around them or wrestle with them. This was part of our teachings.
I would spend most of my time playing outside making forts, playing sports and just being a kid. Later on, I was grateful to obtain a Nintendo Game. But the game didn’t stay in our house all the time; quite often, it would make its way to the local pawnshop so we could have groceries for a few weeks; then when child tax payments and/or welfare was issued, I would get my game out from the pawn shop for a few more weeks, and the cycle continued. Collecting and getting change for empty cans and bottles became a lifestyle many of us got used to. I believe that we grew up in a system that conditioned us into depending on the government/First Nations Communities to help us get ahead in life, because we had laws that secluded us and that didn’t allow us to create our own income and opportunities like mainstream society. You pair that with the effects of Residential Schools and it becomes a disaster. As I would later educate myself, I came to realize that we can also unlearn conditioned behavior by replacing it with a new one. We just have to be willing to educate ourselves and work towards a new habit.
There are certain business models that prey on people in poverty such as: “Cash your checks for fast cash,” “Get a vehicle today with no money down,” “Get this living room set with no money down!” I could go on and on. These businesses (I don’t even want to call them that) do nothing but put people who are vulnerable into debt; it becomes nearly impossible to get ahead, due to the outrageous interest rates where some people end up paying for things as much as 3 or 4 times the actual original price. We would spend the rest of my youth battling the pawnshop effect with our bicycles, televisions, games, etc. just to put food on the table.
I remember when my mom came home with a brand new 13” color TV. It felt like we had a giant 50” plasma television that day; I was so grateful. We put that TV on top of an old school wooden box TV that had been broken for years. When you don’t grow up with a lot of material possessions, and when you are blessed with something new, you appreciate it more.
I grew up around females my whole life and didn’t have male relatives close by to play sports with. I would often have to force my sister Kendra to play outside with me. We were both talented in many sports and soccer was the one we started to play more and more outside in our spare time. Sports would inevitably make our brother and sister bond strong in our later years.
Growing up in Sweetgrass, I was introduced to traditional ceremonies and most summers my mom would be participating in them. At that age, I was only playing around the camp and did not understand what was taking place each summer. Throughout the year there would be other cultural events that we would attend as a family. As I attended these, I was forced to learn other keys that would help me in my adult years. One of the most profound was to “listen more than you speak,” and I learned this by attending cultural ceremonies and watching elders and how they conducted themselves. They rarely spoke and when they did, it was always profound and had impact. They had a great respect for the cultural ceremonies they were conducting for the community and I learned to respect and listen from them.
Every summer my dad would pick myself and my 3 younger sisters up and we would go visit at his house on Big River First Nation. I was always excited to go visit because I would get a chance to hang out with my dad and other relatives. My Moshum (my father’s dad) was a cattle farmer and I remember when we would go and visit and he would always be working outside. My Kokum (my father’s mom) would also be outside skinning or smoking moose or other wild meat for the family to eat later. They were hard workers and I was grateful for the visits we had with them. My dad would later inherit the farm and continue the work his father left for him after our Moshum passed away.
Like with many Indigenous families, alcohol was a problem for us. As I got older, and we visited more often, I would witness many of my family members drinking and partying while kids were around. I know this because I was at those parties during several of the times we visited my dad and my grandparents. They would tell me not to drink when I got older. I could tell they were hurting but I was just a kid. I am not sure what might have happened if I continued to grow up in an environment like that, but I know I wouldn’t be in a good situation today.
I remember one time while visiting, my cousin Shawn and I were playing a card game. We both had a few bucks in our pockets and decided to gamble and whoever got all the money won. After several games, I was the lucky winner and had won all the money; I was excited. When he went home, I felt immediate guilt and I wanted to give him his money back. So I began to dig a hole near a tree and put his money in there. The following summer when we came back to visit, we both dug up the mound and I gave him his money back. It bothered me taking his money because I already knew what it was like to not have much.
Back on Sweetgrass one day I had a ‘genius’ idea of how to make some cash to buy some junk food from the local store. I knew that I had a Nintendo N64, toys and a silly kid imagination, so I immediately began to construct an amusement part in my bedroom. When I was all done, I began to charge my sisters a nickel to a dime per 15 minutes of playing time on my Nintendo or to throw a ball into a hoop to win one of my toys. I had 4 to 5 games laid out and I started to see their nickels and dimes build after a few hours. After that, I felt guilty once again for taking their money and I gave it all back.
I developed empathy by watching how much my mom sacrificed for us. She would often have to pay $20 to $40 to someone just to take her grocery shopping to feed us. She always paid more than other people so she could be taken as a priority on the social assistance she was given each month. I decided at an early age that when I got older I was not going to rely on anyone but myself to get things done.
Living on the rez was very quiet and we didn’t have a vehicle to take us on adventures. So I was forced to use my imagination and creativity. I would take old toys that didn’t work and play with the motors until I eventually began to build gadgets out of nothing. I remember being able to build an airplane out of a ‘pizza pop’ card board, old motors and spare toy parts with a propeller that would almost move the plane. I also remember building a hockey net and a soccer net outside with spare wood parts we found in the bush. As a kid, my goal was to one day play hockey. My dad loved hockey and so did I. There was one big problem – our reservation didn’t have an indoor or outdoor skating rink. I remember wanting to play hockey so badly that I would fill a 2-liter Pepsi bottle full of water and take it outside to pour on the road and let it freeze. After about 50 trips back and forth, I would have just enough of an ice patch to skate in a little circle and attempt to play hockey. But that didn’t work out too well.
From a young age living in that house, I felt destined for big things. I had no idea what they were; I just believed that I could do something great. I used to hold a picture of myself living in the future wearing a black and white business suit; I had no idea it would eventually lead me here. I believe everyone has a feeling of what they want out of their life, some of us just lose that belief over time.
When I was in second grade attending Sweetgrass Elementary School, I would often get off the bus with a face and eyes red from crying. My mother later found out that I would get bullied a lot on the bus and even during school. I was a very small, “skinny” (I don’t like that word), kid growing up and did not know how to defend myself. This led to my mom making a decision to put me in a different school.
But in the new school, the bullying didn’t stop and would return many times throughout my later high school years. As I got older, I excelled in various sports but still got bullied; people would call me “chicken legs,” “skinny,” “string bean,” and other names. The truth is, those words hurt in the moment and eventually led to me giving up basketball in grade 10 because I was too self-conscious of how “skinny” I was.
Words have power; you can use them to bring people up or bring them down. There are millions of people who suffer from low self-confidence and self-esteem. The words you choose to use on a friend, family member or stranger can help build them up or it can even trigger a devastating decision to take their
