Guarding the eternal flames

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This article was published 14/06/2023 (853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For more than two decades, Ka Ni Kanichihk has honoured 154 First Nations, Inuit and Métis knowledge keepers through its annual Keeping the Fires Burning ceremony.

Nine more Manitoba knowledge keepers will be inducted into the Circle of Honour on Thursday for their lifelong efforts in preserving and nurturing Indigenous knowledge, traditions and cultural languages.

This year’s inductees are Joachim Ayaruak, Glenn Cochrane, Charlotte Gerida Daniels, Sandra Lynn DeLaronde, Jennine Krauchi, Gloria Karen Lalman, Elder Jack Robinson, Valdie Seymour and the late Charles Nelson.

The event is a fundraiser for Ka Ni Kanichihk and co-hosted by the sākihiwēwin Foundation. Money raised will support the development and delivery of culturally safe services, programs and research.

“Each year, Keeping the Fires Buring honours elders and knowledge keepers who have courageously held on to the Creator’s Laws, human laws and pipe laws so that we, too, can remember and restore our relationships and fulfil our responsibility to our children and youth,” says KFB founder and current event committee member Leslie Spillett.

“Guided by this knowledge, Keeping the Fires Burning’s continuing theme — Gizhé Manidoowi Ishkode (Our Sacred Fire: Our Children) — celebrates the relationship between elders, knowledge keepers and children and youth.”

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A world-renowned Métis beader, Jennine Krauchi grew up in what she calls “very much a Métis household.” She lived in Winnipeg for the first 14 years of her life, before her family moved to a log cabin near Swan Valley.

Her mother is Métis and her father was white. The couple often worked together — her father would sew jackets and moccasins and her mother would bead them.

“My dad and I were very close, and he taught me how to do the sewing, but he also taught sewing up north on reserves,” Krauchi says. “He said he was teaching the women while they were teaching them.”

Krauchi’s parents taught her to bead when she was small. It wasn’t until she was in her 30s that she started to take it seriously. By then, she had moved back to Winnipeg and began to learn about the rich history, culture and incredible stories that come from Métis beadwork. She poured over archives and old beaded pieces in the Manitoba Museum. That, she said, was her university.

“It was time to bring those pieces out and let’s have a look at what we are doing and what we almost lost,” she says. “And to see what beadwork has become now is absolutely amazing.”

Her work is sprinkled all over the place. You’ve probably seen it. She’s made the beaded vests and attire for the people at the Manitoba Metis Federation, including president David Chartrand. She also designed the 2022 $20 Canadian silver coin, called Generations: The Red River Métis. Her intricate beading can be seen in museums as far away as Scotland and France, as well as here at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, by way of a seven-metre-tall octopus bag, also known as a fire bag, that Krauchi and her mother beaded in 2014.

The pair worked tirelessly for four months using thousands of antique fur‐trade-era beads from the mid‐1800s. They used a two-needle method of beading to create the traditional Métis floral beadwork pattern.

“When the Museum approached the Métis artist to create the world’s largest piece of Métis beadwork, Krauchi was hesitant. It was the first time she had tackled a project like this,” A CMHR Facebook post from 2018 notes. “She decided to bead nine large flowers, including a rose, to symbolize the survival of Métis people.”

Krauchi admits that having her work displayed prominently in museums never gets old, though she is humbled by it.

“There’s a song by Ricky Skaggs called Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’ — you know, you just settle it down here, and just remember there’s people behind you and they’re ready to take your place, and they will if you get too full of yourself.”

Each time she creates a custom order, she says a wave of doubt washes over her. Imposter syndrome. Will the item fit? Will the person like it? Did she do a good enough job?

“I asked my dad once, does that ever go away? And he said to me, ‘I still get it,’” she said. “I think the day that it does go away, I don’t care anymore.”

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Sandra DeLaronde is a member of Cross Lake First Nation with roots at the Métis settlement of Duck Bay, though she grew up in The Pas. She was raised in a strong and vibrant Métis family.

As a little girl, DeLaronde remembers when 19-year-old Helen Betty Osborne was kidnapped and murdered in her community in 1971.

“And that really shaped who I’ve become,” DeLaronde says.

She remembers hushed conversations between her mother and her mother’s friends. Their home was a safe place — away from the smothering blanket of systemic racism that was trying to cover up the grisly crime — for the Indigenous women to sit together in collective fear and grief over what happened to the young Indigenous nursing student.

One of the things DeLaronde remembers distinctly was the gentleness in her mother’s voice during those conversations. Though she wasn’t allowed in the room, or to hear the words the women spoke beyond the muffled sounds she could make out from eavesdropping, DeLaronde says her mother’s even tone struck her.

“That always kind of shaped my sense of justice,” she says.

DeLaronde is a knowledge keeper who is generous in sharing her knowledge and culture with others. She is co-chair of Manitoba’s MMIWG2S Coalition, and works tirelessly to advocate for and offer support to women and girls, and families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit people, as well as survivors.

She created and facilitated a course at the University of Winnipeg about the MMIWG’s National Inquiry’s 231 Calls to Justice for the master’s in development practice: Indigenous Development Program. According to university bio, DeLaronde “has also worked closely with the University of Winnipeg’s Office of Indigenous Affairs to incorporate Star Blanket teachings into the campus — integrating a Star Blanket mural on the Helen Betty Osborne building and as a theme throughout convocations and the Spring Feast.”

DeLaronde believes focusing on education and prevention grounded in cultural knowledge and safety will make a world of difference for women and girls.

“What this (award) means to me is that it validates for me the work we do for the children. For the women. For the two-spirit and trans relatives that we can never forget that we have a responsibility to create and maintain safe spaces. To hold each other up and just continue to strengthen each other,” she says.

“What this (award) means to me is that it validates for me the work we do for the children. For the women.”–Sandra DeLaronde

“… So, we worked to have a national inquiry, then we worked to have Canada declare a national emergency into MMIWG, now we have to get them to put practical action in place so that we can move through the emergency and know that we are working through a plan that is going to create a different Canada where these women are valued.”

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Glenn Cochrane is a visionary pipe carrier who received rights of passage and teachings mainly through Elder Don Cardinal and his grandmother. He is an activist, a public speaker and has even dabbled in acting; he says the most important role was being the first Orange Santa Claus in the Southern Chief Organization’s Orange Santa Campaign. He delivered 2,700 gifts to children in 10 Manitoba First Nations in 2021.

“I flew up north to many First Nation communities and they never had a Santa visit before, and one little girl talked to me about losing her puppy… She asked if I could bring her puppy back to life and I said, ‘Well, I’ll talk to the creator and I think we can work something out where we can bring the spirit of your old puppy into a new puppy,” Cochrane recalls.

The experience was emotional and brought both Cochrane and the girl to tears.

The following year he donned the orange suit again, and set off to nine First Nation communities in SCO’s southern region, creating a sense of joy and making holiday wishes come true for thousands of Indigenous children.

Cochrane served as director of the former gang prevention program for the Winnipeg Police Service and was the first Indigenous male board president of an all-female organization, Native Women’s Transition Centre. He has spent 27 years working as part of an international team, training people in community development.

Cochrane is Anishinaabe. His mother is the last of 14 siblings from Pine Creek, while his father is from Peguis. He has three adult children, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren (with a fifth on the way.)

He has been a member of many committees and has been a board member for the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Native Alliance, Northwest Child and Family Services, Indian and Métis Friendship Centre and for many other organizations. He is currently on the board of Aboriginal Health and Wellness and the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.

“I’m not sure what to feel just yet — it’s definitely an honour to be amongst the people who have been honoured, like former inductees like Murray Sinclair,” Cochrane said of the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry.

Alongside the nine knowledge keepers, Thursday’s ceremony will also honour 2023’s Oscar Lathlin Memorial Scholarship winner Brielle Beardy Linklater for her prolific advocacy work in support of two spirit resurgence, Indigenous inherent rights and poverty reduction.

“Children and youth are the physical manifestations of the prayers of our ancestors,” Spillett said. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure that their spirits are nourished, protected and guided into Elderhood.”

shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @ShelleyACook