This summer, as much of the country celebrated Canada 150, there has been much needed discussion about the place of Indigenous people within that context. There has been growing recognition that the ‘founding of Canada’ narrative is not accurate and shows disrespect for the real founders of this country — Canada’s Indigenous people.
Complicating the equation even more, there are many people in this country whose heritage is both Indigenous and settler. Today we’re going to hear from three people who question where they belong within that continuum. And to finish off, we’ll hear from the founder/producer/host of the Media Indigena podcast, which explores these questions and much more.
1.) Braden Alexander – Braden was the rabble podcast network’s 2017 intern. Braden is living in London Ontario and is about to start school at Fanshawe College in a month’s time. He is of Metis heritage but doesn’t know much more than that because he’s adopted. He agreed to talk to us about how this ambiguity and his heritage has affected his life and his journalism.
2.) Heather Majaury and Myrriah Gomez-Majaury – Heather is the writer and performer of This is My Drum, a one woman play that explores questions of identity and belonging, resistance and surrender, partially in dialogue with her late Anishnaabe grandmother (Kokomis). It was performed in Kitchener/Waterloo in 2015. Victoria Fenner did a documentary with Heather and her daughter for The Green Planet Monitor in 2015. Today’s show features an excerpt of that piece. You can hear the entire documentary here.
3.) Rick Harp – Rick is the founder, producer and host of the Media Indigena podcast. In 2015, rabble.ca invited Rick to be a panelist at the rabble podcast network’s 10th anniversary celebration to talk about indigenous podcasting. He didn’t have his own podcast at the time, but we could tell he was thinking about it. Less than a year later, he launched Media Indigena. A host/producer with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network for many years, Rick has also served as Artistic Director for the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival, was a host and producer for CBC Radio and also worked at CKCU, Carleton University’s campus based community station in Ottawa.
He is a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in northern Saskatchewan.
Image: Heather Majaury and Myrriah Gomez-Majaury. Photo by Victoria Fenner
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