and Elwood Jimmy - Speaking My Truth

Sandra Semchuk (with James Nicholas) andElwood Jimmy

54 | Sandra Semchuk and Elwood Jimmy

Cultivating Canada | 55



Seeds of Lubestrok and Stolen Strength are two works from a substantial body ofwork that Sandra and James used to trace and deepen the dialogue between theindigenous and the non-indigenous in Canada. James and Sandra recognized that theirintercultural marriage was, in day-to-day life, an opportunity to make political, social,and psychological structures created by histories of colonialism, occupation of the land,and racism visible to themselves and others through their art practices. The late JamesNicholas was Rock Cree from Nelson House, Manitoba. His great-grandfather wasmedicine man Pierre Moose. His parents, Lionel and Sarah, used traditional medicinesto help their community. James grew up traditionally on the trapline. At the age of eighthe was sent to residential school. In the 1970 s he studied in British Columbia workingwith Bob Manuel, son of native strategist George Manuel, while continuing his dialogueswith political activists Rodney Spence and Phil Fontaine from Manitoba. He providedleadership to his community in education, economic development, and government-togovernmentliaison. In the 1990 s James relocated to Vancouver where he engaged thearts of acting, writing, and art. He made many collaborative works with his wife, SandraSemchuk, and these challenge the known history of relations between First Nationsand settler cultures. James was killed in 2007 when he fell from a cliff at a fishing campon the Fraser River. Sandra is Ukrainian Canadian, a photographer and videographer.Sandra grew up in a grocery store in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. Martin Semchuk wasa socialist who helped bring in medicare to Saskatchewan. Her mother ran the grocerystore. Sandra’s photographic collaborations and video works use autobiography anddialogue as the basis for recognition and identity. She collaborated with her fatherthrough four near-death experiences. As a partner in Treaties (where there are Treatiesin Canada), member of the settler culture and widow of James Nicholas, Sandra triesto disrupt myths that historically have shaped settler relations to First Nations, usingpersonal experience as a basis for storytelling. A number of collaborations with Jamesare still in production after his death. Sandra teaches at Emily Carr University of Artand Design in Vancouver and has recently completed a residency in Prince Albert,Saskatchewan, sponsored by the Indigenous Peoples Artists Collective and CommonWeal Community Arts. Her collaborations are exhibited nationally and internationally.Elwood Jimmy is originally from the Thunderchild First Nation in west centralSaskatchewan. Currently based in the city of Regina, he is the director of SâkêwêwakArtists’ Collective, southeastern Saskatchewan’s centre for contemporary Aboriginalart production, presentation, and education. Apart from his work with Sâkêwêwak,Elwood works independently as an artist, curator, and writer. His work has beenpresented across Canada in several communities from British Columbia to Quebecand the Northwest Territories.

‘On Loan’: Thoughts on stolen strength, seeds of lubestrok,seeds of truth, seeds of reconciliationA conversation on the collaborative work of Sandra Semchukand James Nicholas 1Long before the arrival of the Europeans, papâmihâw asiniy falls to the earth; itis revered as a gift, a sign, a protector, as medicine from the Creator to the FirstPeoples of the plains.In 1821, George Millward McDougall is born. In 1860, as the newly appointedChairman of the Western Methodist Missionary District, McDougallestablishes and oversees missions all over the region that we now know asManitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, including the Victoria Mission on thenorth bank of the North Saskatchewan River.In 1866, McDougall encounters papâmihâw asiniy.McDougall promptly and boldly steals papâmihâw asiniy from its originalsite in efforts to strip all vestiges of Aboriginal culture and world view. It ismoved to the farmyard of the Victoria Mission. McDougall believes by stealingpapâmihâw asiniy, the First Peoples will embrace the church. It has the oppositeeffect. Fearing more conflict, McDougall has papâmihâw asiniy taken toWinnipeg, where it is taken to Victoria College in Toronto, where it is taken to theRoyal Ontario Museum vault.I do not know the truth of this iron rock, this fallen meteor, as did my latehusband, Pau was stik, James Nicholas, or as you, Elwood, do, or as yourmother does. I witnessed that James’s prayers were humble. Through them heunderstood Big Bear’s realization that when papâmihâw asiniy was stolen thenewcomers’ intentions were not good. This was a turning point in the relationsbetween those that had inherent rights to the land, your people Elwood, andthose that wanted them.My understanding of how the past is the present, is and is not lived through mylate husband’s eyes, or from my awareness of you Elwood, your compassion,your history, and your struggle to help your people. I am not informed byspeaking Cree but through dialogue with James, and with you I have learnedsomething of the depth of the language and the laws and wisdom embedded inlanguage that are in resistance to colonization.Cultivating Canada | 59



I have witnessed icons of cultures and civilizations destroyed in New York andin Baghdad as attempts to break people, but this theft you speak of is different.Papâmihâw asiniy is not an icon … not a symbol. “It has pim ma tis i win, lifeitself,” as James would tell me, “It is at once animate and inanimate.” How can I, agranddaughter of Ukrainian and Polish immigrants know this as you do? Howdo I hear the prophesies without my mind being clouded by guilt? Or denial andskepticism? How do I protect myself from the truth of how white history betrayed me,made me complicit in terrible historical wrongs?Medicine men and Elders foretell visions of plague, the loss of the buffalo herds,famine, and war with the removal of papâmihâw asiniy.All the visions of the medicine men and Elders come to fruition within a decade.Much of the work that James and I did together in dialogue was done here atMurray Lake in Saskatchewan. When the drought came, buffalo bones andteeth revealed a buffalo jump here. James carefully returned the bones to thelake. A dream told him to. This home is across the road from where Big Bearwas born on Jackfish Lake. We canoed there to honour him. A great featherrose vertically in the sky. James told me that day that Big Bear, a visionary andan orator and one of the leading chiefs among the buffalo-hunting northernPlains Cree, knew from the prophesies that the buffalo would disappear whenpapâmihâw asiniy was taken. Big Bear, James said, knew what his peoplewould face. Although the chains were not yet around his feet, around hiswrists—although he had not yet been charged with treason against a nationnot his own—Big Bear knew that the white man would force his Cree nation offtheir land. To this day his people have not received even a reserve.Elwood, I know this has been no peaceful settlement. Prince Rupert’s evocationof “terra nullius” was a sham. Your people were here. Treaties were signedunder duress of possible extinction.Throughout the twentieth century, aggressive Western expansion continues torelocate and dislocate intact collective-based communities of First People andtheir connection to their land, their spirit, their culture, their power.The accompanying migration and agricultural practices of non-Indigenouspeople transform the land and its use.My Dad, Martin Semchuk, asked me, “Can you imagine what this land wouldbe like if we had not arrived?” He gave a damn and did what he could to subvertcolonization even while participating in it. As Ukrainians we came as pawnsof the British to occupy the land, to lay the foundation of a nation by breakingthe land. We made the land ours, like the old country, rich with agriculture by62 | Sandra Semchuk and Elwood Jimmy

eaking the prairie wool and clearing the land. We brought our animals, ourplants, our beliefs, our fears, and our hopes for a new beginning, a chance tosurvive, to exist. Ukraine’s existence was denied. We did not see what was hereso much as we saw what we had lost and what we had been continually losingfor centuries. We attempted to recreate our homeland because that was whatwe knew, what we desired, and what sustained us, nourished us. It was whatwe had fought for, lost our lives for, suffered for … experienced rape, torture, anddeath. In 1885, when Poundmaker averted the massacre of his people, routedOtters’ militia and forced them to flee, serfdom for Ukrainians was abolishedby the Austro–Hungarian Empire. We were yet indentured to the land, pawnsof other nations who took the grain we produced as payments for the small bitsof land that could not easily sustain our children, our grandchildren, and theirgrandchildren into the futures. We were still slaves. We had to buy our own landback from the conquerors.Here we expanded. I was told that your people were forced to contract ontoreserves and use passes to go off reserve. On your reserve, given by Treaty 6,Thunderchild Reserve, the land was taken yet again and sold to foreign buyerswhile your people were yet again forced off, dislocated onto poorer land. Howdid this affect your mother’s life, your life, Elwood?There are few ecologies on earth as utterly transformed as Saskatchewan—this time by the plough. We wrote our names on the land with the seeds webrought. Wheat created a monopoly, expanded at the expense of local flora,fauna, and knowledge.We did not know that like the Scottish who experienced the Clearances inScotland and came for a new life in Canada, we were complicit in creating theechoes of the old violences here in the new country. We were after all invited,lured to come with promises of free land.Whose land?In 1972, papâmihâw asiniy—a connection between earth and sky, betweenCreator and Creations—makes a return engagement to the Plains region, thistime on loan to the Royal Alberta Museum from the United Church of Canada.I know you liked James, Elwood. You were one of the last people to speak withhim while he was alive. He respected you and was grateful for how you treatedour work.James and I witnessed papâmihâw asiniy in forced confinement at the RoyalAlberta Museum. Offerings are made there—tobacco and sweetgrass, sageCultivating Canada | 63

and cloths. First Nations people don’t have to pay. I do. James put his handson papâmihâw asiniy and held them there for a long time. Did he give orreceive? We learned what we could about where papâmihâw asiniy fell.Could we find this sacred place? James was tired, weary from the battleand non-recognition. He collapsed in exhaustion at Rib Rocks. I rested. Wefound what we think is the site of papâmihâw asiniy’s landing, high on a hill.Prairie sage grows there.We will not show it in photographs.James prayed and made offerings. I joined him. We returned to the land atMurray Lake. The plants he has watered, lubestrok, came in small seeds in mygreat-grandmother’s pocket from Ukraine. It has grown large and strong. Weate from this plant and in the fall seeds are gathered so that it can be plantedagain. Each seed a choice, an action, a gesture of planting, a bending down tothe land. James wrote my great-grandmother’s story. He put the word Ka kissis kach e whak,2 Saskatchewan, in her mouth, a meal of river moving swiftlyaround a bend, a meal of land, a province.I acknowledge to you, Elwood, that my family’s relocation dislocates FirstNations just as we had been dislocated from our homes over all of thosecenturies. I acknowledge that with this awareness comes responsibility.Without taking responsibility for my privilege and for the acts of mygrandparents I too become complicit in the ongoing systemic effects ofcolonization, racism, and non-recognition of the inherent rights and theextraordinary knowledges of First Nations, the laws of being specific to theirnations and to the diversity of individuals.By many accounts spread over centuries, papâmihâw asiniy grows heavierwith time—heavier in McDougall’s farmyard, heavier in Winnipeg, heavier inToronto.Heavier with the burden of theft by the people who claim to own it andpresume they can ‘loan’ it?Heavier with the power and strength of a people, a power and strength—likepapâmihâw asiniy—temporarily on loan and one day restored?Coming to Canada gave my family possibilities to thrive, to diversify, andbecome more complex and innovative in the choices each member couldmake to create their own lives. These possibilities came at a great cost toyou from a First Nation as immigration overcame the Indigenous, as plantsand animals were destroyed or pushed aside. The choices for First Nationsbecame truncated and limited within paradigms that were not their own.64 | Sandra Semchuk and Elwood Jimmy

This stole strength. This stole identity. Marshall Forchuk is a descendent of aUkrainian internee during WWI in Canada. Ukrainians, Serbians, Croatians,and others with Austro–Hungarian or German passports were imprisonedbehind barbed wired like animals, called enemy aliens, and forced to labourfor no reason other than where they were born. Forchuk said he learned fromhis father who escaped the camps,“You can steal my house, you can stealmy car and you have taken nothing. But if you steal my identity like we didwhen we put First Nations kids into residential schools then you have reallystolen something.” Ukrainians have only recently become white throughassimilation, another loss of culture. All those centuries under duress we heldour culture sacred. With wealth and security we too are losing culture andlanguage—and, as James would say, our medicine bundles.Privilege has come at too high a cost. Ukrainians in Canada became respectedpolitical leaders and professional in every field. Yet our silence about theinjustices done to us re-forms too often in our silence in speaking out againstthe ongoing effects of colonization against First Nations and Métis. Do wehave many of the old terrors of speaking out against authority and abuse? Arewe unconsciously afraid of reprisals, being hurt in a less obvious way? Hasit become normalized to become perpetrators by denying the truth, creatingongoing suffering? This is not how we think of ourselves. We think of ourselvesas good people. Now we think of ourselves as people who have education,power, and authority—not as people who have been made crazy by theviolence and abuse of others. Yet we are still in the cycle of violence … politeand legal violence.Within a contemporary context, papâmihâw asiniy synthesizes a numberof very basic and universal concepts and laws of being. It also magnifiesthe challenges regarding the navigation and negotiation of the relationshipbetween the Indigenous and the non-Indigenous—the world views, the people,the animals, the minerals, the plants—that define and mark the story of thisplace.Elwood, I watch over and over in nature the violence and community buildingof plant and animal colonization, the unthinking ways in which plants andanimals both dominate and cooperate in order to survive, create communities,and create endless adaptations. Can we think, I wonder, about what we aredoing and make choices that embrace the richness of the diversity of nations,the deep wealth that creates possibilities for the planet as it has for us?Can we acknowledge that we are a part of nature, all my relations’ pointsof views, the knowledges that First Nations have always shared freely withthose who were attentive? We are not, as we would believe, the generous ones,Cultivating Canada | 65

although generosity is the basis of many immigrant cultures as much as FirstNations cultures.“You don’t understand,” James said, “Sharing is the law. The Land owns itself.”Who loans the land? Who will restore the land? The waters?By working with the land, with our communities, we can work towardsspaces ofDecolonizationTransformationTruthReconciliationAre we there yet? No.James’s best friend, Walter Wastesicoot, visiting now at this home on MurrayLake, was compelled to write the following in response to this text by Elwoodand me: As a residential school Survivor, I have learned much of the colonizer’smalice. He offers me reconciliation while I have an outstanding case againsthim for sexual and physical abuse suffered while resident at one of hisinstitutions of assimilation. He offers my people reconciliation while he holdsour lands and resources in abeyance, ensuring our continued survival by hishand only. Reconciliation is said to be a personal privilege, offered to one whohas made amends for past wrongs. Something is skewed in the colonizer’soffer of reconciliation. He carries with him centuries of shame, for which I andmy people will continue to suffer in a marginalized existence in his hope forreconciliation.Does taking responsibility for the effects of colonization diminish the shame?But the seeds are there.66 | Sandra Semchuk and Elwood Jimmy

Notes1 Elwood Jimmy acknowledges the following resources that were helpful in composingthis interaction with Sandra’s and James’s artwork: The Alberta Encyclopedia and theRoyal Alberta Museum; Cuthand, Doug (2007). Askiwina—A Cree World. Regina, SK:Coteau Books; the Blue Quills First Nations College website (available at: http://www.bluequills.ca/); and the words and thoughts of others, including my mom, who knewabout the stone.2 Ka kiss is kach e whak is the spelling of the Rock Cree word used by the late JamesNicholas as he understood to be the basis for the word, Saskatchewan. It is this versionof the word that appears in the photographic installation.Cultivating Canada | 67

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