Storykeepers Podcast

This month singer/songwriter Leela Gilda joins Jennifer and Waubgeshig to talk about The Lesser Blessed by Richard Van Camp. Originally published in 1996, the coming-of-age story set in the north became a bestseller and garnered international acclaim. It has since been adapted to a film (released in 2012) and long-listed for Canada Reads. Van Camp has published more than two dozen books since.
More on The Lesser Blessed:
https://douglas-mcintyre.com/collections/bestsellers/products/9781771621137
More on Leela Gilday:
If you’re from the North, Leela Gilday’s music is home. If you’ve never been, it will take you there. Born and raised in the Northwest Territories, she writes about the people and the land that created her. The power in her voice conveys the depth of her feelings of love and life in a rugged environment and vibrant culture, as if it comes straight from that earth. Leela’s family is from Délįne on the shore of Great Bear Lake and her rich vocals dance across the rhythmic beats of traditional Dene drumming as smoothly as a bass line onstage the largest venues in the country. And she has played them all.

Leela has toured festivals and concert halls with her four-piece band through every province and territory in Canada. She has played in the United States, Greenland, Australia, New Zealand and several countries in Europe. Her live shows are where she connects with fans who have followed her on a 20-year career and where new fans are born. She reaches into their hearts and feels the energy of every person in front of her as she guides them on a journey through song and experience. She believes music has an inexplicable effect on people. It is a place where she can share light and dark and the most vulnerable moments, with a clarity and genuine purpose that reassures her listeners through every word. She is a storyteller, and through this, reflects the world onto itself.

Five years after her last album was released—five years of growth, healing and head-down work—Leela’s fifth album “North Star Calling” was released in late 2019 and has since won a 2021 Juno for Indigenous Artist/Group of the Year, a Canadian Folk Music Award for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year, and Roots Album of the Year at the Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards. It is more raw, more intimate and more Leela than anything you’ve heard from her before.

This month renowned Mohawk/Tuscarora poet and artist Janet Rogers joins Jennifer and Waubgeshig to dive into Louise Bernice Halfe's award-winning poetry collection Burning in this Midnight Dream. Throughout the book, Halfe profoundly recounts her life before, during, and after residential school, and many of the poems were written in response to the Truth and Reconciliation process. The collection received numerous accolades, including the Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award and the League of Canadian Poets’ Raymond Souster Award.
More on Burning in this Midnight Dream:
https://www.brickbooks.ca/books/burning-in-this-midnight-dream/
More on Janet Rogers:
Janet Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia in 1963 and raised in southern Ontario. Janet traveled throughout 2017-2019 working within numerous residencies in Vancouver BC, Santa Fe NM and Edmonton AB. Janet is based on the Six Nations territory of the Grand River where she operates the Ojistoh Publishing label. Janet works in page poetry, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music. She is a radio broadcaster, documentary producer and media and sound artist.

Her literary titles include; Splitting the Heart, Ekstasis Editions 2007, Red Erotic, Ojistah Publishing 2010, Unearthed, Leaf Press 2011 “Peace in Duress” Talonbooks 2014 and Totem Poles and Railroads ARP Books 2016, “As Long As the Sun Shines” (English edition), Bookland Press 2018 with a Mohawk language edition released in 2019. “Ego of a Nation” is Janet’s 7th poetry title which she independently produced on the Ojistoh Publishing label 2020.

Jackson Twobears and Janet collaborate as 2Ro Media. They combined their individual talents and skills along with National Screen Institute training to produce two short documentaries; NDNs on the Airwaves about Six Nations radio (APTN 2016), Moving Voice, a Telus STORYHIVE sponsored digital broadcast 2019 featuring the travels of literary trailblazer and Mohawk poetess E. Pauline Johnson, and The Spirit of Rage a short experimental video poem about anti-racism. Janet won the 45th Annual American Indian Film Festival 2020, BEST MUSIC VIDEO award for her video Ego of a Nation produced with Wes Day of Fresh Shift Productions.

This month Jennifer and Waubgeshig are joined by Ry Moran, the Associate University Librarian – Reconciliation at the University of Victoria to talk about Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. Published in 2020, the novel follows five residential school survivors from their detention in the institutions into their adulthood, as they embark to heal from the trauma of their experiences. The book has won several awards, including the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and CBC's Canada Reads.
National Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
More on Five Little Indians:
https://www.harpercollins.ca/9781443459181/five-little-indians/
More on Ry Moran:
Ry Moran is Canada’s inaugural Associate University Librarian – Reconciliation at the University of Victoria. Ry’s role within UVic Libraries’ focuses on building and sustaining relationships to introduce Indigenous approaches and knowledge into the daily work of the Libraries and more broadly across the campus community. In so doing, Ry plays an active role in advancing UVic’s strategic goal of being a globally recognized leader in areas of reconciliation.
Ry came to this position from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) hosted by the University of Manitoba. As the founding director, Ry guided the creation of the NCTR from its inception. Along the way, Ry contributed to major national initiatives such as the creation of the National Student Memorial Register, designation of multiple residential schools as national historical sites, development and launch of the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, and a major educational broadcast which reached over three million Canadians.
Prior to the NCTR, Ry served with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). On the TRC’s behalf, he facilitated the gathering of nearly 7,000 video/audio-recorded statements of former residential school students and millions of pages archival records.
Ry’s life-long passion for the arts and music continues to be an important part of his life as he continues to write and produce original music.
Ry is a distinguished alumni of the University of Victoria and was awarded a Meritorious Service Cross by the Governor General. Ry is a proud member of the Red River Métis.

This month we're taking a break from our usual book discussion to honour the life and legacy of the great Lee Maracle. The iconic Sto:lo writer and storyteller died in November at the age of 71. She leaves behind a revolutionary catalogue of published works, along with an abundance of tremendous stories and other artworks that have inspired and influenced generations of Indigenous storytellers. To honour Lee and her work, we invited writers Tanya Talaga and Armand Garnet Ruffo to join us to share their reflections of their time with her, and how she will continue to shape literature for generations to come.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-what-canada-lost-when-lee-maracle-passed-away/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lee-maracle-death-bc-indigenous-writer-poet-1.6245582
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/books/lee-maracle-dead.html

This month Thunder Bay-based journalist Willow Fiddler appears on Storykeepers to talk about Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga. The book is a thorough examination of the deaths of seven Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay over the span of eleven years, and the human rights violations of Indigenous peoples in Canada that can lead to tragic outcomes. It has won numerous prestigious awards, including the RBC Taylor Prize and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
More on Seven Fallen Feathers:
https://houseofanansi.com/products/seven-fallen-feathers
Willow Fiddler's bio:
Willow Fiddler is a national news reporter for The Globe and Mail, covering northern Ontario and Manitoba. Prior to joining The Globe, she was a video journalist for Aboriginal Peoples Television Network National News reporting in Thunder Bay. She is a three-time finalist for the Canadian Association of Journalists awards and the recipient of the 2017 Emerging Indigenous Journalist award. Ms. Fiddler is passionate about stories and issues that impact Indigenous people and communities, particularly in the North.