Unreserved

A rare Indigenous perspective of the Battle of the Little Bighorn is discovered in a donation to the Peel Art Gallery and Museum. It helps us consider a significant event in history from an Indigenous perspective, something that organizations like Festival du Voyageur in Manitoba and the Haida Gwaii Institute in British Columbia are also doing in their work to re-educate and re-tell the history of Turtle Island.

Broadcast date: April 2, 2022/ April 5, 2022

The 94th Academy Awards has us thinking back to 2019 when Wes Studi received an honourary Oscar for his more than 5 decades of work. In this extended conversation with Rosanna Deerchild, Wes Studi shares memories of his childhood and some of the many twists and turns his life took -- including a tour in Vietnam -- before landing him on the big screen.

Broadcast date: Originally aired October 26th, 2019. Re-airing this weekend, March 26, 2022.

This week on Unreserved, how First Nations are taking land back and taking charge of their future through urban reserves.

Naawi-Oodena means “centre of the heart and community” in the Anishinaabe language. It's the name given to what will be Canada's newest urban reserve. The site is in southwest Winnipeg and is about 65 hectares... or 80 Canadian football fields. Chief Dennis Meeches has been part of efforts to reclaim this land for Treaty One from day one.

Ginger Gosnell-Myers says urban reserves are a win-win for First Nations and municipalities. Gosnell-Myers is a fellow at Simon Fraser University who studies urban Indigenous planning, policy, and decolonization. She gives us the 101 about urban reserves, including details about the one planned by the Squamish Nation in Vancouver.

Muskeg Lake Cree Nation is where it all began in 1988. Leaders of the Saskatchewan reserve set out – and succeeded – in creating the first commercial urban reserve in Canada. Barrett Greyeyes and former chief Harry Lafond say it has improved the prospects of their nation and was their home all along.

This week, three writers who use the power of poetry to reclaim, repair, and reflect Indigenous self.

Spoken-word poet. Emcee. Community-connector. Those are just three of the titles Zoey Roy holds. Ever since she was in grade 2, this multi-talented Cree-Dene and Métis performer and educator has been using poetry to express herself, move through struggles, and help others connect with each other and themselves.

When Winnipeg's Poet Laureate Duncan Mercredi first heard about the 215 unmarked graves found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential school he could not find the words. But soon, the words found him. Duncan's newest collection is called 215. The Cree/Metis poet speaks truth to power and honours the voices of residential school survivors.

As Canada's Parliamentary Poet, Louise Bernice Halfe Sky-Dancer is asked to write poetry about things like gardens and climate change. But the Cree poet also sees it as an opportunity to tell Indigenous stories and make room for other Indigenous voices.

A growing number of Indigenous artists and writers are bringing traditional Indigenous stories to life in books and graphic novels — pinning down oral stories that have shapeshifted over time.

William Dumas, a Rocky Cree Elder and former teacher of our host Rosanna Deerchild, collaborates with William Cariou, an English professor at the University of Manitoba. They lead the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak project, a team effort to transform traditional Rocky Cree stories into picture books - and even interactive apps - to preserve oral stories for new generations.

And Brandon Mitchell infuses his new picture book Giju's Gift with Mi'kmaw culture and stories of mischievous, hard-to-spot characters his mom told him about as a child.

This week on Unreserved, meet some of the people changing Canada’s notoriously harmful child welfare system.

Darlene Keeper spent 18 years in Manitoba’s foster care system. Her experience mirrors that of tens of thousands of Indigenous kids in care. But now, at age 28, she’s earning a social work degree to one day help other young Indigenous people in the system.

Mary Burton is a Sixties Scoop survivor and the guardian of her grandchildren, who were also in foster care. She’s the executive director of Fearless R2W, an organization that helps parents in Winnipeg’s North End neighbourhood reunite with their children. She’s been advocating for families since she was in her 20s and calls this her “heart work.”

Julie LaPorte’s experience in the child welfare system, which includes losing her mother at 15, gives us insight into the impact of a child's apprehension on their whole family. Now 22, Julie is back in school with plans to open a healing centre one day and continue helping others who have gone through trauma and abuse.

Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan is the first community to make use of federal legislation that gives jurisdiction of child and family services back to First Nations. Eva Coles and Nicole Cook are the CEO and associate CEO of the Chief Red Bear Children’s Lodge, the child and family services agency on Cowesses. They’re building a new system from scratch and tending to a “home fire” of community and connection to do so.

Beads, brains and Betty White. This week on Unreserved, meet Indigenous artists who are pushing the boundaries of traditional artforms.

Ruth Cuthand is a Plains Cree mixed medium artist who is particularly fascinated with beads and how their beauty intersects with some ugly things – like smallpox and COVID-19. Cuthand’s work blends the medical and scientific with the creative, and also provides commentary on the relationship between Canada and Indigenous people. The push and pull of her work is inspired by beads as a trading item, one that brought beauty to the community but also disease.

Contemporary art – like Cuthand’s – can be contemplative, but it can also be used to make a person laugh. Anishinaabe artist Blake Angeconeb says he creates art for the sole purpose of making people feel happy – something he accomplishes with his Woodlands style paintings that incorporate pop culture images like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Snoop Dog and yes, Betty White.

Artists like Angeconeb have been criticized at times for adding a contemporary twist to traditional artforms, but Cree cultural consultant Albert McLeod says Indigenous art is a means of communication and it continues to evolve, ever reflecting the changing world. McLeod asserts that while the Indian Residential School system tried to destroy traditional art forms, it did not succeed. Both he and Cuthand say that we are in a moment of reclamation – where Indigenous people are re-engaging with symbolism of the past and adapting it for the modern era.

A residential school nun abducted Debbie Paul when she was 12 years old.

For more than 50 years, the Mi’kmaw woman hasn’t had any records to prove what happened: that she was flown across the border and abandoned in a stranger’s home.

Now, a CBC investigation led by Mi’kmaw journalist Trina Roache has helped Paul retrace her steps and track down documents that show what she’s said all along: she’s a Sixties Scoop survivor who deserves federal compensation.

This week on Unreserved, the harrowing story of survivor Debbie Paul, told through Trina Roache’s documentary Burden of Proof.

Plus, a searingly intimate reunion between Paul and her former neighbour “Mrs. Rome” – the only person who showed Paul love while she was uprooted from her home.

On this episode, we celebrate Indigenous people breaking barriers and healing nations through the power of language and art.

Brothers Hjalmer Wenstob and Timmy Masso are making Nuu-chah-nulth art in the midst of a pandemic to offer strength to their community and mark a significant moment in history. They recently shared an original song in a youtube video as a gift to all nations.

Tantoo Cardinal is one of the most recognizable Indigenous actors in Canada and recently received the Governor General’s lifetime artistic achievement award for her wide ranging work on the small and big screens. As a nod to her journey, we revisit a conversation she had with Rosanna Deerchild in 2018 in which she describes her absolute commitment to sticking with a career in the performing arts, even when she was one of the only Indigenous women in the room.

Rassi Nashalik is a brand new inductee to the CBC News Hall of Fame - the first Inuk and Indigenous person to be recognized. We celebrate her many accomplishments, including her self-taught beginnings as a journalist and her skillful ability as a news host to translate English scripts into Inuktitut — live and in real time — for her audience.

The term "two-spirit" has only been around for about 30 years, but it's an identity with ancient roots. This week on Unreserved, meet Indigenous people who are walking the two-spirit path with pride and reclaiming their place in cultural and community circles.

Anishinaabe elder Myra Laramee was gifted the words "two-spirit" in a dream in 1990. She took these words to an annual gathering of Indigenous LGBTQ people, who adopted the term.

Alex Wilson is from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation and is a professor in the college of education at the University of Saskatchewan. She has devoted her career to understanding two-spirit identity, how it's rooted in the land and how "coming in" (as opposed to coming out) is a uniquely Indigenous experience.

Chantal Fiola and Nicki Ferland are a two-spirit Métis couple living in Winnipeg. They tell the story of their traditional Midewiwin wedding ceremony.

Joshua Whitehead's debut novel Jonny Appleseed won Canada Reads 2021. The two-spirit/Indigiqueer writer from Peguis First Nation is representing two-spirit characters in his writing as real, honest and whole. In doing so, he's paving the way for the next generation of two-spirit people to accept — and love — who they are.