If you are interested in learning more about Redfern Mianscum’s sweat lodge or supporting his legal case, please click here…

You can listen to Redfern’s story through The Current’s website..

Special thanks to Dick Miller (producer); Jaime Little & the CBC North Cree section and to Peter Skinner and Paul Andrew at CBC Yellowknife.

I adore this page from L.M. Montgomery’s scrap book. It makes me think of spring on the east coast and of my grandmother, Minnie Graham. When spring came to PEI, she would be in her little blue Ford, cruising all over the island looking for May flowers. May flowers are elusive, tiny pink flowers – usually found in ditches by those who know what they’re looking for. Grammy would pull over to the side of the road, grab her basket and clippers (which she always kept in the glove compartment for such occasions) and step down into the ditch. She’d snip them for a fresh bouquet to put on her kitchen table. She also loved bulrushes, pussy willows and L.M. Montgomery.

When I was a little girl, I would that a reoccurring nightmare that my parents would bring me to a school and then leave me. They would tell me to study hard, give me a few pennies, and then they would walk away.

This dream wasn’t based on anything other than a childhood separation anxiety. They never left me behind and I grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins.
I knew where my people came from and I knew that our connection to that place ran deep. Today when I return to Prince Edward Island, where my family has been for generations, I feel rooted.

What would it feel like to be cheated of that sense of belonging?

Welcome to Canada’s legacy of Indian Residential Schools.

Most of us are aware of this dark stain on Canadian history. Yet, I wonder if we have come to terms with just how much residential schools are still impacting aboriginal families.

There are no words to describe how traumatic it must have been for children to be yanked out of their communities and sent in float planes or put on buses to attend a church run school.
Why? Because they were “Indian” and they had to be educated in the modern world if they were going to succeed. It was the law and most parents had little choice but to dress their small children in their Sunday best and send them to white man’s school.

Today in Yellowknife, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings made their first NWT stop. Former students gave testimonials of what they went through and how it’s impacted their lives.
One man shared a story about being forced to leave his home at eight years old and not returning until he was sixteen. He had been forbidden to speak Inuktitut, so he lost his language. He endured years of physical and mental abuse at the school. I heard several stories about children were sent away to school. When they came back – in some cases years later – they found out their parents had died while they were gone.
It’s heartbreaking to hear these stories but it’s so important to listen and to bare witness to what happened and what can never happen again.
I think of the little children, so innocent, being shipped off far away from their parents and from everything they knew. I also think of the childless parents, left behind, thinking they were doing what was right for their child but heart broken because they didn’t have any children to raise. These are scars that, for some, never heal. The suicides, the booze, the drugs, the abuse are emblems of those scars.

The logo on the Truth and Reconciliation banner is ‘For Every Child Taken, For Every Parent Left Behind’.

I thank everyone that got up and told their story. They had to get off their chest and we had to hear it.

This is year one of a five year process that involves hearings as well as settlements. Telling these stories is part of the healing process but it’s only part of the path. There HAS to be services out there to help people who heal. The hypocrisy of Harper’s apology to residential school survivors in 2008 when the Conservative government has just announced cuts to the Aboriginal Healing foundation is unacceptable.

FROM CBC ARCHIVES:
In 1928, a government official predicted Canada would end its “Indian problem” within two generations. Church-run, government-funded residential schools for native children were supposed to prepare them for life in white society. But the aims of assimilation meant devastation for those who were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Decades later, aboriginal people began to share their stories and demand acknowledgement of — and compensation for — their stolen childhoods.

I’m not going to lie. Downtown Yellowknife is not a pretty city. It’s an awkward mishmash of prefabricated buildings and blocky apartment buildings peppered with mobile homes squeezed into every available lot. 1930s prospector era shacks are left to woefully sink into the ground beside generic duplexes with vinyl siding.

Of course, this bizarre urban menagerie is easy to overlook. This town has so much charm it’s ridiculous.

Today, for instance, was the final heat of the Canadian Dogsled Derby. The starting line was on one of Yellowknife’s many lakes, just behind City Hall.

Most of these sled dogs were a cross between husky and german shorthaired pointer. They live to run. This is what they sounded like just a minute before the start.

photo credit: Kate Kyle

I’m north but I’m still just a goose down parka wearin’ southern girl picking my way along the frozen ground. But I’ve met some filmmakers and story-tellers that are much more northern than me.

“Northerner Than You” Talk show Intro from COLLECTIVE9 on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for the scintillating saga of yours truly in the land of ice roads, frozen lakes, urban foxes and and chubby ptarmigans.

It’s been a while since I’ve made a radio feature but I’m happy to say my story, The Art of Dying, was broadcast on CBC radio’s Maritime Magazine in January.

It’s the story of two couples dealing with well, death, and it asks questions about the kind of care that’s available in our region.
Maritime Magazine broadcasts in PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick so the broadcast isn’t heard in the rest of Canada.

I’m mostly happy with the story – I was fortunate to find not only willing people to be interviewed but passionate, articulate individuals. That said, I don’t LOVE the music selected for the piece.
When you produce a piece for CBC Radio, they will want to podcast it. The problem with podcasts is that all music must be licensed or it can’t be included. Instead of being able to choose the music, I had to scan through an on-line archive of music that’s licensed. We went with using music between scenes because we didn’t have a lot of ambient sounds to fill it out.

But now.. I wonder if it works.. Do you think the story is over scored? Would it keep its flow and would the scene changes be clear enough without music? It’s already a sad subject so is the melancholic music too much? I’m thinking of remixing the story. Let me know what you think. You can listen to the story, ‘The Art of Dying’: Click on the media player on Maritime Magzine’s site and post any feedback here.

I’m also working on a story I’m really excited about for CBC Radio 1 The Current. I can’t reveal the details but hopefully it will get to air in the next month or two.

And, oh yeah – I’m moving! I’m saying good bye to all my favourite ports of call in southern Canada and the US for at least a year and going way north to beautiful Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
I’ll be working at CBC North for the morning show, Trailbreaker. I start work in early March. Wheeeeee!

I’ll be in Sackville, New Brunswick between October 19 – 24 participating in the 15th annual Symposium!

The Symposium of Art, co-organised by Struts Gallery and Owens Art Gallery, was established in 1995 as a response to an interest in performance art in the region. The symposium has expanded to include performance, time-based, media-based, audio, video and other forms of art that break from traditional object-based practices.

I’m producing Stoned What Thins on CHMA 106.9 fm — a four hour exponanza of all things audio art on Tuesday evening, 7 – 11pm AST.

This year, the Symposium’s theme is yet another line from the prolific Anne Murray songbook. Do you know what Anne tune You Gave Me Strength To Stand Alone Again comes from?

our braided paths and solitary ways
– Freya Manfred

Today was the final day of our radio workshop in Mistissini. Participating stations included Cini fm and JBCCS (Mistissini) as well as CHFB in Chisasibi and PETAAPIN in Oujé-Bougoumou. We produced a regional radio show featuring reports, interviews and new promos about Murray’s Lodge, Journey of Wellenss and the Offshore Islands Agreement Referendum. I’m really proud of the work everyone accomplished this week. We did a lot in a little time – congrats everyone and thanks to Iain Cook at the Cree Health Board and JBCCS for organizing the workshop!

This is the crew (Jeff and Luke missing in action) before the big show!

JBCCS production hotshot Jeff in the JBCCS studio

JBCCS whiz / announcer Stacy in the studio

Willy from Oujé-Bougoumou is editing his interview with an elder working on a moose hide. LISTEN HERE.

This is Mistissini from the hill on the edge of town

snowmobile trails everywhere

beautiful lake mistissini — the largest fresh water lake in Quebec!

Catherine Morrow lives in Mistissini.

Iain Cook also lives in Mistissini. This dog hanging out at the radio station fell in love with Iain.

A skull hanging in a tree at Murray’s Lodge (traditional camp).

A bush plane takes off outside our meeting room at the Lodge.

Marlene interviews a youth  preparing a caribou at Murray’s Lodge

Anvil getting some clips from  at the camp.

Willy models the headphones..

Some of the participants in the radio training: Anvil, Gordin, Willie, Marlene, Stacy, Leanne

What’s happening in Mistissini this week? Here’s what we’re covering for JBCCS Radio:
Cree Offshore Island Agreement
Wellness Journey and Traditional Teaching Camp
This training is brought to you by The Cree Health Board