Our lives are stories. Our lives are stories that intersect other lives and stories.

Each life, each story of eternal significance.

Our stories matter.

Where we are from, the land, the people, our experiences, our cultures

our languages. Where we are going. It all matters.

It helps us know who we are and often gives us a purpose for where we are going. 

It is when we forget how the Creator has led us and our ancestors in past days that we lose site of our stories, our purpose, and where the Creator wants us to travel today and in the future.

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I am Cree. I am also Métis. My Cree (maternal) and Métis (paternal) Oji-Cree ancestors regularly looked on skies like this from the southern James Bay areas near Moose Factory, and Central Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario, respectively, for thousands of years pre-contact. Some of my Orkney ancestors first touched this land in the Moose and York Factory areas. Called Turtle Island by many First Peoples, and Rupert's Land by the newcomers. It is clear why they so quickly fell in love with the land and the people. They learned to live within the diversity of different nations and cultures sharing a land with enough for all.

Other ancestors came over a hundred years later. Seeking a fresh start in a country of promise. Already much had changed. A country had been created. Treaties broken. Lives and Peoples gone forever. The promise of mutual responsibility and blessings that had begun with first contact laying in tatters.

One hundred years later I stand with one foot planted firmly with my ancestors who have walked this land for thousands of years; while the other is situated with my European settler ancestors and the pain and destruction that they have been a part of here in Canada. 

One part of my story involves ancestors surviving residential and day schools, and some not, and the 1870 and 1885 Resistances, the Reign of Terror after 1870, and then hiding, themselves and their families, from further pain and persecution. Becoming "invisible Indians" in their own country to protect me. And on the other side of my ancestors, good people as well, most completely unaware of what has been taking place, living with their white privilege.

 

As I said, a foot planted in both worlds. For some, an uncomfortable place to be. Yet, doesn't the Creator form and bring people to the places he needs them?

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I am Cree. I am Métis. I have a special place between the two worlds. A place of responsibility to both. A place of opportunity for both. Serving and learning from the Creator has taken up the focus of most of my adult life. I am a student of life, a teacher, a multi-faith/multicultural spiritual care practitioner, a Registered Psychotherapist, and most importantly, a child of the Creator.  This is me.  As a Cree, as a Métis, and a believer my responsibility is to serve my Creator and all my relations. What's your story? What is our story in this land?  I hope we can dialogue ( a seemingly lost art these days) through this website, and when we meet face to face.

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                                                                                                      Miigwech (Thank you)

                                                                                          Campbell Page,

                                                                                                                   Director, Indigenous Ministries