7   Walking in Two Worlds

Aboriginal Peoples in the Small City

Sharnelle Matthew and Kathie McKinnon

The Circle lives. Like the Phoenix, the Circle rises from the ashes of near death with renewed life and vigorous strength. (Derrick 1990, 25)

Today, the Secwepemc communities of south-central British Columbia are engaged in a process of decolonization and healing. The work of truth telling and the rediscovery, reclamation, and resurgence of Secwepemc self-determination and culture are essential to rebuilding communities and nations in the wake of colonization and oppression, past and present. The process of decolonization is holistic: it involves the recovery of a spiritual sense of self, family, and community founded on balance, on interconnectedness with nature and the Creator, and on reciprocity and the integrity of the whole. Most importantly, as Bruyere (1999, 173) observes, it is a “re-identification, re-affirmation and re-assertion of all things Aboriginal.”

One outcome of the process of decolonization is that some of the Secwepemc communities near the small city of Kamloops, British Columbia, now provide certain services to their own members, such as primary and secondary education, basic health care, income assistance, child welfare, and rural policing. However, all of these communities still depend on Kamloops for hospital care, specialized medical services, dental care, and mental health care, as well as for counselling, legal and financial services, postsecondary education, and access to retail outlets and entertainment venues. This means that Secwepemc peoples and those who accompany them on the path to wholeness and healing must “walk within two worlds.”

To make sense of this double reality and to help explain the lived experience of our communities, we often use the metaphors of the Circle and the Box. The Circle represents the cultural reality of Aboriginal communities; the Box symbolizes the dominant cultural world view. In what follows, in hopes of providing a deeper understanding of these metaphors, we will draw on oral histories and teachings of Elders, as well as on historical research, to describe the processes of colonization and oppression from which Aboriginal peoples in our nation and all across Canada are emerging. Although we aim to tell the story of the Secwepemc people as our Elders told it to us, we recognize that our communities are growing and changing. New economic, cultural, and social realities are emerging, and we will describe these as well. As social work practitioners, we constantly confront the effects of colonization, as well as the implementation of unreasonable and often conflicting bureaucratic policies. On a daily basis, we support our people in their own healing in an effort to help them overcome these challenges. Through examples drawn from our own practice, we hope to illustrate our approach to “walking with” our people towards wholeness in light of the differences in world view that exist between the Circle and the Box.

The Circle and the Box: Two Cultural Paradigms

Although Aboriginal reserve communities are sometimes quite remote, it is not uncommon for these communities to lie in fairly close proximity to larger non-Aboriginal cities or towns. In Kamloops, a small red wooden bridge crosses the South Thompson River, which separates the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc Reserve from the city itself. Bridges are normally intended to create connections, but the red bridge also symbolizes the line of divide between these two communities—the gap between two distinct cultural realities, that of the Circle and that of the Box. The red bridge is the physical link to the city of Kamloops, but, in the minds of those in the Secwepemc community, it is associated with the need to access services that are not available on the reserve itself. Whether in Kamloops or in Salmon Arm or Clinton or Williams Lake or other small cities in Secwepemc territory, the services provided off reserves are founded on the values, assumptions, and types of knowledge characteristic of the dominant culture. Those who provide these services often lack even a minimal awareness of the long-term effects of colonization and generally do not even attempt to incorporate Aboriginal culture, values, or knowledge into their practice.

In our own practice, we use the metaphors of the Circle and the Box as an educational tool to identify the systemic cultural differences that exist between Aboriginal peoples and non-Aboriginal peoples. These differences, shown in figure 7.1, have been developed from the work of Jann Derrick’s (1990) cultural teachings.

Figure 7.1. The Circle and the Box

These differences are very real. To meet the needs of the whole person and to avoid practices that are oppressive and insensitive, it is essential to recognize that the Western perspective is not universal and can often seem quite alien to an Aboriginal person. In this respect, the model of the Circle and the Box can be very useful. Contrasting the two world views helps our people understand that their own perspective is not “wrong,” but merely different, and it can also serve to remind non-Aboriginal service providers that their own assumptions and priorities may differ from those of their clients. At the same time, it is important to recognize that these metaphors are simplified constructions. Clearly, not all Aboriginal cultures are identical, nor are all the cultures broadly categorized as Western, and a set of binary oppositions cannot adequately sum up the totality of either perspective or conceptualize the complicated relationships that exist between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal worlds. The variances between the Circle and the Box should be understood not as absolutes but as the opposite poles of a continuum that lead to differences in emphasis. It is the points of overlap that create the potential for cross-cultural understanding and awareness.

These symbols can help us to remember and understand that profound differences in world view exist. Whereas people raised in the dominant culture are rarely required to step outside the Box, Aboriginal people are constantly expected to relinquish their own world view and adopt another. As a result, their lived reality is conflicted and complex. Both the Circle and the Box are part of their day-to-day experience in a kaleidoscopic mix that is never stable but is constantly changing with the person, the time, and the circumstances. Moreover, many Aboriginal people have been colonized to internalize the world of the Box, such that the debilitating messages it delivers have become central to their outlook. Identifying the world of the Circle and its presence in their lives and within their community, family, culture, and history is part of the process of empowerment, healing, and decolonization.

Even though some within the Box incorporate elements of the Circle in their professional practice, overall, a profound sense of disconnection and lack of understanding exists between the two. The challenge of our work is to build holistic relationships with those we walk with in order to help them navigate the space that exists between the Circle and the Box. Our understanding of the Circle begins with the wisdom of our Elders.

Our Ancestors’ Stories and History

Our Elders continually speak of the importance of Secwepemc stories and history in their teachings. They have told us many stories about how our ancestors lived long before European contact, about their kind-hearted spirit and their traditional holistic perspective on the world. The Elders’ stories, rich in historical, spiritual, and cultural meaning, fill in the Circle and provide a context for the complex histories and cultural realities of those we walk beside every day.

Aboriginal peoples have occupied the ecologically diverse south-central region of British Columbia’s Interior Plateau for thousands of years. The Secwepemc Nation originally occupied a vast territory of roughly 180,000 square kilometres that extended from the area west of the Fraser River as far as the edge of the Rocky Mountains and from the upper Fraser River in the north to points south of the Arrow Lakes. According to our Elders, there were originally thirty-two Secwepemc communities. Although, to some extent, each community had its own ways, there were commonalities such as respect for nature, the Secwepemctsín language, and traditional Secwepemc knowledge, values, ceremonies, and stories.1

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Secwepemc communities governed themselves in accordance with the principle of reciprocity and held a number of ideals in common, among them honour, equality, health, and the sharing of resources, power, and knowledge. While everyone benefited, those with the greatest need received more. All people had a role to play in the community, with the whole depending on the contribution made by each individual. As others have noted, “Many Aboriginal peoples retain notions of the person as defined by a web of relationships that includes not only extended family, kin and clan but, for hunters and other people living off the land, animals, elements of the natural world, spirits and ancestors” (Kirmayer, Simpson, and Cargo 2003, 18). People were accountable to and responsible for one another, and all community members cared for the children of the community, who were considered special gifts from the Creator.

Today, out of the original thirty-two, only seventeen Secwepemc communities remain: Xats’úll (Soda Creek), T’éxel’c (Williams Lake), Esk’ét (Alkali Lake), Stswécem’c/Xgét’tem’ (Canoe/Dog Creek), Tsq’éscen (Canim Lake), Llenllenéy’ten (High Bar), Stil’qw/Pelltíq’t (Whispering Pines/Clinton), Tsk’wéylecw (Pavilion), St’uxwtéws (Bonaparte), Skitsesten (Skeetchestn), Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops), Simpcw (North Thompson), Sexqeltqín (Adams Lake), Sk’atsin (Neskonlith), Quaaout (Little Shuswap), Splatsin (Spallumcheen), and Kenpésq’t (Shuswap) (see figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2. Secwepemc territory

Colonization

The first recorded contact between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans in the interior of British Columbia occurred in 1793, with the arrival of the explorer Alexander Mackenzie and his party, followed, in the first decade of the 1800s, by similar groups led by David Thompson and Simon Fraser. Small fur-trading posts were soon established, and in 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company began operations in Secwepemc territory (ALBAA Research Team 2010, 7, 18). During roughly the first half of the nineteenth century, the success of the fur trade demanded that traders rely on the knowledge and skills of Aboriginal hunters and guides, resulting in what Robin Fisher (1992, xxviii) argues was a “mutually beneficial economic system.” However, what reciprocity existed ended with the onset of the Fraser River Gold Rush, in 1858, and the Cariboo Gold Rush, which began a few years later, in 1861. This invasion of newcomers marked the beginning of settlement. The Europeans who arrived to pan for gold and then to farm, build homes, and establish churches and businesses were not dependent on Aboriginal peoples for trade and saw no reason to adapt to their ways. As Fisher (1992, xxix) observes, “Gold miners, settlers, missionaries and government officials, in different ways, all required the Indians to make major cultural changes, and the whites now had the power to force change.”

The shift in the economic base from the fur trade to agriculture created competition for land, bringing Aboriginal communities into potential conflict with white settlers. In the eyes of settlers, “the mere fact that Indians existed” posed a problem: they were viewed as “an obstacle to the spread of ‘civilization’—that is to say, the spread of European, and later Canadian, economic, social, and political interests” (Aboriginal Healing Foundation 2002, 3). In the wake of the gold rushes, the freedom to which Secwepemc peoples had been accustomed was eroded, as they were increasingly confined to reserves and obliged to interact with missionaries, settlers, and government agents. In addition, with Europeans came diseases previously unknown in Aboriginal communities. It is estimated that a third of BC’s Aboriginal peoples perished in the smallpox epidemic of 1862–63 alone (ALBAA Research Team 2010, 7), and, over time, many Secwepemc communities disappeared entirely.

In the Canadian context, colonization has been defined as “the process of taking control over and assimilating Aboriginal people through formal government policies. From an Aboriginal perspective, it refers to the theft of ancestral homelands and resources, as well as attempts to destroy Indigenous languages and cultures” (Chansonneuve 2005, A19). Central to this process was the Indian Act, introduced by the Canadian government in 1876. The Indian Act enabled the state to exert extensive legal and administrative control over Aboriginal communities. The original act and its subsequent amendments imposed a system of bands, defined the boundaries of reserves, and created the national policy of residential schools, as well as prohibiting:

• the acquisition of land or the control of land use (1876 to present)
• voting in federal elections (until 1960)
• voting in provincial elections (until 1949)
• voting in municipal elections (until 1948)
• participation in potlatches (1884–1951)
• participation in festivals and dances (1895–1951)
• the possession of alcohol on reserve or intoxication on or off reserve (1876–1970)
• the sale of agricultural products without permission (1881 to present)
• prosecuting land claims or retaining a lawyer (1927–51)2

The Indian Act has justly been described as “nothing less than a conspiracy. Examined as a whole, it exhibits a clear pattern founded on conscious intent to eliminate Indians and ‘Indianness’ from Canadian society” (Mathias and Yabsley 1991, 35).

One major impediment to the westward expansion of white settlement was the existence of Aboriginal title, as recognized in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. In 1870, the Canadian government began negotiating a series of treaties with Aboriginal peoples, with the intent of acquiring legal ownership of their lands. However, aside from Treaty 8 (1899), which covered the northeast corner of the province, these treaties did not extend into British Columbia. After the Colony of Vancouver Island was established in 1849, treaties were negotiated with Aboriginal groups on the island, but once the Colony of British Columbia was founded, in 1858, the Ottawa government terminated funding for such negotiations, placing the burden of cost on the colony itself. The solution pursued by Joseph Trutch, who became governor of British Columbia in 1864, was simply to ignore the existence of Aboriginal title (UBCIC, n.d., 2). Instead, the government of British Columbia arbitrarily created new reserves or made “cut-offs” to existing reserves, thereby reducing their size, without any meaningful consultation with Aboriginal peoples. This includes cut-offs to reserves in both Secwepemc and Okanagan territory (Smith 2009, 163).

This policy continued after British Columbia became a province, in 1871, and ultimately brought the provincial government into conflict with the federal government. The result was a Royal Commission, convened in 1912 and headed by J. A. J. McKenna, the special commissioner appointed by Ottawa, and Richard McBride, the premier of British Columbia. The McKenna-McBride Commission, as it is commonly known, set out to resolve these federal-provincial disputes by determining, once and for all, the location and size of reserves. The question of Aboriginal title was deliberately not included in the agenda, nor was the commission to involve itself in other issues of concern to the Aboriginal population. The commission was granted the authority to propose cut-offs to reserves, provided that it had obtained the consent of a majority of the adult men in the band whose lands were involved (UBCIC, n.d., 4).

Especially because south-central British Columbia boasts some of the richest agricultural lands in the province, the reserves in the Kamloops Agency were one target of attention. Prior to the arrival of the McKenna-McBride Commission in the area, the Kamloops Board of Trade prepared a resolution requesting that the Secwepemc living on the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Reserve be removed from the vicinity of the city. The board presented this request to the commission, setting off a series of debates. As historian Keith Smith (2009, 185) observes, “It is clear that the Secwepemc and Okanagan were already becoming increasingly restricted to the fragments of their territories that had been reconfigured as reserves. While their representatives patiently tried to explain to the commissioners the importance of retaining the pieces that remained, the commissioners were in no position to understand what they heard.”

The report of the McKenna-McBride Commission, submitted in 1916, recommended cut-offs to the land of fifty-four reserves, a total of nearly 47,059 acres. At the same time, it also recommended the addition of a little over 87,290 acres. However, whereas these additions were valued at $444,838 (an average of about $5.10 per acre), the value of the cut-off land was assessed at $1,522,704 (an average of roughly $32.35 per acre). In the Kamloops Agency, nearly 3,500 acres, valued at roughly $130,815, were designated to be cut off and replaced by 1,477 new acres, the value of which was a mere $7,385. Of these 3,500 acres, 2,165 lay in the Qu7ewt (Little Shuswap) Reserve (Smith 2009, 185, 186). Further disputes ensued between the two governments, which culminated in a review of the commission’s recommendations. Even though Aboriginal peoples rejected the overall authority of the commission to reduce reserve sizes, when the recommendations were finalized, in July 1924, thirty-five cut-offs were made from territory belonging to twenty-three bands (UBCIC, n.d., 8). Entire Aboriginal communities were forcibly relocated to often tiny, useless pieces of land with few resources.

In addition to these efforts at dispossession, the Canadian government sought to destroy Aboriginal culture by removing children to residential schools, where they would be suitably re-educated. Two such schools were established in Secwepemc territory, one adjacent to Kamloops and the other near Williams Lake, at the site of the St. Joseph’s Mission. Founded in 1890, the Kamloops Indian Residential School operated until 1978; the St. Joseph’s Mission School operated from 1891 to 1981 (Walmsley 2005, 10). At these two schools, multiple generations of Secwepemc girls and boys aged five and older were legally taken from their families and communities and forced to live in church-administered institutional settings, where they were subjected to harsh discipline and frequently terrorized by members of the staff. Separated from their families, their community, and their traditional homelands and forbidden to speak their language, these children lost their culture, their spiritual foundations, and their sense of identity. This was an act of cultural violence that left Secwepemc families and communities profoundly shattered.3

Today, the policies of the Canadian government towards Aboriginal peoples in the late nineteenth and first part of the twentieth centuries are regarded as nothing less than a legally sanctioned program of cultural genocide (White and Jacobs 1992, 18). Chansonneuve (2005, 5) argues that “the tools of cultural genocide are cultural shame, cultural disconnection, and trauma” and notes that “unresolved, multiple disconnections and historical trauma are directly responsible for many of the problems facing Aboriginal people today.” Despite official apologies from the federal government, the impact of these many decades of personal and cultural trauma is not so easily undone. Although some would prefer to believe that the era of colonization is long over, others argue that colonizing attitudes and assumptions are as pervasive and oppressive as ever and that colonization remains “an imposing and dominating force” (Hart [Kaskitémahikan] 2009, 37). It is simply more covert now than in the past.

Secwepemc Communities Today

Like Aboriginal peoples elsewhere in the country, Secwepemc communities still grapple with the devastating effects of colonization and the legacy of intergenerational trauma resulting from the Canadian government’s suppression of language, culture, religion, and identity. This legacy includes alcohol and drug addiction; a high rate of suicide among youth; violence in families; poverty; inadequate housing, income, and transportation; high levels of unemployment; and lower life expectancies. In spite of this, today’s communities are rising from the ashes. Between 2006 and 2011, the Aboriginal population in Canada grew 20.1 percent, in comparison to 5.2 percent for the non-Aboriginal population.4 In 2011, 46.2 percent of the country’s Aboriginal population was under the age of twenty-four, in comparison to 29.5 percent of the non-Aboriginal population (Statistics Canada 2013, 8, 16).

Community members are now committed to filling specific roles in our communities themselves rather than relying on non-Aboriginal experts with little or no cultural knowledge. Some expressions of this change have been the creation of community health services on reserve and our own child welfare agency, which provides mental health services, family mediation, alternate care services (foster care), and cultural education and support services to the children and families of our nation. Cultural education and support refers to creating a greater awareness of familial cultural history, encouraging participation in culturally relative ceremonies, and developing knowledge of traditional languages. In addition, most communities now offer income-assistance services, on- and off-reserve housing services, recreational programming, and employment training opportunities. These services have become possible in part because an increasing number of our community members complete high school and pursue postsecondary education.

Community members are also returning to reserve communities to provide leadership in a range of professional, administrative, and technical roles. They are creating trusting partnerships and fostering new initiatives. One example is the Quaaout Lodge and Spa at Talking Rock Golf Course, a project undertaken by the Quaaout or Little Shuswap band. This distinctive hotel, situated beside a PGA golf course in a spectacular setting, attracts international, national, Aboriginal, and non-Aboriginal guests and has the capacity to host large events. It is also the number one culturally inclusive employer in the area. In addition to the standard amenities, the lodge offers cultural activities that include workshops on topics such as the seven teachings, the medicine wheel, and the talking circle. According to Chief Oliver Arnouse (pers. comm., November 2014), “Quaaout” refers to the place where the rays of the morning sun first touch the ground. Designed by the Elders, the lodge was laid out so that its four corners are located where the sun’s rays first hit the earth at the beginning of each of the four seasons.

Hunting and gathering have always been communal activities in Secwepemc communities, with food shared among members of the group. Today, as part of the reclamation of traditional values and cultural practices, food is again being shared as more and more communities set up community freezers. Stocked by contributions from the community, such freezers provide food for those in need, reduce shame, and demonstrate community generosity. In addition, over the past ten years, communities have taken back the solstice through cultural ceremonies held on the longest and shortest days of the year. These are traditional feasts that unite the community. Through traditional storytelling, art making, dance, drumming, healing circles, smudging, sweat lodges, sun dance ceremonies, pipe ceremonies, naming ceremonies, traditional forms of adoption, and other traditional activities, a community awareness has developed that improves trust, respect, communication, and healing. In these ways and others, Secwepemc people continue to gain strength and focus their collective efforts on deconstructing the ways of the Box that were imposed on them, overcoming their historical dislocation, and strengthening the Circle.

Yet in spite of these many accomplishments, when community members leave the reserve to seek services across the red bridge in the small city of Kamloops, they confront a different world. For many Aboriginal people, seeking any type of service outside their own community is anxiety provoking. For some, even the thought of interacting with a small city’s urban institutions or mainstream organizations is daunting. The lone Aboriginal parent of three young children, carrying a large diaper bag, knows she will be the first to be followed by store security in the grocery store. On a daily basis, we see how Aboriginal children, youth, families, and communities carry forward the pains of the past while enduring their own experiences of racism and oppression. Rarely, though, are those who live and work inside the Box able to comprehend this emotional universe, and they generally remain oblivious to its presence.

Poverty and lack of transportation often limit Aboriginal people’s ability to access services off reserve. Some do not own vehicles, and it is not uncommon for even an older person who lives on one of the more isolated Secwepemc reserves to spend hours walking or hitchhiking to the nearest city for a needed service. City buses and the HandyDART shuttle for the disabled do not provide service beyond the city limits: the city bus does not cross the red bridge. Taxis are usually out of the question, as some reserves are many hours from the nearest city and the fares are unaffordable for most people. In addition, service providers generally assume that their clients are literate and reasonably fluent in English. Many Aboriginal people need both translation and explanation of medical procedures, treatment plans, and social service or legal documents. They may also need someone to explain the terms and conditions laid down by social workers, probation officers, and the police. More profoundly troubling, though, is the sense of feeling lesser—the sense that one has not been heard, the sense that one is not worthy of being heard, the sense that one’s voice has been silenced by service professionals. This is a continuation of the legacy of oppression that perpetuates, in the present, feelings of powerlessness, inferiority, shame, and anger.

Double-Sided Cards: Our Stories of Practice

As professionals, we navigate on a daily basis the very distinct worlds of the Circle and the Box. At times, we feel as though we have double-sided cards. One side of the card identifies us as mental health professionals, armed with the credentials and skills required by the modern health care system. When we walk in the world of the Box, we must speak the language of health professionals in order to access the best possible care for those we walk beside when they are seeking services in Kamloops, just across the red bridge. Since the language of the Box is complex and scientific, we need a thorough understanding of it in order to become compassionate translators. Many of those we walk with do not understand this pathologizing, deficit-based language, in which both the body and the mind are regarded as if they were inanimate objects in need of repair. Terms such as diagnosis and prognosis can be alarming to some people, as can talk of test results, treatment modalities, or psychotropic medications. Even though our academic qualifications and professional experience are equivalent to—and in some cases, better than—those of our non-Aboriginal colleagues, we have both been the target of condescending verbal and nonverbal treatment that seems intended to remind us that we, too, are lesser, just like our poor, marginalized sisters across the bridge.

The Circle side of our card represents a holistic approach to wellness, in which we view ourselves as allies rather than as experts. Our work is grounded in human relationships and in the seven teachings: honesty, humility, trust, wisdom, love, respect, and bravery (Wesley-Esquimaux and Snowball 2010). These seven teachings, which emphasize holistic well-being, traditional knowledge, and empowerment, help us to navigate the particular realities of those we walk with—the multiple forms of oppression, the intergenerational trauma, and the various issues that, in consequence, these individuals face in their daily lives. As allies, we encourage the use of the seven teachings in conjunction with contemporary modes of intervention, and we also draw on the stories and ceremonies of the ancestors and on the cultural knowledge preserved by our grandmothers and grandfathers and by the traditional healers, or medicine people. We honour participation in traditional practices such as smudging, sweat lodge ceremonies, healing circles, sharing circles, pipe ceremonies, sun dance ceremonies, feasts, and other forms of healing. These seven teachings and ceremonial traditions respectfully uphold a holistic and collaborative approach to well-being based on wholeness, balance, connection, harmony, growth, and spiritual restoration. The Circle encompasses all realms, those of human beings and those of Mother Earth, and symbolizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of all the elements that contribute to the balance of the whole (Bopp et al. 1985).

When working from the circular side of our card, we sensitively and respectfully act as helping messengers who translate and transfer knowledge from the Box to the Circle in ways that will be meaningful to individuals, to families, and to the community. In so doing, we strive to create an awareness of the human strengths and the capacity for resilience that flow from the power of collective relations and traditions. As the Circle is strengthened, Secwepemc communities are gaining a greater sense of empowerment and becoming ever more self-reliant. Yet they must still depend on the non-Aboriginal community for the provision of many services.

The stories that we share below are drawn from our practice, but to protect the privacy of others, we have combined elements from different specific situations and experiences. These story collages capture a sense of the two worlds within which we walk and how they intersect. Our first story illustrates the discriminatory attitudes that we often encounter, as well as the way we use our two-sided card. Some time ago, one of us accompanied a teenage male and his family to a hospital emergency room in a small city in the local area. Five weeks earlier, this young man had been admitted to the adult psychiatric unit, assessed, and diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, and it was apparent from conversations with his family that he was experiencing another psychotic episode.

At the hospital, I shared all the young man’s relevant information and history with the emergency room nurse. The nurse seemed somewhat disengaged, but she listened and documented what she needed to and then proceeded to the nursing station, which was only a few feet away. She turned to another nurse and said, with obvious condescension, “Boy, we have a smart one over there. I usually don’t get this much information from them. This one really knows her stuff.” Her remarks were demeaning, discriminatory, and unprofessional, and they also betrayed a complete lack of sensitivity to other Aboriginal people in the emergency room, who might have overheard them. It was as if we, as Aboriginal people, were simply not there. Ironically, the young man’s hallucinations protected him from her comments, since he was not cognizant of what had just happened.

The young man’s mom, dad, siblings, aunties, grandparents, and several other community members, all of whom were seated in the waiting room, were clearly very scared by what they had witnessed earlier, before the trip to the emergency room. For some of the older family members, the sterile institutional setting of the hospital compounded their fears, triggering residential school memories. I aimed to re-establish, with the family, the world of the Circle while sitting in the Box of the waiting room. This involved building respectful relations with the young man’s family and with the community members in attendance. Together, we shared many stories about traditional and nontraditional approaches that the family hoped to incorporate as part of their boy’s healing journey.

With some apprehension, this very traditional family decided that it was in their son’s best interests to remain in the hospital, as they felt that Western medicine would best suit his healing journey at this point. When I returned to the linear side of the card, a consultation process took place with an emergency room physician, whose attitude was very different from that of the nurse. He compassionately agreed with all the family’s concerns, while also understanding and respecting their cultural traditions. Walking back to the Circle, I continued to engage in more storytelling with the boy’s family in the waiting room. This was a means to share, interpret, and transfer information to the family as to what they might expect and what might happen next and to create awareness of how these specific actions might contribute holistically to their child’s well-being.

The young man remained on the psychiatric unit for approximately three weeks. Prior to his discharge, the boy’s family requested a family meeting with the psychiatrist who was in charge of the case. This request was denied: we were told that the psychiatrist had no time for such a meeting. To us, this response exemplifies the power of the Box to control and oppress by regulating access to expertise. It conveyed a clear message that this young man and his family were not important, that their voices were not worth listening to. The harmonious, mutually respectful relationships so fundamental to the Circle were ignored. In the end, the family received no information from the hospital specific to the young man’s future care after discharge.

Our second story concerns the way in which the bureaucratic processes surrounding Aboriginal health needs can actually impede essential treatment. A teenage Aboriginal girl who was involved with both the local health care system and the judicial system was diagnosed with major depression. The depression was first identified by a physician, and the clinical diagnosis was confirmed by the child and youth forensics team that supported her. The young girl came from a family strongly rooted in cultural traditions, and family members were concerned about using pharmaceuticals instead of traditional medicines and modes of healing. However, after weighing the options, her family decided that psychotropic medication was the best way to cope with her depression and ensuing suicide ideation.

The girl’s doctor wrote a prescription, but the pharmacist refused to fill it. He said that special authorization was needed from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC, now Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada) for the medication, since it was not one of the drugs covered under AANDC’s Non-insured Health Benefits (NIHB) Program, and that it was not his responsibility to obtain this authorization. The list of medications available to Aboriginal people through the NIHB Program is constantly changing and has also been significantly reduced over the past decade—changes that most Aboriginal people are unaware of until they are in a doctor’s office or at the pharmacy. As a result, Aboriginal people constantly experience difficulty in accessing adequate and appropriate medications. While a doctor is needed to prescribe appropriate medications in the first place, she must also be knowledgeable about NIHB’s current list of approved medications. In this case, the need for special authorization created a life-threatening barrier for this young girl. It meant that she had to go back to her doctor, and her doctor had to write to the NIHB Program to advocate for her psychotropic medication. This appeal process took six months. Throughout this period, the girl continued to experience major depression, recurring suicide ideation, and suicide attempts. When the request was denied, the physician appealed a second time. As before, this bureaucratic process took months. At the end of this second appeal process, AANDC finally agreed to approve the drug, but only in a generic form. To government bureaucrats, the fact that this was a life or death situation for a young girl and her family was evidently of no concern. Moreover, in this case, the girl had the benefit of active collaboration and advocacy on the part of many culturally sensitive and allied supporters—the Aboriginal social worker, the physician, the forensics team, and her family. It is sad to think of what might have happened otherwise.

A third story reveals how cultural assumptions can contribute to insensitivity and lack of understanding. Many of our families have no phones; therefore, mail and home visits are the only ways to communicate. One day, we were called into the local public school to see a young boy who was exhibiting high levels of anxiety and a tendency towards disruptive behaviour. His difficulties had recently escalated to the point where he was no longer productive in the learning environment. We asked whether his parents had been contacted and were informed that there was no family phone, that many letters had gone to the house, and that administrators had attempted several home visits, to no avail. At this point, the school authorities were thinking of expelling this young boy.

When we went to the boy’s home, it was immediately obvious that poverty was a major factor in his life. His mother indicated that she had no food, and she had no way to get to the food bank. When we asked about the school’s letters and attempted visits, his mother became defensive. In the corner of her small, sparsely furnished apartment sat a large box of unopened mail. For some Aboriginal adults, literacy is a very sensitive subject. To ask the direct question “Can you read?” risks shaming the person. Eventually, the boy’s mother confided that she could not read or write and was therefore unaware of her son’s anxiety and behavioural challenges at school. It was not until this moment that we could begin to work holistically with this young boy and his mother and to begin to address his family’s needs. In the world of the Box, language and literacy are taken for granted.

Situations such as those described above are by no means unusual in our practice. They illustrate some of the ways in which the legacy of the past continues to haunt the present. In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples noted that Aboriginal young people are currently “paying the price of cultural genocide, racism and poverty, suffering the effects of hundreds of years of colonialist public policies.” The commission’s report continues:

The problems that most Aboriginal communities endure are of such depth and scope that they have created remarkably similar situations and responses among Aboriginal youth everywhere. It is as though an earthquake has ruptured their world from one end to another, opening a deep rift that separates them from their past, their history and their culture. They have seen parents and peers fall into this chasm, into patterns of despair, listlessness and self-destruction. They fear for themselves and their future as they stand at the edge. (RCAP 1996, 139)

One of the most urgent problems facing Aboriginal youth is the impulse to suicide. In its 1995 report on suicide among Aboriginal people, the commission reported that among “aboriginal youth aged 10 to 19 years, the suicide rate was five to six times higher than among their non-aboriginal peers” (Chenier 1995, 2).

Tragically, we encounter many suicide attempts and some completed suicides in the communities we walk with. We have received as many as eight intakes of suicide ideation typically involving youth, in a single week. Suicide intervention forces us into a survival mode in which we must neglect other people on our caseloads owing to the immediate demands of crisis management, coupled with an overall lack of service capacity. There is nothing worse than responding to a completed suicide of a child and meeting that child’s parents. But an event of this magnitude devastates the entire community, and therefore the services needed are extensive. We walk with humility beside an entire community on its collective healing journey. This takes a great amount of time, and we work long hours, days, weeks, and months when we lose a young person.

This part of our practice is about being with; it is relationally responsible. We hold the community’s pain deep in our chests and throats. The community’s tear-soaked tissues are gathered and given to an Elder to burn in a ceremonial fire. Services and resources are also extended to community members who live off reserve and in the small city. Urban agencies, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, play an integral role in addressing the grief and loss of experienced by community members. Together, they raise awareness on and off the reserve about the threat of suicide and work to create trauma informed practices. When we are called upon to respond to suicide, our double-sided card is essential. It allows us to negotiate the very distinct administrative worlds of the coroner, the police, and the school while also walking with and through the waves of grief enveloping our communities.

Interconnections

From time to time we have encountered amazing human beings, from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, who live and work within the Box. These remarkable individuals seem to understand and have a different way of working with Aboriginal people. They include the doctor described above who relentlessly fought the bureaucratic Box to ensure that his young patient received the medication she so desperately needed. They include the empathetic doctor who, even though he knew that this action could not be justified as medically necessary, sent the teenage youth for further tests in hopes that his paranoid delusions could be dispelled for him. They include the teacher who kind-heartedly listened to an Aboriginal child who was struggling with the ugly reality of racism and cultural identity issues, who took the time to build a relationship with him, and who had enough insight to connect him with a respected Elder for guidance, learning, and nurturing. They also include the RCMP officer who caringly supported a young rape victim, putting her in contact with culturally sensitive supports and services and sharing from a place of heartfelt honesty that he would do whatever it took to catch the person who did this to her. Such “acts of solidarity,” Gord Bruyere (1999, 179) writes, “require the courage to undertake the development of relationships in a manner that should have happened hundreds of years ago.”

As Bruyere (1999, 179) also notes, anyone who genuinely wishes to understand Aboriginal people must be “willing to share in the emotional legacy of our shared history.” A few do seem capable of actively listening to the stories of Aboriginal people. They are attuned to ask questions, to engage in courageous conversations, and, most importantly, to refrain from judging the Aboriginal people they meet. As a result, they gain a greater awareness of the historical context of Aboriginal peoples, and they increase their understanding of the Circle. These people respectfully embrace the Circle while working as allies, advocates, role models, and mentors within the systems of the Box. The voices of these individuals consciously raise awareness of the need for social justice, equality, respect, empowerment, harmony, balance, and wholeness, not only for Aboriginal people but also for society as a whole. Standing up for change awakens the gifts inside us all to build the capacity for interconnection and create stronger relationships with the Circle and the Box. These all too rare individuals understand the importance of caring unconditionally for all people and of aligning their actions with the Creator’s heart. The seven teachings are inherent in their spirits regardless of the colour of their skin or their cultural identity. As Jann Derrick (1990, 5) writes, “We are each born as ‘circles’—whole and perfect and intuitively wise.”

Conclusion

As the realities of our practice illustrate, Aboriginal peoples walk within two contrasting systems, the Circle and the Box. We observe that, at times, the Box leaves them no room for inclusion and ignores the voices of those it claims to serve. Conversely, we see that some inside the Box do have the ability to embrace and respect the ways of the Circle. They seem to understand that being quiet enough to listen, to hear the stories of the Circle without judgment, is essential to healing. This willingness to listen respectfully, asking questions when necessary for clarity, can empower the voices of others and lead to transformative dialogues. But even the most empathetic individuals can only do so much when the institutions within which they walk are still dominated by the ways of the Box.

In our own work, we see certain signs that give us hope—signs that institutions are slowly starting to recognize the existence of the Circle. Thompson Rivers University has an Elders program that provides support to Aboriginal postsecondary students, but the Elders also give lectures to audiences that include non-Aboriginal listeners, offer opening prayers at university events and ceremonies, and welcome campus visitors to Secwepemc Territory. The local school district now employs Aboriginal support staff and an Aboriginal family counsellor, who work together to ensure the success of Aboriginal students. At the hospital, the Aboriginal Patient Navigators program provides a broad spectrum of support services to Aboriginal patients and their families and strives to alert medical staff to cultural considerations. The BC Ministry of Children and Family Development and Aboriginal child welfare agencies now make use of family group conferencing, an approach pioneered in New Zealand and founded on the traditional Maori style of decision making. These conferences allow a child’s extended family and other community members to participate in resolving difficult questions and planning for a child’s safety and well-being. In each case, the Box is reaching out to the Circle and is in a process of change itself.

If we hope to bring the worlds of the Circle and the Box into a closer, more balanced relationship, however, greater institutional collaboration will be needed. Health care, education, and judicial and social services still largely exist in separate worlds. Similarly, plans for economic development, transportation systems, and improvements to infrastructure proceed along parallel lines. To take only one example, the small city of Kamloops and the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Reserve share a river, but the idea that the two could join together in planning the development of a waterfront area that would be common to both has never been explored. This ongoing lack of coordination reflects not only the legacy of colonization but also a reality enshrined in the Canadian constitution. Municipalities are structurally part of provincial governments and must answer to them, but the affairs of Aboriginal peoples are still controlled by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, a branch of the federal government. This administrative division creates tiny federal islands in the midst of provinces, which deepens the sense of separation and can also put up legal roadblocks to collaboration. Geographically side by side, the city of Kamloops and the Secwepemc community map out their respective futures in isolation, from opposite sides of the red bridge.

In A Fair Country, John Ralston Saul (2008, 3) reminds us that Canada is a “métis civilization,” one that has been “heavily influenced and shaped by the First Nations.” And yet, he writes, what is “both curious and troubling is that we cannot bring ourselves to talk about how profoundly our society has been shaped over four centuries in its non-monolithic, non-European manner by the First Nations” (6). He suggests that this silence is rooted in fear, fear above all of the Aboriginal “other.” As he puts it, Euro-Canadians were frightened of those “whose place this was and in whose shadow they—and eventually we—would have to find our reality” (6). Finding this reality will require the courage to step inside the Circle and embrace Aboriginal ways of knowing and being. Political and professional leaders must come to understand that transformative change depends on the integration of the parts into the whole. As long as the country continues to deny part of itself, healing cannot occur.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the stories of the Elders who have crossed our paths. Their wisdom, guidance, knowledge, teaching, and sharing enhances our own learning and practice, especially when we are called upon to forge connections for those we walk beside. We are indebted to Chief Oliver Arnouse, Michelle Canaday, Garlene (Jules) Dodson, Floyd Eustache, Cheryl Matthew, Geri Matthew, and Tina Matthew for reviewing the text to ensure that it accurately reflects a Secwepemc view of the history of their people.

References

Aboriginal Healing Foundation. 2002. The Healing Has Begun: An Operational Update from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation. http://www.ahf.ca/downloads/the-healing-has-begun.pdf.

ALBAA (A Learning Bridge for Aboriginal Adults) Research Team. 2010. A Handbook for Educators of Aboriginal Students. Kamloops, BC: Thompson Rivers University.

Bopp, Judie, Michael Bopp, Lee Brown, and Phil Lane, Jr. 1985. The Sacred Tree: Reflections on Native American Spirituality. 2nd ed. Lethbridge, AB: Four Worlds International Institute for Human and Community Development.

Bruyere, Gord. 1999. “The Decolonization Wheel: An Aboriginal Perspective on Social Work Practice with Aboriginal Peoples.” In Social Work with Rural and Northern Communities, edited by Roger Delaney, Keith Brownlee, and Margaret McKee Sellick, 170–81. Thunder Bay, ON: Centre for Northern Studies, Lakehead University.

Chansonneuve, Deborah. 2005. Reclaiming Connections: Understanding Residential School Trauma Among Aboriginal People. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation. http://www.ahf.ca/downloads/healing-trauma-web-eng.pdf.

Chenier, Nancy Miller. 1995. Suicide Among Aboriginal People: Royal Commission Report—Mini-Review. Ottawa: Library of Parliament, Research Branch. http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/researchpublications/mr131-e.pdf.

Derrick, Jann. 1990. “The Box and the Circle—Two Systems of Life: A Model for Understanding Native/Non-native Issues.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mokakit Indian Education Research Association, Ottawa, 13 October 1990. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED331666.pdf.

Dickason, Olive Patricia. 2002. Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.

Dickason, Olive Patricia, and William Newbigging. 2010. A Concise History of Canada’s First Nations. 2nd ed. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.

Fisher, Robin. 1992. Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia, 1774–1890. 2nd ed. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Furniss, Elizabeth. 1992. Victims of Benevolence: The Dark Legacy of the Williams Lake Residential School. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Haig-Brown, Celia. 1988. Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Hart, Michael Anthony (Kaskitémahikan). 2009. “Anti-colonial Indigenous Social Work: Reflections on an Aboriginal Approach.” In Wícihitowin: Aboriginal Social Work in Canada, edited by Raven Sinclair (Ótiskewápíwskew), Michael Anthony Hart (Kaskitémahikan), and Gord Bruyere (Amawaajibitang), 25–41. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Jack, Agnes. 2000. Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Residential School. Penticton, BC: Theytus Books.

Kirmayer, Laurence, Cori Simpson, and Margaret Cargo. 2003. “Healing Traditions: Culture, Community, and Mental Health Promotion with Canadian Aboriginal Peoples.” Australasian Psychiatry 11: 15–23.

Mathias, Chief Joe, and Gary R. Yabsley. 1991. “Conspiracy of Legislation: The Suppression of Indian Rights in Canada.” In In Celebration of Our Survival: The First Nations of British Columbia, edited by Doreen Jensen and Cheryl Brooks, 34–45. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

RCAP (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples). 1996. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Vol. 4, Perspectives and Realities. Ottawa: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/6874.

Saul, John Ralston. 2008. A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada. Toronto: Penguin.

Sellars, Bev. 2013. They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School. Vancouver: Talonbooks.

Smith, Keith D. 2009. Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877–1927. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.

Statistics Canada. 2013. Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit—National Household Survey, 2011. Ottawa: Minister of Industry. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-011-x/99-011-x2011001-eng.pdf.

UBCIC (Union of BC Indian Chiefs). N.d. “Background to the McKenna-McBride Commission.” Our Homes Are Bleeding: Digital Collection. http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/ourhomesare/narratives/Background_1.htm.

Walmsley, Christopher. 2005. Protecting Aboriginal Children. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Wesley-Esquimaux, Cynthia C., and Andrew Snowball. 2010. “Viewing Violence, Mental Illness, and Addiction Through a Wise Practices Lens.” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 8: 390–407.

White, Lavina, and Eva Jacobs. 1992. Liberating Our Children—Liberating Our Nations: Report of the Aboriginal Committee. Victoria: Family and Children’s Services Legislation Review Community Panel—Aboriginal Committee.

__________
1 For more about Secwepemc history, language, and culture, see the websites of the Secwepemc Nation, http://www.landoftheshuswap.com/index.html, and of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc band, http://tkemlups.ca/. On the history of Canada’s First Nations more generally, see Dickason (2002) and Dickason and Newbigging (2010).

2 For a detailed overview, see “Appendix: Federal and Provincial Legislation Restricting and Denying Indian Rights,” in Mathias and Yabsley (1991, 40–45).

3 Survivors of these schools are now beginning to speak out about their experiences. On the Kamloops school, see the accounts collected in Behind Closed Doors (Jack 2000) and in Resistance and Renewal (Haig-Brown 1998). On St. Joseph’s Mission School at Williams Lake, see Victims of Benevolence (Furniss 1992) and Bev Sellars’s They Called Me Number One (2013).

4 Among First Nations, as opposed to all Aboriginal peoples, the increase stood at 22.9 percent (Statistics Canada 2013, 8). The total population of the Secwepemc Nation is difficult to determine. All Secwepemc communities include members who live off reserve, whether permanently or only for periods of time, and in several communities, more members now live off reserve than on. In addition, reserves may include residents who are not in fact members of the Secwepemc Nation. According to estimates, smaller bands may contain as few as two hundred members, while larger ones, such as the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, may have a thousand or more.