There’s a lot more to writing than writing. As with life, you have to learn to see and feel and, then, learn to see and feel again. With enough reflection, contemplation, effort and hard work, sooner or later, self-awareness and a sense of wonder reveal that to change, move forward and become authentic, you must reconcile the duality of your life with the duality of your world. Like the landscapes upon which the drama of life unfolds, we are constantly changing – our horizons and perspectives continually shifting, as mine did recently.
When I first heard the heartbreaking news about the residential school in Kamloops, B.C., I described it as an “evil place.” Recently, though, while paddling a canoe and watching the sky’s reflection on the surface of the Eel River, part of the centuries-old Maliseet water trail from the St. John River to the Penobscot River in Maine, I thought about my description from the perspective of an Indigenous person.
Yes, evil acts took place in that Kamloops school, and now we discover other sites, but the ground – the landscape – where those beautiful souls rest is now and forever, sacred. Seeing the other “other side” in the reflection on that ancient and sacred waterway made me look deeper and in the opposite direction.
This Canada Day, I spent time rethinking my perspective on my country. Just as individuals must adapt and move forward through life’s challenges to become authentic, so too must countries. Considering the deplorable treatment Indigenous Peoples have received for generations, I’m impressed and inspired that they still even desire to negotiate with the very institutions that have choked their spirit and held them down for too long. That desire to negotiate and faith in doing so after such poor treatment is what I celebrated on July 1. It’s time for all Canadians to open their hearts and minds to Indigenous Canadians, listen to their stories and strive to understand their cultures better.
Dr. Michael Fox of the geography and environment department at Mount Allison University agrees and believes that education is the way to accomplish this. He finds it deplorable that education was the mechanism used to extinguish a culture and promote another. That’s why through his work and the work of other educators throughout the province, he’s focussing on finding ways to educate Canadians – young Canadians especially, about what needs to happen to effect positive change.
“On Canada Day we celebrate our landscapes, and our resource-based economy, which is really “natural” capital,” Fox says. “We’ve taken for granted that resources and our resource base is here for us and forgotten about the peace and friendship agreements hundreds of years old that were never honoured.”
Fox says, and I agree with him that Canadians must acknowledge where all that natural capital came from and that making a statement about “unceded territory” at public events falls way short of what needs to happen. Changing people’s perspectives through education is the key.
Like the landscapes upon which the drama of life unfolds, Canada is constantly changing – its horizons and perspectives continually shifting. To better understand what’s on the horizon, we must see both sides more clearly.
This doesn’t mean we all have to go around wearing hair shirts or performing self-flagellation in the town square. It simply means educating ourselves, being truthful, taking responsibility and realizing that our beautiful country is strong enough and flexible enough to stand up for the people who were here first and showed the rest of us the way.
We are a young and growing country. We are and will be suffering the pains of growth for many years. It is the growing and changing of perspective and learning that will make us a good and compassionate place in the world for free and loving people.