I've been a newspaper coumnist for twenty-three years now. The professional highlight has been becoming the first Native Canadian to be awarded a National Newspaper Award for Column Writing from the Canadian Daily Newspaper Association in 1991. The personal highlight continues to be the people on the street who tell me how much the columns have affected them.

Here then, is a sample of the work I've done over the years in such papers as the Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, and the Calgary Herald, as well as native newspapers like Windspeaker, First Nations Drum, The Native Journal, Anishinabek News, and News From Indian Country.

Keep coming back. I'll update this page frequently with more columns from my archives.

One Piece At A Time (Calgary Herald Nov. 8, 2009)
  

I watch the first veil of snow plow across the mountain. From the picture window that overlooks the lake the view is panoramic and you can watch weather happen. It's one of those incredible gifts that come with being so close to the land. Her secrets and her patterns are revealed when you take the time to look. Standing here with a billowing curtain of snow wafting across the top of that near mountain I feel grateful for the opportunity to see this.

            Weather happens. It evolves. There are subtle changes occurring all the time and in the busyness of our lives we've learned to become oblivious. So we turn to the newspapers, the television, radio or the internet for information on what we will confront each day. Easier, I think now, to just stand and watch the world for signs. It's less immediate perhaps, but far more fulfilling.

            Maybe it's the Indian in me that craves that. Or else it's just the burgeoning curmudgeon who disparages the way technology has separated us from the reality of things. Or it's just age; a yearning for a return to more simple times when virtues were more open, accessible and spoken of. Either way, I love the feeling of applying questions to things like this. It's a measure of grace, really.

              I was always a thinker. Even as a kid I marveled at the wonder of things. I sought explanations for even the simplest things around me and when the adults never seemed adequately armed, I dove into the pages of books. I wanted to know how birds migrated without a compass, how rain happened, why planets move in ellipses. For me, there were a plethora of questions about the world that I needed answers for. As a kid the simplest answers held the most sway.

              It was the same as I grew. But age is a curious thing. You mature and as you do the questions you trundle along with become more onerous. Gone are the queries about the natural world. They're replaced with harder things like who should I be, how do I get there, why do people suffer and how do things change. They're so big that you tend to forget the reassurances that come with simple answers.

              I asked a friend once how you go about changing things in the world. How does anyone address the myriad issues that threaten us as a species? It was a heady request and I prepared myself for a long, grueling discussion. But what he said floored me.

             He was busy with a project and operating on a tight deadline. As a self employed contractor he worked at home. His wife worked outside the home so he was left to look after their ten year old son after school. This particular day was hectic. The boy wanted attention and he was too busy to offer him any.

             So he took a picture from a magazine that showed a picture of the world taken from outer space. He tore into tiny pieces and handed them to the boy and asked him to put it back together. Satisfied that the task would take forever, he settled back into his work. But the boy was back in five minutes with the puzzle solved and glued to a piece of paper.

              "How did you do that so fast?" he asked.

              "Simple," the boy said. "There was a picture of a man on the other side. So I put the man together first and the world came together just fine."

               Out of the mouths of babes. As my life progressed and I encountered huge issues, that simple parable lifted from daily life was a saving grace. Put the man together first and the world will come together just fine. It means we change what we can right now and most of the time that means ourselves. It means the world comes together one piece at a time when we put ourselves together first.

              The enormity of some questions is overwhelming. The seeming impossibility of their resolution is daunting. But when we come together as whole people, when the energy we put forward is calm, positive and centered, great change becomes possible. I've seen it in my own life and I've seen it at work in the world. I've seen it happen in the lives of others.

              Change happens. It evolves. There are subtle changes occurring all the time and in the busyness of our lives we've learned to become oblivious. My people say that change is the one fundamental law in the universe. Like the weather it goes on totally without any input from us. But when we take the time to look we can see it happening. One piece at a time.

Two Skunks

When I was in my late 30s I traveled to the Temagami area of northern Ontario . There was a retreat there for native men who had experienced cultural dislocation, who’d been displaced from themselves and their identity. Because I’d been a product of foster homes and non-native adoption I went to spend ten days reconnecting to traditional ways and teachings.

            We were guided by a team of elders and healers. For the most part those of us who traveled there were city dwellers, more used to the pace of urban life than the bush or reservation. Most of us did not speak our language. The majority had never had any link to the bush ways of their people or the traditional teachings that guided them. None of us had ever directly faced the issues of our displacement.

              As soon as we arrived we were paired up in tents. My tent mate’s name was Paul and he was a 39 year old half-Cree man from Northern Quebec . He lived in Montreal , worked as a pastry chef and had never been beyond the city in his life. Like me he had been taken away from his people as a toddler. Unlike me he had been in over twenty foster homes by the time he was sixteen. He’d come to the camp to begin the journey back to tribal identity.

             The first day of sessions we were asked to choose an animal to use as our name for the length of our stay. We were to tell the group why we had chosen the animal we had. I called myself Wandering Bear. I said that I admired the bear for his ability to live alone for great lengths of time yet still crave family and togetherness.

            When it came Paul’s turn he said that he was a skunk. He sat with his head down, staring at the ground, clasping and unclasping his fingers. He said he chose a skunk because they’re scavengers, rooting around for whatever they can find.

            “What’s lower than a skunk?” he asked.

            “I don’t know,” one of the guides replied. “Two?”

            From that day on he was Two Skunks.

            We traveled a great journey in those ten days. We learned to build fires without paper and matches. We learned to set gill nets, clean fish, shoot rapids in a canoe, snare rabbits, read animal tracks and build a bow and arrows in the traditional manner. We spent a night alone in the bush, building lean-tos from spruce boughs. But we also learned about the spiritual way that guided all of those practices.

            There were sweat lodge ceremonies, prayer and smudging circles, tobacco offerings, drumming circles and a lot of talk. Each of us spoke about growing up without the benefit of our native identity. Each of us shared stories of displacement, awkwardness, the struggle to fit in, to belong. We talked of where our trails had taken us and how we felt about where we’d been.

            Two Skunks spoke so quietly we had to strain to hear him. Over the course of days he shared about the sexual abuse he’d suffered at the hands of a foster father. He’d never spent a whole year in any one home. When he was sixteen and old enough to be on his own he went to the streets of Montreal .  He sold himself there. To men. He drank and drugged. He stole and went to prison where he sold himself again just to survive.

            He talked of hating his skin. He spoke of wanting sometimes to just scrape it off. How he felt betrayed by it and how no one had ever given him any answers about where he came from, who his people were and who he was supposed to be. He spoke of never feeling honest or deserving or worthy. He spoke of the hole at the center of his being.

            But the elders took him in their hands. They had healing ceremonies for him and we all got to attend. They gave him permission to cry about it all and he did. In the sweat lodge he cried for himself and prayed hard for the ability to forgive himself. Then he prayed for the forgiveness of the ones who hurt him. At nights we talked quietly in our tent and he spoke of the incredible feeling of light that was beginning to shine in him.

            Then one day, he asked me to come along with him and an elder. We walked deep into the bush and Two Skunks made tobacco offerings and gave thanks for everything that had ever happened in his life. He thanked the universe for the gifts of those teachings. Then he put those offerings in the ground, returned them to earth and sang a prayer song. I felt honored.

             When the retreat was over we hugged and went our separate ways. He wrote me sporadically through the years. He joined a drum group in Montreal , started to learn his language and attended Talking Circles and sweat lodges every week. He wrote about feeling happy, about being connected, about finally feeling Indian. But like all things time and distance become time and distance he never wrote again.

            Then, one day, a letter arrived. It was written by a woman who said she was Paul’s wife. She was a Cree woman and they’d been married four years and had a young daughter named Rain. Two Skunks had died of complications from diabetes. He was 44. But he’d become a traditional dancer and singer. He helped guide a traditional camp in her community and he spoke his language fluently. When he died he was buried in the traditional way.

            I sat with that letter in my hands for a long time. Then I went deep into the bush, returned it to earth and gave thanks for the teaching.

            We heal each other by sharing the stories of our time here. We heal each other through love and love, in the Indian way, means you leading me back to who I am. There’s no bigger gift and all it takes is listening and hearing. Ahow.