Vernie Clement

Vernie Clement at The Gathering Place at TRU.

Vernie Clement is 27 and from the Lhoosk’uz Dene Nation, southern Carrier nation, about 200 kilometers west of Quesnel. He’s from a small band with under 200 members when he was there. He graduated in 2009 from Thompson Rivers University from the school’s business program.

I met up with him at the Gathering Place on the TRU campus to find out about his experiences at the school and growing up.

Here are some parts of our conversation:

“I chose this university for its location pretty much because I finished my last two years of high school at NorKam Secondary here. I liked the community so I stayed and decided to go to school here. I had the option of going pretty much where I wanted to with my grades and stuff and I just decided to keep it around here because it’s more comfortable and closer to home too.”

He started with a BA and then went to business admin and finished in human resources management.

“Most of my memories are not so much in the classroom but with my involvement with the First Nations Student Association and we helped to put on events and cultural activities here on the campus for years. Ya, I was vice-president for a couple years and then president for FNSA for three years.”

“It was challenging because a lot of the events we put on, we had to do straight from volunteering because none of us were paid or got honuorariums for anything we did, we just got together and we wanted to have more activities happening on campus and so we formed this good team and got a lot accomplished with little... it was a long road and people have left a lot for us to work with and pick up so it was a good challenge.”

 About the Gathering place:

 “When I first got here, they were asked to do an opening for this house, this aboriginal house 5 in 2003 and I was invited to participate in that in terms of singing with a group that I was practicing with so they wanted to put a student up there to help open this as well as with elders so they asked me to do a prayer and it’s funny how that happens. It so happens that someone from the same nation as me understood what I was talking and she came up and introduced herself and that was Joanne Brown so we connected right away there.”

 “It was like my second home up here. (laughs) I got to meet quite a few people, the people who were involved with the FSNA of course. We had another location on campus where we did our meetings at and hung out there as well but here was more like a social time. We had potlucks and stuff like that so we used it as it was called a gathering place so we got to meet other students and ya, got to meet quite a few of those people just from having this place here, available for us to use.”

He’s a drummer too and started in 2001. 

“You’ve got to learn your beat first before you can sing to it.”

About TRU being the number one choice for aboriginal students:

“You know like anything it takes a lot of work and it was a really bold move to move in that direction...I think that they still have a lot of work to do but you know the work that I’ve seen on my time on campus and witnessing and you know I think some things have changed but I think some things haven’t. It still needs to be a more welcoming environment but you know seeing the new building coming up and that structure that’s behind it... there’s some changes happening but I think it’s slowly happening and the more that the faculty, professors, the people running the board of governors, you know are part of more cultural aspects and have better understanding, the more that’s going to change and for the better I think.”

What it was like as a student at TRU:

“In terms of where I grew up and my experience, it was pretty challenging. A lot of my classes, a lot of students held jobs or had family who owned companies and that kind of stuff so I felt a little disadvantaged there not having those kind of experiences, even though my mom and both my parents owned their own companies. They ran logging companies back home, I was never really involved in that part. I was mostly raised by my grandmother so we lived out in the bush. For most part of my life, I was out in the bush for nine months of the year and around my language and my culture.”

“I’m one of the few younger people who are, growing up around it. Actually English was a second language I think for me because our home language was Dakelh.”

 “Coming to here, the campus, and learning about business and the whole system that kind of evolved around us and it was really eye-opening, challenging but at the same time, I think it was worth it to understand where that’s coming from so hopefully I take both with me wherever I walk.”

On taking business:

“Our people have traditionally been hard workers and all my family has worked hard all their lives. You know there was commerce here way before Columbus came around or got lost I should say, they followed the grease trails which incidentally ran right through our Kluskus. Alexander Mackenzie came right through our community back in the 1700s. We still have stories about our first contacts with them and also the introduction of moose to our country cause we didn’t traditionally have that so there was a lot of trading, still a lot of trading that happens between our communities, ya so we understand. My grandfather’s a business man too. I think about it. They ran ranches and had cattle and owned property... we understand the value of work from a little bit different perspective not in terms of profiting huge but maintaining the balance and providing for your families, the abilities to survive winters and giving away, gift giving was a lot different. A lot of the richest people were actually the poorest people on our reserve because they gave everything away that they owned or that they could afford to give away. It wasn’t collected to be kept, I guess or profit from it in that way.”

His thoughts on education in relation to self-determination:

“I think it’s important to have people understand all the context that’s not really taught in school, lot of information that are in books, textbooks are still somewhat outdated but getting better. I had a ministry placement with the Ministry of Education for nine months and got to see some of the new material that they’re pulling out that’s kind of good to see some of that a little more evident in the curriculum, but in terms of self-determination, I think people have to become somewhat educated, especially the language and that’s the key thing is having our language because within the language, as I understand it coming from understanding a lot of my own language, the names and stories, everything has a meaning, it has a purpose that there’s a connection to the land from each area that we’re from and that will be lost if people don’t pick that up, the language because the language come with the philosophy come with how you think about a situation, how you react to something and those teachings that are within the language, you use that one word or you use a phrase and it goes back to teaching, to a traditional teaching and that’ll guide a person on how they’re supposed to act, what they’re supposed to watch out for and how to treat other people, nations, other people who come into our country. All those things are important and within the language so that’s a key part of it.”

Why he wanted to go to post-secondary when so many other First Nations people don’t:

“It was a hard question to answer too. I spent a long time thinking about it. Like many small First Nations communities, we weren’t without our drug problems and our abuse problems and a lot of things that I think are a direct result from residential schools and my parents, my grandma went through there, my dad went through there, my uncles so it was struggling. I was really lucky. I had my grandmother who decided and I still remember when she use to drink and stuff, she decided to quit and a lot of the other women in our community went through some healing processes and decided to put that life that bottle away and it’s through their strength that some of us younger generation, we’re lucky to have that and they supported us and I’m just really fortunate, I think in a lot of ways, that rather like an example, I’m probably like an exception so it wasn’t until I stopped with my addiction too and decided to move away... I was 16 actually when I finished the program for my band operated school and at that time the ministry, B.C. Ministry of Education, wouldn’t recognize our band operated school as an institution capable of giving a Dogwood or a Grade 12 equivalent... I had to do some soul-searching in some ways, the result of course was me deciding that I needed to move away a bit to finish my Grade 12 with whatever I needed to do to get it...I was pretty mad at the world, mad at everything that was around and still trying to straighten up my own life and trying to lead a better example because I was one of the few people from our program who actually did finish and did well so I felt somewhat of a responsibility to them and to my family to continue on and I’d be one of the first to attend university if I did so it was for them that I really left because otherwise I would have been happy staying at home.”

In his life, he’s committed to being sober after making some poor choices in his teens. He’s been sober since November of 1999.

“I took those things out of my life so I could make better choices for my family and hopefully affect some change so I took on that responsibility and never really looked back.”

“I think that’s what it really takes is to heal ourselves and with that education, learning more about what’s around us and our own people and what’s around us, that’s really the foundation of what self-governance means is to have healthy people and to have healthy minds leading those organizations or our people. Our leaders need to show that.”

When he lived in his community, he was asked as just 16 to run for the chief of his band. 

“I do want to be involved in my community in leadership and I have been a continued support to whatever they’re doing and stuff. It’s just my grandma gave me some direction and I follow her teachings. She told me, ‘If you say yes to becoming chief, there’s no doubt that our relatives, our family will support and friend will support you in that but you know what good are you to our community if you don’t bring nothing to it, you’re raised around us and everything.’ So she told me to go out and get the education and understand more about everything else that’s happening around us cause that’s more valuable to our people right now. That’ what she told me so she said, ‘stay in school and keep doing that.’”

“There was no treaties signed in B.C. except for treaty 8 in the north and the Douglas treaties down in the Island, but other than that I think they just gave up on treaty making...before like anything is settled, we have to settle things between ourselves as First Nations.”

“It has to be settled before anything moves forward in B.C. I guess because it’s unceded land.”

“Self government, ya, I think it’s important. It’s going to have to happen. People should be, you know we’re naturally self-governing since time immemorial and they couldn’t understand our governance that’s the other thing. A total lack of respect and understanding for what was there and what was effective for the people here and developed over millennia and it’s sad to see it disappearing slowly and kudos to all those nations that are involved, still have those things in place and are using their traditional governance systems in effective ways.”

“The governance system right now isn’t working either. It’s not working for the education system. It’s not working for the, we’re still struggling with pollution. We haven’t answered those questions, long-term factors and all governments deal with that.”

“I do believe there’s going to be the ability to do self-governance but it’s got to change from the national level rather than just the municipal and provincial.”

“There’s this one clip I say on YouTube, good traditional teaching YouTube, (Laughs) so there’s this clip about change and this one guy gets up and starts doing this funky dance and it’s not until you get four other, five other people who were up there dancing with him and everyone wanted to be a part of that kind of thing you know and then there was the question about who’s the actual leader. Is it the person who steps up first or is it the person who steps up second or third or fourth to support that person? There’s different types of leadership all over and different ways of being a leader...You have a family, a group with strong, their own abilities and you can effectively use those people. Everybody’s useful. Has a place in this role and so I think when we figure those things out there’s going to be a big change” 

Today, he’s at a youth think tank on First Nations governance run by the National Centre for First Nations Governance in Prince George.

 “The really big key is to have the youth involved from the start and to get them to think about what they can do in order to become self-governing. What does it mean us in terms of what we can do individually cause like I said before not all of us are going to be that one person. It’s going to be a number of different people doing different level and understanding each others’ roles and their ability to be effective.”

Dolan Paul

Dolan Paul in his office.

I managed to meet with Dolan Paul after rescheduling with him twice. He was struggling with a cold when I sat down with him to chat about his role as a councillor with Tk’emlúps Indian Band. He holds the education portfolio. At just 37, he’s a young councillor but is quick to point out that there are others on the council who started when they were even younger than him.

I sat down with him in his office. It overlooks the band school, the Sk’elep School of Excellence and the old Kamloops Residential school building.

“They’re two very different buildings. One has a lot of negative history behind it and one is one of proudness, that will help us regain what was lost with the other building. Always having being aware of that history is an important part to understanding where we come from and not be held down by it,” he said.

For Paul, education plays an important role in the community and its future.

“I see it as a major point from where our community, our people have to really develop our numbers especially nationwide and in regards to First Nations people is very low in regards to any kind of post-secondary, masters, business, doctorates, anything like that, our numbers are very low and we’re working on bringing that up, the literacy as well. There’s a number of people, First Nations community members that have the leaving school certification opposed to the dogwood so to bring that up and to have a number of our community members with education only helps our community, to bring them to a point where we’re at a level with all the other communities,” he said.

“It’s important for people to actually be prominent, be helpful with not only themselves but every avenue with society.”

Part of the path to increasing the role of education in the lives of Tk’emlúps Indian band members is the Sk’elep school.

“It has many possibilities. Like a lot of our youth in today with the numbers we’ve seen with our studies is that we have under 10 people in our community that actually speak Secwepmectsin fluently and so the first thing is to actually realize why that is and to start with our youth, that’s the best place to start is the language, giving people that tie to our culture and to continue that on from those younger generations, hopefully that will have the same effect on the older, their parents. Myself, I’m only starting to learn my language as well. I wish had more access, like my mother doesn’t know, my grandmother barely knows the language anymore because she doesn’t practice it as much as she used to,” said Paul.

“Language and culture, it’s to identify ourselves and to create that pride that you’ve seen lost for a number of years with just certain things in history that have we practiced not to be, to not have that pride. That was instilled in probably the generation before me and so I’ve never looked into it myself, but getting back into it is really a major thing with our community and our people.”

When he took over the education portfolio, it was a lot to take in all as once.

“There was so much emphasis and so much things going on now with different levels of Federal, provincial government that is changing and it is really exciting to see it really starting to grow like with our school and having so many people phone and express their concerns on which direction we should go in regards to our different levels of education,” he said.

Tk’emlúps Indian Band’s ability to be in control of its own future is also tied to education in Paul’s eyes.

“It goes hand in hand because without the education to back that up there’s no real direction you can go in regards to self-determination and it’s not only with that, it always has to stay culturally sensitive in regards to education and that’s why we have those different schools,” he said.

Janet Deneault

Janet Deneault stands in front of the her old school.

When I arrived at the Secwepemc Museum, Janet Deneault was still in a meeting.

I spent the next half hour wandering around the museum looking at exhibits. There was historical looks at the Secwepemc people, an exhibit on the residential schools and some information on the present day people. It was interesting because I’d seen Deneault speak at the TRU during the Aboriginal Awareness Week and heard her talk about her experiences with residential school. In hearing her talk, I felt that I gained more insight into the residential school experience than I had in just reading about it.

Denault is  a museum educator from Skeetchestn, a Secwepemc community near Savona. Her job is to do tours for School District 73 and public. She also goes out to schools and teaches students about the Secwepemc people and some of their history. She’s been working in the job for four years and works under Dan Saul, the manager at the museum.

Here are some excerpts of our conversation:

 “I am a member of the Shuswap nation. I am a Secwepemc. I am a full-blooded Secwepemc, both my parents were full-blooded meaning that we were registered and we have an ancestral background that can go back five generations.”

‘I come from a large family and the history of my family is that we’ve learned our language since we were very young and culture was a big part of my growing up the years before I went to the residential school and I love children because I’m a grandmother myself and I really have a passion towards teaching our history of our people”
 “I was always very interested in history dating back to school, my school years. I always has a passion for not only Secwepemc history but Canadian history in general.”

“It was very rewarding learning kind of from one or two topics to now over a hundred topics and I learned a lot when I first started because boss, Dan Saul is the manager, he know a lot of the history so he’s taught me a lot of history as well as we’ve learned to do tours regarding the museum exhibits which are all museum interpretations so there’s a lot more to it so the more I’ve learned while I was here looking at old documents the better quality tours we produce.”

On her role at the museum:

“It’s been very very rewarding and also very promotional because I now go all the way to the university level which is something for myself, I don’t have a university degree but I’ve been rewarded by that by doing presentations not only at TRU but I’ve gone and done some ministry presentations for cross-cultural(MOF, environment) and I’ve done cross-cultural not only within my own nation but with other First Nations that want to come here and learn about our people.”

“Normally when they come, they have no information about our nation and a lot of them have been living in Kamloops all their lives and they have not known that we do have a museum and we have a history of the whole area.”

“I feel the role is a learning institute and when I say that it’s because we have people here and I mentioned Dan, he’s like a historian and he also has a lot of knowledge about the residential school, the historical history behind it all and I think the museum is a great tool not only for general tours about the history but there’s been a large trend for tourists and students coming here to gain some insight into the residential school so I feel the museum is probably by far the most sought after institute for gaining educational insight into our history and the era of the residential schools.”

How she thinks Secwepemc people see the museum:

“It should be a very honourable and rewarding though that we do have a place to house all our history and I think that the people in the communities are very proud of it. I know because I go out into the public and I always have positive feedback about the museum and what the museum has been offering because it’s been here since 1982 so it’s something that even the children can relate to when they come here that they have pride in knowing their history, that there is a place that they could come to.”

 “I think it’s very important that we continue recording our history and a lot of projects go on on-reserves now especially in the natural resources and the archaeology departments, they go out in the field and they are constantly finding artefacts so what I like about that is they’re willing to share with us and willing to store that history here with us for generations. We have so much oral tradition tapes that were done back in the 80s and it’s sad the elder that were recorded at that time are gone now but we do have the memory of those tapes and the history, the stories, the legends, the mythological, the language especially because the majority of them were all fluent speakers of the language and told those stories in our language with an interpreter to interpret them in English and that’s really unbelievable history right there and I can only see it continuing cause we’re getting a little bit more modern with technology now so we can digitize a lot of researched items.”

“As an educator, because I teach about the mad gold rush, the fur trade and I teach about the impacts of what’s happened to our Secwepemc people since colonization, since European contact and believe it or not members of the 17 Secwepemc communities have a lot of knowledge about those impacts already because they’re a big part of our history already in the process of modern day treaties, and land claims and that so a lot of community members are already aware of our history and the museum is a big part of that because during the tours we often get questions, that’s why when you work here, you pretty well have to be a historian and the timelines, the dates of what happened regarding the impacts so you have to have a really good clear timeline because not only the general public but First Nations themselves come here for information.”

“The significance of having the museum onsite is really great because we can combine history with residential schools. We’re within walking distance of a historical building and within walking distance of a 2,000 year winter pit home site of our Secwepemc people so we got a really good mixture when tourists come here they want to take in everything so I think it’s a good tool to have the history here all in one building.”

“The history of the residential school plays a big part in the museum because we have a museum exhibit that’s dedicated for that and within that exhibit it’s a great tool because we have several videos that we show if we’re doing a residential school tour. They get to view the video and look around the museum and then we stop at the exhibit that houses the historical history of the residential school going back to the industrial school for Indian Children which was first opened up in 1884 in eastern Canada, in Ontario and eventually by 1890, opened up in Kamloops so we had an industrial school for Indian children before this current old building was opened and build in 1923 so it’s a very big part of the museum and it’s a very good educational tool because they get to do all of that, the historical overview as well as go into the old building and actually go in there and see what the building looks like and gain insight into what life was like there by survivors cause Dan and I are both survivors of the residential school so they get a 120 per cent bonus by the time they leave because they’ve not only gained the history but they’ve gained insight and that’s really touching to a lot of people.”

“It was really hard because when I first got the job I kinda didn’t think I’d be doing residential school tours but when I got the job I was a bit nervous because hadn’t been back in the building for many years, I wasn’t sure how exactly I’d handle it or was I going to be able to tell some stories about what life was like in the school. The first two, three times were really hard but I had a lot of support from Dan because he’s been doing the job 10 years prior to when I took over was what he was doing so he’s been a really big support and kind of advising me, ‘you know, you can do it’ so with that I said, ‘OK, I’ll give it a try,’ but it was hard. It was hard because when I stepped back in the building, I just all of a sudden, I could almost like I could close my eyes and I could hear and see everybody was there almost like the day I stepped foot in that building. Ya, it was hard.”

“It’s a lot easier. I find that I can go in there now and do a really good quality tour but for some reason at certain times of the year, there’s something kinda, maybe it’s memories, something to do with at a certain thing that happened at a certain time of the year. Christmas time was always hard because a few times, I spent Christmas here so when I go in there and I have a memory of that and I think that it’s just certain times if the year that kinda feels difficult.”

What it was like for Deneault at the Kamloops Residential School:

“It was hard to get used to because for one thing, being apart from my siblings like my brothers and my sister and that and other kids that came here around the same time from my community so we were all together and when we came here and we have to be apart. That was really hard and then not being able to eat our own traditional food and that was really hard and not being able to do any fishing and stuff like that that we’d normally being doing at that time of the year at home so I think losing our culture was probably the hardest part and then having come to all of a suddenly having gone from that to living in an institution, what I call an institution because everything was done like an institution.”

“I spoke English but what I was saying is that my parents and grandparents they spoke to us in our language pretty much. My mother was fluent in English.”

“I got there and I just turned nine. I was nine. I got there in 1967. I wasn’t even really too sure until I got the records back. I thought I was there only like three years or something. When you were there, you lost track of time it seemed like it because when I got the records back and they were like, ‘Oh no, you were here six years,' I said, 'Oh.' It’s part of my life that I just left behind. I didn’t even ever want to revisit it or go there.”
“When I hear other people’s stories, you know, I always think to myself and the first thing I do is worry about how they’re doing and how I could be of any help to them and for some reason, there’s still a lot of support within the residential school survivors. They all still have a connection even though we might meet one another other once a year, maybe not even. I haven’t seen some of my friends for since 14 years and I finally just met one or two of them in the last year or so because they’re finally starting to have those residential school gatherings and that and I think that when we look back I always remember having the support of a lot of the older girls. They always took care of the younger girls so there’s still support there and I think that’s the good part about it. There is still the friendship and connection even though we’re older now. We’re grannies now.”

On the apology and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Federal apology:

“I think that was a really good step for the Canadian government to come forward and finally recognize, after all these years, the hurt and the suffering that the students have gone through and when I look back on it all, I think that it was probably a long time coming and I think that there’s still a lot of work to be done in the whole area of the residential schools whether it’s reconciliation or whether it’s being compensated. I think there’s still a lot of work needs to be done because there’s still a lot of memories and schools that are still, like this one over here is still part of a historical site now but I think there still needs to be something else put in place for maybe a once a year remembrance day or something of residential school survivors because a lot of them are gone now and their stories will never be heard by them and their families are still going to have to heal from it because it impacted not only the survivors but their families because for five generations it’s affecting them and the reason why I say that is because the effects of the residential school. When I did the presentation at Thompson Rivers University, I mentioned that some of the effects were that because some of the students were going to be working in First Nations communities, they might run in to a residential school survivor that half way, or hasn’t started, or three-quarters of the way through a healing process to get themselves better and be able to actually fulfill a job, actually sit at a job and do a job without falling through any effects such as anger or having issues with employers. There’s a lot of other effects that I didn’t mention and one of them was where there was where they hadn’t reached a part of their lives where they could actually function by getting involved, moving their self-esteem forward. There’s a lot of First Nations who belonged to the school that are still quite quiet and a lot of them are suffering because they were abused mentally or physically, psychologically in the school, have addiction problems as a result and another one, parenting was a big one for me because I was a parent at a very young age and I was pretty strict with my children and I think one of the things they got out of it was they graduated from school because I really pushed them really hard. At the time we had a limit for everything and I think that the effects they have are some of the physical effect where, when I said a lot of parents can’t hug their child and say, ‘I love you and that’ so that was a little bit I was missing I thought even though it’s changed today. It was hard for me to give some of those skills back.”
On the healing process after residential school:

“Yes, it was and I think that part of it will never end. I still find that we have to have a really good support system around ourselves because I have pretty good support with employers if I need to attend to something then they’ve got an understanding or at home in my community, there’s spiritual support so I go to the sweat lodge and talk to elders and things like that and we have councillors right on reserve now whereas before they never had that, they never had trained councillors dealing with trauma or residential school effects and that.”

“What happened in the early days when the school was opened up as the industrial school for Indian children prior to when this building was built, during that time the children were brought here, their main focus was not on education, but on actual child exploitation because the children were made to learn all the physical labour of working to produce not only the orchards but the farming and the ranching, blacksmithing and the girls were forced to do the inside work and the outside work too and they were made to do it at a very young age because some of them remember sewing already when they were six years old on the old treadle machines and made to do harsh cleaning of the floors at that very young age so not wait until they’re 13 or something before they could be introduced to scrubbing floors. They were made to do the physical cleaning on their hands and knees.”

 “I don’t think there was much change for the institutional side of it probably until the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. I feel like when I came we were still subject to the real heavy cleaning and that and I had no idea about how to get down on my knees and scrub a floor but I had to learn. I had to do it.”

About education today:

“It makes me really proud to start with because I think that when we look back at the history of why the residential schools were closed down because it’s very empowering too because what happened was the First Nations themselves, in each community too because they took over the jurisdiction of their own education and that’s why you see all the communities have a school like that because they’ve reached the capacity where they could have a band-run school as well as what you see, band-run businesses now.”

“ I think that it shows that our people have a lot of growth, and when I say that it means they’ve been empowered now to be self-governing, be self-reliant, self-sufficient and a lot of our leaders now have role within their position to better all aspects of our life whether it’s education, natural resources or business development and that and I find that now most all Indian reserves now have education as their number one goal and that’s what I like because rather it means they’re looking back at era of what happened in education, they’re moving forward to better educate our children and the schools, just by going by them you can see why cause it’s a state-of-the-art school.”

“I think it’s important that all the bands now and within our nations because we have 54 nations in all of Canada, 54 that’s quite a bit but that’s still only one third of the Canadian population...It’s very important to keep track of where we’re going with educations because we are moving up quite fast but still in my mine not fast enough, till I see a school on every reserve with a mixture of not only academic education but a lot of culture and that’s what a lot of schools are designed for now.”

Dory La Boucane

Dory La Boucane in her office at The Gathering Place.

Today I met with Dory La Boucane. She’s the aboriginal transition planner with Services for Aboriginal Students at Thompson Rivers University.

She’s Métis and has been in Kamloops for last 5 years on Secwepemc territory. Prior to her work at the university, she worked at a secondary education level as a First Nations family-student support worker.

She works out of The Gathering Place, a house on campus that is designed to offer services and resources to aboriginal students who choose to access them. We sat down in her office in the upper level of the house in a small office with First Nations art on the walls.

Here are some parts of our conversation:

“My passion is for higher levels of education for all aboriginal people.”

“Aboriginal students face many more barriers then non-aboriginal students do and many aboriginal students at TRU come from rural communities so number one, they do not have the support systems in their personal life, let alone the support systems on campus or knowing where to go once they are here to access those resources and there’s multi-generational trauma impact on students from their families, their families of origin regarding the residential schools.”

“Students say this themselves, that they can say (The Gathering Place) is their second home, their home away from home, and there’s a comfort zone that they develop here and trust with the resources that we offer here which includes my position, aboriginal life skills coach, Lisa Christie’s position, and Joanne, the co-ordinator as well as we have a designated aboriginal student council that is physically in the house for different times of week that schedule time here and also able to access the other councils of course on campus main. We have an elders program and we also have back to basics wellness programs. We have healthy snacks and treats in the house for the students who don’t have breakfast. They can grab a granola bar and an orange and run to class. Just that little nutritional support helps. We also have the resources in the community for them to connect with outside of our services here.”

On TRU being the university of choice for aboriginal students:

 “I believe we are not 100 per cent there yet, that we are working on that academic plan, right and it was an inception and a dream that had taken place and there were steps through that process and I know we’ve come a long ways since I’ve started here four years ago so it’s gradual, it’s not all at once.”

 “When I arrived, the co-ordinator, she was the only person that had a position here, we still have that position, thank goodness. My position for the first two years was temporary, full-time temporary position. Now it’s an ongoing position without secured funding.”

“It needs more security. Not only from an individual perspective for job security for myself but also for our students to have that consistency.”

“There are still many barriers that need to come down. There still is racism and stereotyping that happens against aboriginal people on campus. I have students that experience it on a regular basis and I support them in avocation for those misunderstandings and clarifying so those walls and barriers come down slowly but we are humans and we tend to like to classify and without that knowledge base and understanding, myths like all Indians get free education and free housing, those are all myths that need to be dispelled.”

About the connection between education and self-determination:

‘I think education is definitely at the forefront of that and there’s a high need because we need, not to take away from the cultural aspect which is very important, the language, the whole land use base, it’s not to take away from that but we need to have a higher level of education to work at that development of that relationship with the Federal government and provincial governments for the economic land base and the use of their lands to building health centres in the communities, supporting their own schools in the community and even water, we know that water titles and land titles and all that needs to be settled so it’s important.”

“I was at the opening of the aboriginal center at SAIT in Calgary and I will quote Chief Starlight, he’s a former chief there now but he stated that education is our weapon of today and I firmly believe in that”

“It may be self-imposed but there’s also the Italian Cultural Centre, in town, it’s not on campus. There are Japanese cultural centres. We call this the cultural centre on campus. The international building is for international students and the services they have there are much greater than the services we have here and that’s targeted for international students. Our services for aboriginal students are directed towards aboriginal students, but there are activities on campus and it’s slowly growing through FNSS, First Nations Student Society and TRUSU aboriginal reps that helping to build that capacity for education and awareness of aboriginal culture and issues that we face, the poverty mainly and access and barriers that’s created to higher education.”

On opening up The Gathering Place to the rest of the campus:

“We’re short staffed for the capacity of student that we do deal with so we cannot take on that piece. If we had a cultural advisor that would fulfill that role on campus and within the community as well, the networking, it would be fantastic.”

“Our services are mandated directly for students of aboriginal ancestry, First Nations, Metis and Inuit so they are the dollars that are directed towards that... it’s not a cultural piece, it’s an educational piece.”

About The Gathering Place:

“They call it the brown house so that’s how they refer to it and I thought that was pretty cute, so they don’t call it the red house, they call it the brown house because our skins generally browner but we also have very visible First Nations, Métis and Inuit students and we have non-visible First Nations, Métis and Inuit students so we can’t say just from the colour of their skin or their eyes that they don’t belong here, right so they have to have that comfort zone within themselves. Primarily speaking most students in their third and forth years  of house do not access the house so much anymore because they’re more into their program and their cohort within that program so it’s usually the first and second year students and the university prep students that are in the house more often, especially in the computer lab.”

Joanne Brown

Joanne Brown is the co-ordinator of services for Aboriginal students at Thompson Rivers University. She’s been working in and around post-secondary institutions for the last 20 years including working at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George. She’s from around Burns Lake and is Carrier from the Frog Clan.

Her goal in her work is simple.

“What I work at is to build capacity in the aboriginal community,” she said. She wants to educate First Nations people to become doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs or whatever career they want in life.

“Everything that we need and we need so much,” she said sitting in her office.

The room is filled with boxes, evidence of the department’s upcoming move into the newly built House of Learning. On her wall is a bright green stuffed frog who sits beside photos and keepsakes. In the reception area of the Aboriginal Student Services office is a drum. It’s was bought as part of the university’s permanent collection of art.

Having pieces of art like that drum is part of what Brown has been doing for the last two years. She’s been indigenizing the institution with some funding from the provincial government. In that work, she’s been trying to raise the awareness about the First Nations perspective through art and changes in curriculum and education.

“It’s time to take our place with everyone else,” she said. “We’ve been ignored for so long.”

Even the land that the campus sits on, she considers differently. It’s about territory and not just a series of highways connecting places.

“Every inch of North America is somebody’s territory,” said Brown.

She doesn’t have a huge amount of one to one contact in her role now, but in the past she was the sole Aboriginal educational support in the school and had contact with students in all their aspects of life from personal to academic. 

That engagement in the students’ lives is part of the university’s commitment to First Nations Students. When the school promotes itself as the aboriginal institution of choice, you have to take responsibly if they falter, she said. 

“You take responsibility for them when you welcome them into the community of TRU.”

That support also comes in the form of more resources.

“There was a huge need for support,” she said, but even though the support has improved, she’d like still more. She’d like more tutors and an onsite wellness centre. 

For her, First Nations students need that extra support because they matter.

 “We have been looked down upon. We have been discriminated against,” she said.

“We’re still trying to mend ourselves because we matter”

She still sees discrimination playing out in the campus. First Nations student still come into her office crying because of how they’ve been treated. But in her time at the university, she’s seen things change for the better and she’s helped it change though that was not her initial intent. It’s been a byproduct of trying to help people understand the aboriginal perspective.

“Aboriginal education is a two way street,” she said.

John O'Fee

John O'Fee in his office.

John O’Fee comes to the Tk'emlups Indian Band from the other side of the river. For nearly three terms, O'Fee sat on Kamloops city council as a councillor. Now, he's made the switch over to the band and has just taken over the role of Chief Executive Officer.

O’Fee’s background is in law. Prior to taking this job, he’d been practicing law for almost 23 years and that’s part of the reason why he wanted to make the switch.

 “For me it represented an interesting challenge and a way to apply the skills I’ve obtained over the last few decades in a different way. This is an organization that runs its own businesses,” he said.

Sitting in his sunny office overlooking part of the South Thompson and the back parking lot of the residential school, he compared his experience of band politics with his work on city council. 

“I think that First Nations organizations at the leadership level typically try to build consensus. They put their membership at the very top and the whole organization exists to benefit the member and what they are trying to do goes a bit beyond what a city does in that they run a school. They’re in engage in social housing projects. They engage in educations programs for their members. They try to employment opportunities for members and something you wouldn’t normally see a city council or regional district board to do so they take more of an active in their day to day lives of their members then you would see at a municipal letter,” he said.

As a band, the role of First Nations governments is different than other governments.

“Your mandate is to look out for your membership. You’re not just there to plow the streets and pick up the garbage in those kind of municipal functions that you see, it’s a social development agency and in that respect it is different in that it takes on the role of the provincial government does in the sense of social development and the federal government does and education and things that you don’t see at a municipal or local government level typically.”

“With in a first Nations organization there’s a much broader mandate then there is in any one level of government,” he said. “People don’t understand what it does. They see it as an equivalent municipal government and it’s not a fair comparison.”

That level of governmental responsibility is resulting in a different relationship with other governments. In his experience, the City of Kamloops works with the Tk'emlups Indian Band on a government to government basis.

 “We have a very good relationship. We cooperate on a lot of things,” he said. “There have been lots of partnerships in that regard and there will be more in the future, I’m sure.”

But this strong relationship has not always been in place.

“The relationship matures over time. I think that the city realizes that theTk'emlups Indian Band is here and vice versa. There are opportunities that can be realized by that, that there is some very good real estate on the Tk'emlups Indian Band that could be developed in a ways that would both benefit the membership and bring in the in the maximum revenue for the members,” said O’Fee.

“Any organization, the longer you have a relationship with them generally the more that relationship matures…the relationship between the band and the city is maturing and both sides have reasonable expectations of each other in terms what they would get and how the relationship will work.”

For O’Fee, he’s has a lot of faith in the band’s plan for the future.

“The band is coming into its own. It’s got a good strategic plan, it’s got a good master plan for the use of its property. It’s going to build out in a rational way and always putting the membership front and centre. When I talk to managers, we exist for the benefit of the membership, that’s what we’re here for so membership always needs to be front and centre in everything we do and we’re looking not only for the economic dividend but there needs to be a social dividend, that we’re employing band members, that we’re giving them training opportunities, the ability to advance in life and obtain certain skills. We’re also looking for ways to express the culture and the heritage of the First Nations that are here, that were here long before European settlers arrived. There needs to be a sense of place here in the things that we do and the future that says this is Secwepemc territory and that there is a cultural component to that.”

He’s like to see that cultural history acknowledged by more people in Kamloops because it’s an important part of the community’s past and present.

“It’s part of our shared heritage now and I tell that to people because if you’re an Italian and they’re digging up Roman ruins, you’re not Roman, but you’re interested in seeing the coliseum and the Roman ruins because that’s part of the ancestry of the territory that you’re in and I think that all cultures should be interested in the ancestry of the people who settled here first and that history and that story that needs to be told,” he said.

“There’s a statue outside city hall with the Schuberts who were the first European settlers. It’s kind of a stylized, they’re coming down on this raft on the river, you know, that’s part of our history too. It’s not necessarily a great day for First Nations people but it’s part of our history and we have to acknowledge that. Not all of our history is good. We have to acknowledge internment camps, we have to acknowledge lots of bad things, residential schools, the kind of abuse that First Nations endure, that’s part of our history too but it’s important that people know that and know that story. And one story that I don’t think we tell well enough is the story of the original settlers which are the Secwepemc people and their history and how they lived and what they’re about… you want to express that in the things you do. When you build a building like the Sk’elep school, there are design cues to that, statues and art that gives you a sense of where you’re at. It’s kind of go a lean-to look to it. It’s kind of got a neat feel to it, right. You want it to be an expression of your culture in some subtle way. It doesn’t mean it’s not a functioning school and obviously the original peoples weren’t setting schools like that with gymnasiums and things like that but it doesn’t matter. There are design cue that can incorporate those. You see buildings, they have a Roman look. You have buildings that have a neo-Spanish look and we can have buildings that have a neo- Secwepemc look.”

That perspective as a non-First Nations person is why I am pleased to be doing this project. It’s important for people of all different background to understand the history of the land and it’s key to have community leader put those ideas out there and get the conversation about First Nations issues going in a positive way.