Essay 7: A Gentle Push

Every September 30, Canada sets aside a day to remember. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation honours the children who were taken to residential schools, the many who never came home, and the Survivors, families, and communities who continue to carry what was done to them. It's a day that asks us to listen before we speak, and to sit with truths that many of us were never taught.

I used to think of reconciliation as something an institution could commit to in a strategic plan that sits on a shelf and then carry out over time. How wrong I was. The longer I've spent learning from Elders, the more it seems to me that reconciliation isn't a plan so much as a relationship. And like any relationship, it can't simply be declared. It has to be lived, slowly and consistently, long after a single day has passed.

Just last week, Werklund Centre spent September 30 hosting a wide range of Indigenous-led events. In the evening, we were honoured to host the Elders Story Project, a trauma-informed evening of ceremony led by the Elders Knowledge Circle Society, a collective of more than 30 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Elders and Knowledge Keepers who are Survivors of residential and day schools, or the children of Survivors. Their work began in 2021, after the discovery of more than 200 potential unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, when these Elders came together to share their stories in support of healing and understanding. Over the course of the evening last week, several gifts were given. I've been thinking about them ever since, and about what they ask of us.

Part of the evening was a naming ceremony, in which my colleague Tasha and I were each given a Blackfoot name. She was very much a part of that moment, and her name and her experience of it are hers to share. I can only speak to mine.

I was standing at the edge of the Jack Singer Concert Hall stage, in front of hundreds of people. Among them were the friends and families of Treaty 7 Elders, who had come to bear witness to the evening's ceremonies, alongside board members, colleagues, friends, and people I love. Elder Reg Crowshoe led the ceremony in Blackfoot. Behind me stood Elder Herman Many Guns, his hand resting on my back. I didn't know what name I would receive. That's intentional. You hear it for the first time along with everyone else in the room, first in Blackfoot and then in English. Mine was Horse Plume.

As the name was spoken, Elder Many Guns gave me a gentle push forward. It wasn't forceful enough to move me. It was just gentle enough that I had to choose to take the first step myself.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about that push. I'm beginning to wonder if it's the most honest description of reconciliation I've encountered. No one can be forced into it, and no one can do it on your behalf. An invitation is extended, and you have to decide, willingly, to step into it.

While the gift of a name speaks to a commitment that looks ahead, it's also the result of relationships built over time. When I moved to Calgary six years ago, I asked Elders Reg and Rose Crowshoe if I could learn from them, and they generously agreed. Their teachings have shaped my own beliefs, and they've shaped Werklund Centre's approach to reconciliation in ways we're still learning to live up to.

Even so, I'll admit that I feel completely unready for this name. Unworthy, even. Alongside a deep sense of gratitude, I've been carrying an incredible sense of responsibility for the work ahead, so much so that I haven't quite known how to honour this moment. Part of me wants to shout it from the rooftops. Another part of me knows that this is a deeply personal honour, and not one that belongs to me alone.

If this name will remind me of anything, I hope it's that I am a guest. That's a lesson that applies in so many settings, large and small: on a stage and in a boardroom, in a city on Treaty 7 land, in any conversation where someone else knows far more than I do. A good guest pays attention, cares for what they've been offered, and never confuses being welcomed with being in charge.

Another gift that evening made it clear that none of this was meant to be only personal. In a song transfer ceremony, Werklund Centre was gifted its very own Blackfoot song.

A name is given to a person. This song was given to an organization: to everyone who works at Werklund Centre, everyone who walks through our doors, and everyone who will lead this place long after I'm gone. If the gifting of a name suggested that this commitment was mine to carry, the song made it clear that this commitment belongs to all of us, and to an institution that is growing and redefining what it means to be relevant to Calgary.

In my very first essay of this series, I wrote that the things we care for most are rarely ours to own. I didn't expect that idea to become quite so tangible. A song isn't something you own the way you might own a logo. It's something you're trusted to keep, and I suspect we're only beginning to understand what keeping it well will ask of us. In a way, the institution received its own gentle push that night.

There's something else I'm still trying to find the right words for. National Day for Truth and Reconciliation exists because of profound injustices committed against Indigenous peoples, harms that are still felt in families and communities today. It's a day that rightly belongs to them. And yet, on that very day, Elders chose to turn their attention toward Tasha and me, and toward Werklund Centre. I don't take that lightly, and I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand it. What I do recognize is something I've seen again and again in the Elders I've learned from: a commitment to reconciliation through relationship, and a generosity of welcome that I find deeply humbling. That generosity isn't something any of us is owed. It's an invitation, and it raises the stakes of everything we do next.

The evening ended with a round dance that involved the entire audience. There was no front row and no better seat. For a few minutes, a concert hall designed around a stage became something else entirely, a space where everyone was a participant and no one was watching from a distance. I can't think of a better image of what reconciliation asks of all of us.

So what does that commitment look like on the other 364 days of the year? I don't have a complete answer, and I'm increasingly convinced that's part of the point. But I know it asks us to keep returning to the people who teach us, to remember whose world we're in, and to treat what we've been given as something to care for rather than something to display. For anyone wondering where to begin, I can think of no better place than learning from the Elders Knowledge Circle Society.

Perhaps it asks something of you, too. Whose world are you a guest in? Who has welcomed you, and what do you owe them in return?

As for me, I feel unready and unworthy. Perhaps that is the point. I'll spend the rest of my life earning this name, and together, all of us at Werklund Centre will spend ours earning the song.

To learn more

If this essay has stirred something in you, here are a few places I'd encourage you to begin.

• Elders Knowledge Circle Society: The Elders and Knowledge Keepers behind the Elders Story Project, working to protect, revitalize, and share Indigenous stories, language, and knowledge.

• Elders Story Project: A Learning and Healing Toolkit: Created with the Elders and Calgary Public Library, with resources on healing, cultural teachings, and protocols.

• National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation: The permanent home for the records of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the place to read its 94 Calls to Action.

• Beyond 94: CBC's tracker of progress on each of the Calls to Action, a reminder of how much work remains.

• Orange Shirt Society: Phyllis Webstad's story, and the origin of Orange Shirt Day and the message that every child matters.

• Indigenous Canada: A free online course from the University of Alberta exploring Indigenous histories and contemporary issues from an Indigenous perspective.

• National Indian Residential School Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419: Free support, available 24 hours a day, for Survivors and their families.