Building Toward Reconciliation
Mark Leger is the editor and part-owner of Huddle. This is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region.
During my “Home Office” podcast conversation with Halifax musician Joel Plaskett a few weeks ago, we talk about how our cities are evolving and the need to strike a balance between new construction and preserving old buildings that are part of the heritage and culture of our communities.
In a segment I cut from the final version of the podcast, we talked about how old buildings are part of our collective and individual memories.
I told him about my walk to work and how I always pass by two historic buildings across the street from one another on Prince William Street in uptown Saint John – the Old Post Office and Chubb Corner buildings. They’re an important part of the city’s history and my family’s story as well. In the early-1960s when they were getting to know one another, my father worked for a law firm in the Old Post Office building; my mother worked across the street for a trust company in the Chubb building.
After I shared these memories, Joel said something jarring for me because of my sentimental attachment to these buildings.
“I think it’s also worth reminding ourselves … that the land we’re on was taken from Indigenous peoples,” he said. “We built these cities on these places, so we talk about that. That gets very complicated and nuanced because you’ve got all the colonial history and all that baggage and all of that pain that comes with the appropriation and the changing of things. There are these big, deep lessons in this idea of recognizing where mistakes have been made, how we honour the past and try and learn from it and do better.”
Joel wasn’t saying my feelings were illegitimate; he has the same kinds of attachments and explores these ideas and sentiments in songs like The Next Blue Sky, which we talked about in the podcast conversation. He says the memories exist within a larger, more profound context that includes how Indigenous people were treated by people who came here, seized the land and built these cities that many of us now hold dear.
A week after our conversation, the news broke that the remains of 215 children were found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C. Across the country, people expressed outrage and sadness at the cruelty, disrespect and injustice. On social media channels and around kitchen tables, people talked about ways, big and small, to meaningfully address those past tragedies and current injustices in Indigenous communities nationwide.
A starting point for a lot of us involves coming to terms with how we built communities on land that we took from people who were already here, which is what made me reflect on Joel’s comments after I shared my memories of my family’s history in Saint John.
Beginning Monday, June 14, the Saint John city council will start each session with a land acknowledgement. It’s been drafted by Graydon Nicholas, the first Indigenous person to serve as Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick. He’ll deliver the first one Monday, along with a smudging ceremony and the singing of the Honor Song by Mykayla Spinney.
“Canada has entered a period of reconciliation and the City of Saint John, as with all communities, has an important role to play,” the city said in a release.
Of course, this is something that is already common practice at other events and venues in communities around the region.
In early May, I was at a David Myles concert at Imperial Theatre in Saint John. My great grandfather performed at the opening of the theatre in the early 20th century, another piece of family history I shared with Joel in our chat.
Before the show started, Angela Campbell, the Executive Director of the Imperial, delivered the following land acknowledgement that she had prepared herself.
“I would like to acknowledge the sacred land on which we operate. The sacred and unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) and Mi’kmaq Peoples. We are so grateful to be able to live, work, create, play and gather on this land. And to bring Incredible artists both those indigenous to Turtle Island and those from around the world to our stage.”
In an e-mail, Angela said the Imperial has been doing land acknowledgements for around five years.
“This is something that many performing arts organizations have implemented,” she wrote. “The industry has been active in the Truth and Reconciliation process and trying to be leaders in our communities by setting an example, continuing our own personal growth, and understanding of the atrocities our Indigenous communities have suffered. The performing arts are rooted in the idea of sharing cultural stories, a way to remember, educate, express, and share experiences. It is important for us to make space for Indigenous artists and actively engage with our local community.”
Angela says she had guidance from Sheila Croteau, a respected and much-loved Cree Elder in the community who died last August, and someone I also knew well because we served on the same volunteer board in the neighbourhood for years.
“As the Elder in Saint John, she would come and welcome Indigenous artists who were performing and perform a tobacco ceremony. Spirit of the Four Winds, her drumming circle, would perform at the top of the show in lieu of us doing an acknowledgment,” Angela wrote. “We miss her dearly; she was an incredible woman who gave much to the community. She took me under her wing and taught me so much.”
I’ve heard land acknowledgements like this at different events in recent years and often wondered about their significance in the face of past and present injustices and crimes like the horrific and heartbreaking discovery of the children’s remains on the site of the old residential school in B.C.
Barry Labillois, president of New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council, told CBC the land acknowledgements are a necessary starting point in the long journey toward reconciliation.
“It’s only the beginning,” he said. “We have a long ways to go, a long ways to go.”
For me, the starting point is growing my bank of shared memories of the streets and buildings in my neighbourhood. In my mind’s eye, I still see my great grandfather on the stage of the Imperial Theatre in 1913, but I see Sheila in her drumming circle too.
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Banner photo: The Old Post Office and Chubb buildings on Prince William Street in Saint John. Image: Mark Leger/Huddle.