools were still just shutting down, causing an abrupt and unacknowledged public school integration. In Okanagan’s Westbank, I had several girlfriends who were unhappily products of ‘the 60’s scoop’, severed from their ancestral communities and in the ‘care’ of white relatives or foster homes. All girls, and ‘girly boys’, were aware of the constant danger of violence. If you got ‘caught’, it was undoubtedly your own fault, no matter the circumstance. The pressing of charges was a very rare occurrence, the successful outcome rarer still.
Fall 2023 – HRSJ 5150: Settler Colonialism: Decolonization and Responsibility
This course centered all involved. Our 2nd year cohort seems to have been particularly bonded, social and strong, but this course was precious. Each participant felt ‘grounded’ in our weekly classes. Although academically rigorous, Drs Robin Westland and Lisa Cook ensured each class began in a good way – with a ‘check in’ involving all equally. This took moments, yet positively impacted their lectures & our consequent engagement, research and presentations. The ‘human touch’ was felt throughout, despite the lack of physical contact. The importance of hands-on/alternative forms of learning and expression can not be expressed strongly enough. Who will read our essays in five years? No one. But our ‘marks’ – music, poetry or visual art may yet be viewed. I sound smartest when I am silent, and my hands are rarely still. These instructors encouraged and welcomed alternate forms of communication, no matter how difficult the stretch. The importance of valuing ‘alternative’ forms of academic research can not be stressed enough. ‘Mapping’ our sense of place in the world was a profound assignment. I learned more through braiding and sewing a carpet, as our grandmothers had done, than through writing an essay. The weekly reflections on Unsettling Canada byNeskonlith’s Arthur Manuel and Westbank’s Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson were especially poignant, as I had worked for the Derrickson family and kept my horse on their paddocks on the reserve while he was in the States getting educated. Manuel wrote of an interaction with my cousin, BC Attorney General Geoff Plant, wherein Geoff spoke to him with a John Wayne swagger…. I still haven’t heard it.
Winter 2024 – HRSJ 5030: Problem Solving in the Field
This course may best serve a cohort if offered in the first semester. The opportunity to learn to write for grants or to compose a research ethics proposal is important.
Summer 2024 – HRSJ 5040: Practicum
This was a much spread-out and unusual practicum. Mukwa Musayett invited me to participate in the very first in-person planning meeting on Sto:lo lands near Trinity Western University in the fall of 2023. A team from the University of Manitoba joined the TRU and TWU teams. I was deeply honoured and completely outside my depth, although all participants made me feel welcomed and worthy. This was also a profound and life-altering experience, and has led to continuing friendships and collaborations across our country.
Each research site brainstormed toward its art-based component of the entire project, which involved representation and participation by all communities involved in each location. The actual practicum itself began in the spring of 2024, and technically, the practicum concluded with the presentation of TRU’s arts-based component in Oct of 2024. The work continues, and there are potential plans to write for a follow-up grant.
Having the opportunity to work closely with Tk’emlúps Knowledge Keeper Colleen Seymour has led to a personal friendship as we continue to collaborate artistically, furthering ‘the work’ of inviting herstorically accurate conversations of how our patricolonial state continues to condone violence against Indigenous feminineity. Dr. Mukwa Masayett/Shelly Jonhnson was my supervisor. Our research was entitled “A decolonizing exploration of anti-racist, arts-based responses to the violence described in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report across the context of higher education”, funded by a SSHRC Insight Development grant between U of Manitoba, TRU, UVIC and Trinity Western.
My proficiency with the selected PLOs was evaluated highly
#6 – Articulate original ideas, arguments and observations through group work and presentations, and high-quality writing or artistic works
#7 – Demonstrate a critical awareness and understanding of ethical and intercultural frameworks appropriate to research planning and communication skills to a range of audiences and social contexts
#9 – Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of and respect for the values of a range of Indigenous knowledge and wisdom.
TRU’s contribution was led by Drs Mukwa Masayett/Shelly Johnson, and Mona-Lisa Bourgue Bearskin. I accompanied Colleen in harvesting red and grey willow from the land in a good way, and Red Willow Fishtrap Woman’s framework was constructed on the reserve. Skwrxan (Syilx) taught us how to construct a traditional Fishtrap – after we watched a YouTube video to refresh his memory. Visiting Indigenous Mauri grad students were even able to participate one afternoon. TRU’s research with participants from the nursing, social work and education programs took place in October 2024, where, after learning how systemic racism and sexism are still impacting Indigenous women today, in contributing to the ongoing MMIWG2S+ crises, participants demonstrated their responses artfully, adorning the sculpture. After the research workshop, Colleen became the caretaker of Red Willow Fishtrap Woman and ‘busted her butt’ to ensure that this living sculpture was displayed throughout the many offices and departments on the reserve.
Each time I have been able to assist in a move, I have been amazed by how many more beautiful hand-beaded creations, tiny baskets, moccasins, feathers, medicine & prayer bags and scripted messages and names to commemorate loved ones have been added. I like to say that while I may have been the one to weave her bones together, Colleen provided her heart and the community her soul. This living sculpture has brought tears to many eyes. One young Inuit woman at Trinity Western University shared in our talking circle around RWFTWoman that her aunt’s spirit was dancing within her. This was very emotional and provided powerful healing for all present.
Upon finally meeting with the High Commissioner of the National Inquiry (who had encouraged this work via Zoom recordings), the right honourable Marion Buller thanked me for my work before I could compose myself enough to thank her!
We were also blessed with an invitation to exhibit and discuss not only Red Willow Fishtrap Woman, but my own REDress InStead at the Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week in November of 2025, where folx continued to add their own reflections, and ask for photos of themselves with her – such as Miss Indigenous Canada (they champion Queer and nonbinary rights from their platform) and foundational actress Tantoo Cardinal. What an amazing and inspiring week that was! (Thank you again, Student Union, for the small travel grant.)
The connection between the universities continues primarily through Zoom meetings, as we finalize writing of the arts-based research. Another art-based research project may grow from this work as Colleen, Cynthia Langford (Ojibwe-Cree of Flying Post, and I continue our work through Sen7anse Melkwilc = Magpie Alliance to bring the conversation into traditionally white spaces of museums and galleries. We will be writing for Canada Arts Council and BC Arts Council grants in May. Then we can grow to include artists of all heritages. As our population grows with worldwide newcomers- immigrants and refugees, many herstorically accurate conversations must occur to combat the rising rates of gender-specific violence.
Fall 2024 – HRSJ 5710: Topics in Human Rights – Food, Art, and Community Empowerment
Again, a powerful experiential course. It was important to visit the unique community garden on the North Shore, Butler’s Urban Garden, while it was still in existence. Our weekly written responses to Dr. Vandana Shiva’s “Who Really Feeds the World?” were important and eye-opening, learning about the damage done to indigenous growing practices in the name of mass producing foods using poisons, shifted my understanding of my personal role as a consumer, and have consequently been growing more food.
I discovered a new-to-me paper by Nancy Turner, written with her daughter, based on BC’s north-west coast near where I lived as a child in Ocean Falls. Where Our Women Used to Get Our Food detailed the decline of food plants due to colonization, but ended by noting the resurgence in land-based stewardship of traditional foods. I learned the stunted, weird crabapple whose fruit looked like larger cherries outside my childhood door had actually been an indigenous food source – now incredibly rare. All apple tree variations were colonially introduced. In seeking my treasured childhood treat of pink huckleberries in the interior, my own eldest son ‘schooled me’. Huckleberries are blue-black in the interior, and in fact are featured on the cover of my beloved copy of Turner’s Food Plants of Interior First Peoples. I’d been walking past them in ignorance since 1987, while guarding locations of ‘my’ rare pink huckleberry plants closely.
I relearned the canning skills taught by my mother, and gathered fruits and berries close to my own home for the series of jelly jars painted ala Mary Pratt. I received CARFAC fees for their inclusion in a juried exhibition, Kume, at the Salmon Arm Art Gallery, but only one has sold to date. Two were also juried in for exhibition at the Federation of Canadian Artists’ Vancouver Gallery.
Winter 2025 – HRSJ 5130: Body Rights: Systems and Social Movements
This was indeed a gob-smacking eye-opener for this ancient academic. I learned so much about today’s pressing bodily issues. Ironically, I was researching ‘egg farms’ as a niece was undergoing IVF treatments. I am simply, humbly, a little less ignorant as a consequence. While I was in this course, I really, finally ‘got’ Mona Lisa’s important theories of how such deep research and work surrounding defining the ally role to eliminate gender-specific violence and the MMIWG2S+ crisis is unpacking our personal stories and traumas, and that while we white folx can emphasis all we are able, but simply do not have access to the bone knowledge and blood memory of our Indigenous and/or coloured sisters. Intergenerational trauma is based in bodies and becomes genetic.
Fall 2025 – HRSJ5140: Art, Media and Dissent
Researching how film has been used as a tool of dissent was new to me, different from what I was expecting and fascinating. Studying the documentary of the Oka Crisis really helped ground some of the growing Indigenous protests of the 80s, 90s and beyond for me. But I do wish our in-class viewings in a master’s level course were more edited to the most crucial elements. This would have allowed more time for the well-crafted hands-on activities that were really beneficial. Twyla Exner’s lectures on visual art protests simply blew my mind. Visual Arts is my area of expertise, yet in every class, information was presented in a different and challenging way. Creating a Zine summarizing my amazing research journey to date was a very important assignment for me. I may never exhibit it, but I will treasure it always.
Winter 2026 – HRSJ5220: Trauma, Rights and Justice (Winter 2026)
Winter 2026 – HRSJ 5940: Master of Arts e-Portfolio
This provides a nice way of reflecting on the entire program and resulting opportunities.