Copper Stone - A Glimpse of Blood Memory Radio Interview

Got something a little bit different for you this time. I know, I know I say that all the time, but this is definitely different. Now, if you have followed my work at all, you know that Julia Gibson and I worked together so she could relaunch her book. Copper Magic became Copper Stone. A Glimpse of Blood Memory. And we had this amazing working relationship. We still do. We're friends. I'm indigenous. She's not. Two different worldviews proving we can come together. As part of the book launch of her new book, we did many different events, including an epic radio interview. Now, I tried sharing it on my YouTube channel before, but I got a copyright strike because of the music they played during the intermission. So we've cut out the music. We're gonna release it now. Go ahead and do something while you're listening because there is visual. It's just audio, but it's well worth listening to. So here it is.

All right. Hello, good morning. You are listening to WUWU 100.1 LPFM Frankfurt, Alberta. And I am your usual Tuesday morning host, Pierce Decker. I've got Dave with me here in the studio. Let me turn you on. Go ahead. Again. We'll try that again. Good morning. And we have an interview lined up, which we're going to get started on here pretty much immediately with Julia Gibson of the CSA to talk about her book. And I'm not going to add any more details. We'll. We'll let her describe it herself. But just real quick, I want to remind everybody that we always want your feedback. And if you want to have anything whatsoever to do with the radio, just send us an email@wwlpfmail.com song requests, what you like, what you don't like. If you want to have a radio show or if you can think of somebody you'd love to hear being interviewed or anything at all, we want to hear from you. All right, so, Julia Gibson, you are on. Let's see. I just want to test your volume. Say something for me, if you would.

Good morning. I'm really happy to be here.

You're very quiet.

I've never been.

Have you ever been someplace that was.

More spacious and luxurious?

I think your mic isn't working for some reason, so I guess we'll have to swap you over to this middle one. And if Dave has any commentary, I will have to echo it into the microphone, I guess. Not really sure what's wrong with that one, but we can make it work. All right, so should we call your compatriot here?

Yes, please, please. That would be wonderful.

All right.

Sandy, I. I ache to hear your voice any minute now.

All right.

Oh, do I want to? I don't think I would.

We're letting the. Hello?

Hello.

Hi there. This is us at Woo Woo. Julie is here.

Oh, I think I do need headset if I want to hear her, right?

Oh, yes, I suppose you do. Let's see.

Hi, Sandy. I can't hear you, but I know you're there.

Let's try these.

I can hear you.

Good morning, sweetheart.

You guys.

Good morning.

Not seeing how the sausage gets made, but you are listening to it. Okay, so I do. Weirdly, I don't know why I've decided to do it this way, but I'm going to just read the description in the. The church bulletin of your lecture, which is to our. Your talk, which is tonight at 7pm.

Better you than me.

At the CSA meeting house, which is the church and the public's invited. Yes.

Oh, it's actually not going to be at the church, in fact, but it's going to be in the assembly building.

Oh, okay. The main assembly building, not the church, because sometimes they call it that. They call that the meeting house, even though it's the church. But okay, so it's not at the church. It's at the first building when you take a left onto whatever that road is called.

Exactly.

Right next to.

And let us not forget that there's also an event at the Library tomorrow at 4.

FYI to everyone, and this is for the public, this talk tonight.

Anybody who wants to come is absolutely welcome.

Okay, so I'm going to read the description. Please join author Julia Gibson and Sandy Boucher. Is it Boucher?

Yes.

What is this word? Anishinabel.

Sandy, you're going to have to pronounce that the right way.

Anishinaabe.

Anishinaabe reconciliation facilitator. On Tuesday, July 29th at 7pm at the assembly Building for a book and author talk. The assembly building of the csa. Julia and Sandy will share their journey together of rewriting Copperstone. A Glimpse of Blood, the novel, a fictional version of Frankfurt. And the CSA is a rewrite to correct inaccurate and even hurtful indigenous content. Come learn. So this is a book that's been written and published and you're. You're republishing it with revisions that have to do with.

Is it.

Is it history or is it cultural accuracies or what's been changed?

Sandy?

Definitely more worldview. Okay, right, yeah. So one, the characters, the indigenous characters in the book and the way they look at things was inaccurate because it wasn't an indigenous worldview.

Okay, well, I guess that's kind of the meat and potatoes of what we'll talk about, if you like. Although this interview is really. You guys are in the pilot seat, and this can go wherever you like with it. But real quick, Julia, a background on you and then a background on Sandy. If you don't mind, I always start with the question, how do you find yourself in Benzie County?

Oh, how indeed? My great grandparents were one of the founding families of the CSA back in the early 1900s. So over the years, our family has always come here in the summertime. And just expanding on your question a little bit, my immediate family, that is, my parents, always felt a little. They would always say, oh, we're so privileged to come here. And privilege was a weighted word. It wasn't necessarily a good thing. You know, it's very white here. We lived in communities that were not white or not all white anyway. And so it always felt a little bit weird to us to be here. But at the same time, we loved it. Loved the lakes, loved the woods, loved, you know, loved the community here, loved everything about, you know, just the ferns and the fish and everything. So it was kind of a mixed bag emotionally and, I guess, you know, culturally for us to be here. But I still come here as often as I can in the summer, despite it all.

Fair enough. So Gibson is, I think, kind of a known name around the csa. Is it your family that's the Gibson lecture series?

Yes, that's my grandfather, who was a minister up here, and very. He was a pacifist. So he did not necessarily reflect the views of everyone around here, but he was very much interested in other people's viewpoints. He always was available to talk about any kind of ideas with anyone, which I think is a really great quality. He was very opinionated himself, but he didn't try to impose that. He wanted to understand how other people thought.

So was it his idea to have this lecture series or.

No, I think it happened after he died.

Okay.

And people wanted to do it and put it in his name, which is a huge honor.

Is there a theme to it that has to do with his philosophy, or is it just about learning and.

I don't think so. I mean, I don't really follow it that closely. I think it's really just. They bring people in to talk about various topics, spiritual and otherwise, you know, ethical also. I think that's a big part of it, because that was a big part of his worldview. And teaching.

Yeah, I guess I don't. I agree with you. I don't know if that's really chicken or egg because it's sort of what the CSA is all about anyway. But so maybe it's a bit of both that. That's part of why the CSA is all about those kinds of conversations. But. Okay, well, so that's Julia. And do you have family that comes up as well or.

Yeah, yes, my grandchildren, my siblings. Yes.

And where do you spend your winners?

I live in Los Angeles, California, usa and I do spend time also in New Mexico. The mountains of New Mexico.

Right on.

Yeah.

Cool. What do you do there?

Right. And do. I do social justice work in Los Angeles especially and try to be a good supporter of the arts, which is very vibrant in both places and here. Very good and everywhere, really.

What's. What's the nearest town in New Mexico for you?

Taos.

Is that. Tell me a little bit about Taos.

Taos is a very interesting place. Very cross cultural in the sense that Taos Pueblo is. Is there. It's the most. It's been occupied or been res. People have lived there constantly, have not left there since, you know, many thousands of years.

Right, yeah.

So that's. So they're very, you know, important presence in that county town and have, you know, their own government, of course, and everything. And then there's the Hispanic population that have come from, you know, time, you know, many hundreds of years ago came and the res and the descendants of them are there. And then there's the white people. The white people started coming as artists, I think in the teens or the twenties. And so there's a very big art scene there. And then there's the rich white people that come from Texas who pay for the art. Right. And build big houses and stuff. And so it's an interesting mix, not always smooth, but, you know, there's long term ties and lots of interesting old family stories. And it's a cool place.

It's a lot of little towns in the Southwest kind of like that. Dave, what's the place that mom loves to go to? Sedona is kind of what I was thinking of.

That's a whole other thing.

Okay.

Yeah. So.

Well, is it coincidence that we're here to talk about Native American accuracies and you just so happen to spend your winters in. In a part of the Southwest that has a fairly prominent Native American presence?

Maybe it's not that coincidental because I've always been interested, as many non native people are, in indigenous history and culture and trying to be open to it. But for most of us non Native people, it's a limited scope. You know, you go to a powwow or something and you're an observer.

Sure.

Right. Sandy, I'm sure, has much to say about that as well and many other things.

Yeah, well, and some of, for some of us, the starting point is like, you know, Robert Redford or something. Cowboys and Indians.

Right.

Which. So you're. Yeah, the, the initial introduction is going to be tremendously ignorant for a lot of people. Well, anyway, we can, we can get into that. I'm sure it gets elaborate. My guess is you probably are going to want to focus much more so on those things tonight and to tomorrow. But again, whatever you guys want to talk about today, I'm game. So, Sandy, if you wouldn't mind a little introduction for yourself as well, please.

Okay. So I'm in Canada. I live in the city of Thunder Bay, which is on the north shore of Lake Superior. I am Anishinaabe, which in English would be Ojibwe. And I was born and raised in my Ojibwe teaching. So I've for the most, the largest part of my life, I've lived up here with my elders and my teachings and just very grounded in my indigenous culture. And Julia and I have a common friend or had. She's passed on now a very well known Indigenous elder, which kind of is the reason our path crossed. And then of course, it just took on our journey, took on a life of its own, and we went on this amazing journey to like, when Julia sent me her original book, I loved the book, I loved the story. But as Anishinaabe, there were some very problematic things in there, which is why Juliet reached out. She had received the negative backlash. And so we set out on a journey to, quote, unquote, save the book and to adjust what needed to be adjusted so it wasn't offensive, but to maintain the beauty of the original story.

Okay.

So when, when I'm not working with Julia, I'm a reconciliation consultant. So in Canada, there is a push for Indigenous and non Indigenous Canadians to reconcile our past and work together. And that really started with the official apology from our federal government in September of 2010. I'm known for wanting to walk my talk. So rather than just talking about reconciliation, I make a point of working with non Indigenous people to actually bring reconciliation to life.

Okay. Is. Is there anything similar happening in the United States that's, that's on an official level or an unofficial level?

Okay, well, it's Only my opinion from Canada, but there hasn't been an official apology. Outsider watching in. No. And the other thing is in Canada it becomes obvious pretty quickly. Even though we have a lot of work to do, the Indigenous voice is growing in strength. We have had our Supreme Court make decisions on the side of indigenous and historical treaties several times. So for me at least it's heartbreaking to look to the US where I don't see the strength of Indigenous voices, that it's not as common. Like the comment you had made. Most people, it seems like their experience with Indigenous people is the whole. The Hollywood version, which is inaccurate.

Yeah.

Whereas here it is very vibrant and becoming way more common knowledge.

Okay, so. So I imagine that as even though the impetus and the intent is positive, it's. It's growing pains and that's why your position exists more or less.

Oh, it's definitely a learning curve.

Yeah.

There is no, it's way more than just I want to be nice to you because we can't erase the past. Right. We have to. I do a lot of work with non Indigenous people, helping them to understand why Indigenous as a general rule don't trust. And it's not because they have anything personal. It is history and survival mechanisms. So acknowledging how we got here is a huge part of getting to the future.

Okay. All right. So a reconciliation facilitator, is that trying to. What does your day to day look like in terms of doing that work?

I give a lot of speeches, do a lot of workshops and seminars and I must author as well. So I have four different books out, either highlighting my Anishinaabe teachings or in the case of the one book that is going to be at the events. It's the path and it's literally an action plan of how to get us to reconciliation for both indigenous and non. Because we both have work to do.

Okay. What kind of projects are you working on immediately? Like in the next year or two?

Yeah, I'm collect. This is my year of partnership. I'm working with the most amazing groups, whether it's government entities and helping them with. They want to get better at Indigenous recruitment and retention or I'm helping for profit businesses who want to move into Indigenous markets and they want to learn how to do that respectfully.

So.

Okay, just one last maybe quick summary if you would of kind of like let's say I. And in fact I am fairly ignorant. I know a little about the political system that exists in the United States with the reservations. How different. I guess. Here, let me rephrase this. Assuming that our audience has that kind of, you know, small foundational knowledge from how the US handles it, how is Canada different in importance, ways that have to do with this conversation, if at all.

Okay. Historically, not that different at all. We have a reservation system as well.

Our.

We have residential school history where I believe you had Indian schools. You may still have them, I'm not sure. So all of our children were taken into what were known as the residential schools. And that's a huge part of what we're unpacking now. The fact that generations of children were separated from parental influence. They're now lost. They're not accepted in mainstream, but they really don't know their own culture. And that results in a lot of horrific things. Everything from extreme poverty to addictions to violence and just healing from that legacy. And Canada has stepped up and acknowledged that they did that, that they took our kids and inflicted that damage. So now we're just trying to figure out how to work forward from it.

Yeah. So a little bit of additional detail, and you can correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong, but what happened in the United States was there were these boarding schools with the intent, at least on paper, of helping Native Americans integrate into Western Christian society, let's say white society. And there were a lot of really tragic consequences of that, including, as you say, full blown disenfranchisement, people feeling like they don't belong to either group. And then also I think there were like mysterious deaths and. Yeah. So it's a pretty spooky, messed up history here in the States. So if you're saying it's fairly similar to Canada.

Yeah. And I think to be fair, the intense was not to assimilate. That's a very nice way of.

Right. That was how they.

Yeah, well, the intent. But if you look on the other side of that coin, the intent was to eliminate indigenous cultures, become part of mainstream, not just how to work in mainstream or live in mainstream. Forget who you are and become mainstream. And if you look across the globe, anyone who. Anytime you try to remove culture from a group, it's going to have devastating effects. And it never. You never achieve that goal. You can't forget who you are, even if you don't know the details. And that was the intent here in Canada. And I believe it was the same intent in the U.S. we actually had politicians go as far as saying the intent was to kill the Indian in the child. Geez, that pretty much sums it up.

Pretty horrifying language.

Well, there's Just also a footnote. I think another part of the intent was to create a servant class from Indigenous children, training them in the schools to be domestic workers or factory workers or whatever. Right. Maybe some skilled traits for the boys. Maybe. But, you know.

Yeah, I don't. I don't think that was indigenous specific. That was poverty specific.

True. Yeah, that's right.

So I. And if you keep in mind, like, back to Kill the Indian and the child, the fact that the schools were underfunded, that the children were impoverished. They were. The health care was not there. Many of them died from the flu or starvation. Literally. No one cared if 50,000 kids didn't come home. So no one cared about the health and safety of these children. And of course, if they are in remote schools, they were also often encountered the worst kind of adults.

Right, right. Boarding school people. Okay.

Yeah.

I have some exposure to. Yeah. The people that can end up in those spaces having access to kids when they shouldn't.

Well, yeah, if you want to apply for a job in a place totally remote from everyone else and you're one of a few adults looking after a whole bunch of children, that's the kind of job that attracts the wrong kind of person.

Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much for that, Sandy. So do you have any attachment at all to Northern Michigan, Northern Lower Peninsula, Michigan?

No.

Okay.

No.

All right. Well, you're.

My connection is Copper, Stone and Julia.

There we go. Okay.

I have a question, though, for Sandy about that. The sort of biota here, the trees and stuff and the lake, you know, the access to lake. The lake shores and so forth is pretty. And also the culture. Right.

Is Anishinaabe.

Yeah. Is. Is similar in both places.

Well, it's actually the same culture. Anishinaabe Ojibwe culture is not divided by the international border.

Sure.

So you're still in Anishinaabe territory. So even though I live on the north side of the lake, the culture is the same, which is one of.

The many magical reasons. Magical, you know, connections. Of me being able to find you because I would have been happy with someone outside of Anishinaabe culture. But the fact that you had that in common with the culture of the book was, you know, icing on the cake for sure.

Well, and I think there's. What if there's one thing our journey proved, is it's all about relationships. And the only reason we know each other is because we both love Josephine.

Right.

And that was a valuable, valued, sacred relationship we had with her that led to the relationship between the two of us. So that's how you build bridges across international borders, across historical damage. Right, right.

And the lack of relationship is what made me not able to find someone to consult with me in the writing of Copper Magic. I mean, I tried to find a person, but I didn't have the relationships to find the person. You know, I reached out, you know, to people, to indigenous people, but I had no response, which is understandable. But I didn't have an in. I didn't have someone to say, hey, I know this person. And she told me that you might be a good. Whatever. I didn't have that.

Well. And actually not to call out my dear friend, but she's so used to me, it's not even funny. The problem was that when we, historically, when we tried to work with non indigenous people, it's always this extreme distraction type relationship. They want something. So it's not a hi, I want to know you relationship, it's I need something from you.

Right.

And when we're focusing on trying to stand up and be who we are, often we can't. We don't have the capacity to take on anything else. So you reaching out because you needed help with your book would have fallen into that category. Right.

And I understood that then too, but it was like, okay, well, I. I don't know what else. I have no other path at this time.

Yeah.

And I think it would understand that that was going to be the case. And people told me. Yeah. And I think, I mean, well, you know, and I was, you know, in sort of, you know, they said, you're gonna not have a lot of luck finding anybody with this thing. But.

Well, and the difference is it's what I do for work.

That's right.

So I encourage people who want to work together. And if you had just remember we talked about this when I gave you that first feedback, whether I worked with you or not was totally dependent on your reaction to my feedback. So. Yeah.

Well, I still say that it was the whole thing was meant to be the way it.

Oh, 100%. 100% and timely. It was time.

Right? Exactly. That's also true.

So let's. I'm going to take a break at 9:30, which in two minutes. But just real quick, do you think it makes sense to give our listeners just the context of what's the book about? Why. Why does accuracy of Native American cultural representation and history. Representation. Why is that so important to the story? And we'll probably take longer than two minutes to do that. So maybe just a super Quick summary of the book and then when we come back we can do the details. Does that sound good?

Sandy, would you mind doing that? Because you have a. You have a perspective on the book and an insight into the book that has expanded my own.

No.

Okay.

The book is your baby. Yeah.

Okay, so the book is a story about a 12 year old girl who lives in on the shores of Crystal Lake, which in the book is called. Is it two minutes over?

No, go ahead.

It doesn't have to be.

9:30 on the dot. As long as it takes.

Finds something that feels powerful to her. She needs that in her life. She's got a lot going on that's difficult and sad for her and things unfold in a way that she doesn't expect.

Okay, it is a murder mystery. Yes.

No, nobody's. No, it's not a murder mystery. I'd say it's a sort of a psychological. I don't want to call it mystical. There's another word for it. Not supernatural. There's a. There's an otherworldly element to it. Okay, but spiritual. Yeah, spiritual, yes. But essentially it's a story of a.

Of a.

Of a girl who needs to find her way.

Okay. All right.

Does that ring true? Is that what the book's about?

Yeah, most definitely. A journey through cross cultural relationships. Because that plays huge into the novel, right?

True, true, true.

I don't know where I got murder mystery from. I guess I was thinking about last week's interview with the gal who wrote the similar in the sense that it's. It's sort of a fictionalized Frankfurt is the setting. So. But that, That's. Yeah. Entirely separate. Not sure how I got that mixed up. Sorry.

I would love to write American history someday, but I don't know if I know the genre well enough. But that's okay.

All you need is a dead guy.

Yeah, exactly. And then the rest is the journey.

To find out settles into place like hail.

Alrighty. Well, so I was gonna play a Head in the Heart song, but actually we do like to ask our. When we do have guests what kind of music they like to listen to. What do you. What do you like? For just a break? Let everybody's brain recalibrate.

Sandy, do you have any suggestions?

Oh yeah. Like a Native American song would be kind of cool.

I was thinking John Trudelle, but.

Or a Native American artist, I should say.

Sandy, do you have anything.

Go for it. No, that sounds good.

Who's that?

John Trudelle. Bone Days is one of his. He's not with us anymore.

But any relation to Justin Trudeau?

I don't think so.

Trudelle?

Nah.

Two L's. We like grazers. Right on. Okay. Yeah. Well, as long as you guys can both stay. We can totally go past 10, so as long as this conversation takes. It takes.

Works for me.

All right, cool. Okay, we are back. So that was John Trudell, T R U D E L L. And that was. We were on the phone talking to Sandy while that was playing. So I didn't hear most of it, but is that sort of like spoken word poetry with music in the background?

Pretty much, yeah. Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

Well, I hope that our listeners enjoyed that. You are listening to WUWU, LPFM 100.1, Frankfurt, Alberta. And we are back with a conversation with Julia Gibson and Sandy Boucher. Julia is the author of a book called Copper Stone, A Glimpse of Blood, which is a rewrite.

Blood memory, actually.

Oh, blood memory on their part. All right. And it is a. It is a rewrite to correct some. I'll have you phrase it however you like, I suppose.

Inaccuracies, misinformation, tropes, etc, in the book were examined and, we hope, reframed, redrawn, rewritten to reflect a more accurate understanding of the worldview that the book is trying to talk about.

Okay. Oh, by the way, sorry, dear listeners, for the clumsiness with the soundboard today. I don't normally do conversations over the phone and in person at the same time, so you'll have to forgive my amateurishness with the technology here. But anyway, I think we're back and everybody should sound good. So Sandy wanted to dive deeper on how correcting those inaccuracies was important to the content of the book itself and the quality of the book. So, Sandy, go ahead, if you would.

So a couple of things I just wanted to touch on, and one of them is the fact that I have come to realize that fiction is actually an incredibly powerful educational tool. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of Richard Wagames, who is a very. Was. He's passed on now, a very prolific, amazing indigenous author. I think he put out 13 different books, and one of them has been made into a movie. It was just amazing. And that shortly after he passed away, he was supposed to attend an event talking about one of his books, which is called the Medicine Walk. And because I was a friend of his, they asked me to come in his place when I read the book to review it for that event. He was writing a story that happened to have a fictional Indigenous character who was living in mainstream, separated from his family, whatever. But when I spoke to the audience, I pointed out to them, like, you should go reread this book. Because what Richard had done was shared the authentic indigenous experience for, you know, someone who's walking a good path, but their family's still lost in addictions. And this very common story. And it was there. It was just raw. And what I was impressed with was because it's a fiction book, none of the defensive walls go up. You think you're just reading a story, but he was actually sharing our truth in that story. And so because of that experience, when I first read Copper Magic, it was so much more than making a book authentic. It was the fact that as a reconciliation facilitator, I help people unpack their stereotypes and help them identify. Not that they're bad people, but at some point along the lines, they were taught something that isn't accurate. And small little details in a book have the power to either speak truth or reinforce stereotypes. And when I first read Copper Magic, there were so many what would appear subtle to other people, but dangerous to us because it reinforces the stereotype. So this is going to make Julia laugh. But one of our. One of the big issues with the original book was the winter lady. We call her Greenstone, the ancestor in the book. And there was just so many things wrong with this character. And I'm just looking at my original notes that I had sent to Julia. And for example, at one point, the phrase. The quote from the book was water was her responsibility, her charge, meaning she's looking after the water like as if it was her child or her child put in her hair, which is the exact opposite of the actual way indigenous people look at the water. We look at water as part of Mother Earth. We're caring for what takes care of us in the way you would care for an elder or your grandmother. Right. So not a child, but owing that responsibility to the person that nurtures you or the thing that nurtures you. So by referring to her charge, it set up water in a way that we would never look at it that way. Another example I'm just looking through here. There were some. Oh, the way this character was portrayed, to me, in my humble opinion, she wasn't indigenous. She was a witch. And there's a difference. She referenced things like calling up the elements. We don't call it. We don't control the elements. Indigenous people realize we have very little control, but a ton of respect. So we respect what the Storm is doing or the rain is doing, but we don't invoke it, right? That implies way more power than we would ever. Humility is our foundation, not that ego and control. And at one point, I said, I can see why indigenous critique was so up, or the critic was so upset. An indigenous sacred item is being portrayed as North America's Aladdin's lamp, Right? So just subtle things like that. At one point, she referenced passing on her bundle. So for those who don't understand, as part of our Anishinaabe culture, we carry what we call bundles. And they could literally be like a suitcase or an overnight bag, but in it is all our sacred items, whether it's our sage and sweet grass or sacred medicines. We might be a pipe carrier that might be in there, but one we never pass on our bundles. When I pass away, my bundle returns to Mother Earth, and it's literally taken out to the bush and returned to it origin. And we would never choose who would inherit it anyways, because that's, again, not in our power. Like this relationship between me and Julia, if it was meant to happen, it would. It wasn't that I chose. Julia didn't even choose to work with me when she originally reached out. She was asking for me to. To refer her to someone who would be open to doing this work. She never thought it was going to actually be me. So the fact that we chose to work together was not only meant to be, but a conscious choice on both our parts. So it was those little. And I had made the comment that when I sent these original notes, the feedback to Julia that whether we work together was conditional on her initial response. Because as an indigenous woman, I can tell you, often it's backlash. Often if someone doesn't want, especially an author. I'm an author. I know what would happen if someone started critiquing my work. Right. It wouldn't be pretty. So I wanted to see. And Julia came back with curiosity, humility, a willingness to learn. And I knew instantly this is a bridge that can be built. This is someone who. And I mean, it's not like Julia just did what I said. It's her book. I always respected that. So I would make suggestions. We would talk it through. Sometimes it took many conversations. Sometimes we agreed right off the bat. But in the end, Copper Stone is a book I absolutely love, because Julia teases me about this. In the original book, I loved the story, but every single time I got to those little inaccuracies, it made me cringe. Right? It was like ouch okay. No, no. But now in the new book, it's just beautiful. It's just. It's going to be able to open so many people's eyes to a world maybe they don't know anything about outside of the Hollywood version. And it does justice to the original story. So that's why it was important to me not only to make. To correct the story, but to realize that the people reading it deserves more.

Than stereotypes and that the Burke the book was worth because it's well written and a really great story, that it was worth the extra effort to get those bits right 100%.

And that's what Julia humbly asked, like, can we save the book? And it was like, absolutely. Even though those changes were so important, it's not like they were on every page. So it was very doable and I would encourage so many more authors to do that. Like if you. I have an issue with non. Indigenous people writing indigenous characters for that reason because unless you're writing them in third person, you're not going to know how they see things or how they think. And I encourage way more collaboration so we can keep stop reiterating stereotypes in our work.

I agree with what Sandy's saying here that it does take a lot of maturity and bravery even to just say, you know, crap, I did get some of these things wrong. That doesn't make me a bad author. Right. It doesn't make me a bad person, but let's fix it. And I think that that's really cool. That's impressive to me.

Thank you.

Yeah. One of the things that was obvious to me in the beginning right from the get go, anyone who knows Julia at all, there was no malice. She wasn't doing this intentionally. She didn't know what she didn't know. Right. And she received backlash for the original book. And instead of just writing that person off as a horrible person, she was like, wait a minute, I want to find out.

Yeah, that's 99 people. Just go, to hell with you. I like it. It's my baby. Leave me alone. You know? Yeah.

And that's how stereotypes continue.

Yeah, well, and, and I can't hear you any so ignorantly. Yeah, I thought like, yeah, that does sound like kind of cool, mystical Native American stuff. And it's like, well, that's just how dang ignorant I am, obviously. But yeah, cool. Well, obviously I have to read the book now. But are you doing anything else to promote the book itself? I mean, is that part of what you're doing here or is this really Just to explain the process of the rewrite, kind of.

We have been doing things thanks to Sandy. Sandy has a YouTube channel. We've done some interview talks together with that and plan to do more virtual events, probably with other organizations. We started here because the book is here, and a lot of people around here read the first book. And so it was important to me that they have the opportunity to, you know, know what the first book doesn't do. Right. So when we're selling the books, I have the old book. I produced a sticker for the book that says, you know, this book has indigenous content that's inaccurate and stuff. So if people buy the copper stone, they will have the opportunity to just have a free copy of Copper Magic and they can compare.

Cool.

So it will be a learning opportunity, I hope, for people to see, like, okay, what was changed? And maybe they'll ask why. I mean, I don't. We don't go in our forwards to the. Cindy and I both wrote introductory material for the new book just to kind of very briefly talk about, you know, how we worked together. But we didn't go into a lot of detail with it, so people might not understand, well, why did this part take? You know, why was this part wrong? But if you put them side by side, I think it's a learning opportunity for people just to kind of absorb. I don't know. What do you think, Sandy? I mean, in terms of. If they read the first book and they know the old book, what will they really come away with? In terms of knowledge about individual.

Yeah, there were people. Like I said back to our favorite winter lady, Greenstone. She was this magician, this witch, right? This, this. That conjured up the storms, right. I was like, what? So I think, if anything, like. And I love the fact that they can get both books to do the comparison. But if anything, we're real. Yes, we look at things differently, but we're still human beings. We still hurt. We still are challenged to have relationships with people who don't understand us. And that happens across cultures and in cultures. So I love the fact that either they can just pick up the new one and not even realize how much more they understand indigenous people now, or they can do the comparison and have a true educational journey. And I hope if they don't know why things change, that they reach out to one of us.

Right, exactly.

And ask us.

And also, we can do. We can do a whole, you know, thing about that. We can. We can do a thing for your YouTube or for any, you know, whatever. We can Do a whole interview about what we changed and why. I mean, we can go through. Can understand that if they want to. Because, for instance, and with the wonder lady, we basically took most of her material out and kept a little bit of it. And that was a whole back and forth between the two of us that, you know.

Okay, for the record, everyone, Julia wanted to kill the winter lady.

Kill, as in fully removed.

There's too many things wrong with her. Let's just forget about her altogether.

And for the record, from an indigenous perspective, our ancestors are everything. So I love that she was in the book. I thought she was a valuable addition. We just had to make her way more realistic.

Well, and some of those things were super subtle too, like what she did with her hands. Remember?

Yeah.

You know that I had had her put her hands to the sky and you were like, no, no, no. She'd have her hands to her heart. And so there were things that were so reflective of the worldview that I had no perspective on, no understanding.

And even this copper hand. Right, right, right. Like, that rarely are man made things seen as sacred. Right. So it was like, no, let's take it back to the idea of just a stone and how to us, that can be everything, whereas other people, it's just a rock.

Right. Which weirdly, was my first. That was my first idea for the book. Like, that it would be a stone. And then I got entranced with this whole copper thing and went wild with that. So again, that was sort of a, like a audaciousness, Sort of inappropriate audaciousness on my part because it was like, oh, I love. They made this beautiful art out of copper back then. Like, ooh, let's. Let's do something with that. Rather than understanding the, again, worldview that was about that. Yeah. You know.

And some things just because of the climate between indigenous and non indigenous people, some things I just thought we should be careful of. Like, for example, in the book, Violet's only 12. She's a kid. Right. And in the original writing, she assigned animals to people. Right. She liked to think of people that that person's more like a bear or that person is more like a wolf. And my concern was that's getting dangerously close to our clan system where we have those spirit animals and not to have anyone mix up the two. Right. Like, yes, she's a kid and she could do that. But because the indigeneity was part of it, I thought that's just a dangerous thing and we shouldn't go there.

Maybe this is an interesting Question. Maybe it's not. To what extent is this about specifically Ojibwe culture? Or let me try and pronounce this word correctly, Anishinaabe. Is it specifically pretty different from other tribes? Or would you say that a lot of these corrections really kind of would be ubiquitous across multiple tribes at least? Maybe, let's say Central. Central North America, maybe would be fair.

So, yes and no. The tribes are incredibly different from each other, which is why terms like indigenous or native or aboriginal or Indian or so dangerous, because it leads people to believe we're all the same. So that's one part of it. Secondly, because of where she is, it made sense that this was the slant for this book. And the things I wouldn't say this book is specific to Anishinaabe, because what Violet and Georgia, her mom, go through and what they're dealing with in that disconnect from culture and not fitting in is across the board for indigenous people, no matter what tribe you belong to. So I think we spoke to, or the book spoke to very general topics that allowed people to understand those things even more.

So, yeah, there's the generalized dispossession issue, which would be across tribes, but then there's the individual tribal level stuff as well. Is that fair?

Yes.

Okay.

And back to the comment about the subtitle in the book. Now I see why you thought it was a murder mystery.

Oh, yeah, it's from the title. That's right. Right.

It's not A Glimpse of Blood. It's a glimpse of blood memory. And blood memory is very much a part of many, many, many indigenous tribes, we call them nations in Canada. Blood memory is what you know deep in your bones as true, even if no one's taught you that in your actual current life.

Okay.

So we believe it's your tie to your ancestors. It's blood memory inheriting trauma, inheriting resilience. That the things that. I don't know why I don't want to do this. I just know it's wrong. And I don't want to give away too much of the book. But there's something that happens in the book that is just very disturbing to different characters in the book. And that's right. So that's why that subtitle, just that homage to one memory.

All right, so the book is called A Glimpse of Blood Memory. Misprint in the CSA release, but that's completely understandable. So this is Julia Gibson, the author, and Sandy Boucher, who has helped with the rewrite to get some inaccuracies about Native American history and culture corrected. We're gonna take a break. It is 10am I'm gonna play. I guess we could do another little bit of poetry from Mr. John Trudelle. That sounds good to you ladies. And when we come back, I will remind everybody again of what we're talking about and then the conversation will continue and we'll go as long as we have to go.

Are you okay with that?

Sandy sounds great.

All right. And this time, I will properly mute everybody. Thank you. Folks, we just lost Sandy because of. I'm not sure. I think her connection cut out. I'm going to call her back.

Anyway.

You are listening to WUWULPFM 100.1 Frankfort, Alberta. That was John Trudell, who is now deceased, but he was a Santee Sioux native, which the Santee Sioux reservation is between Nebraska and South Dakota. And actually, would you mind maybe just giving. Repeating what you were just saying off the air about this guy?

Oh, I know of John. I learned of John Trudeau in the 70s. He was active with the American Indian movement. And he at that. At that time and also after became a musical phenomenon. Spoken word set to music, I think is basically the genre. We're getting Sandy back.

Yep, we're getting Sandy back here.

Anyway, he's awesome. You can listen to him. John Trudell, he's. He's amazing. Hi, Sandy again.

Hello again.

Hello.

Welcome back. I'm not sure if that was on your end or ours, but it doesn't matter. You're back now. All right, so I will remind everybody. Just real quick. You can contact us here at Woowoo. Our email address is wwulpfmmail.com we want to hear from you song requests. If you have any questions for our guests today, we'd love to field those and any feedback that you have about the radio in general. Anyone that you would like to have interviewed, so on and so on. We want to hear from you. So today we have Julia and Sandy on the phone. Julia is the author of I keep having to go back to this pamphlet because I have terrible Memory, A Glimpse of Blood Memory, which is a fictional story about sort of kind of coming of age at least.

Is that fair or semi coming of age? I wouldn't quite call it that, but.

Kind of a mystical journey for a young girl. She's how old?

12.

12. Okay.

It takes place on the shores of a fictional crystal lake in a fictional version of Frankfort, Michigan.

Okay.

In 1906, by the way.

Ah, that. That changes it. Okay.

That helps to know it's a historical young adult, but adults like to read it to book.

And our heroine is. Is Native American.

She's quarter mother is half. Wait. Yeah, that's right.

Okay.

Yeah.

And she. Is she being raised in the context of Native American culture? Kind of. I mean, is that sort of the issue here is.

What would you say? I'd say barely. I mean, she knows a little. She knows.

I would say no, but what she has is blood memory.

I see.

Well, she does have the one word which is wike for, you know, a certain medicine plant. But other than that, she doesn't have much else from others.

And what I mean by she has blood memory is she connects to or is attracted to the other indigenous people in the story. Like she understands that her mom found comfort there. And that's blood memory. Right. That I need to find these people. And I don't know why I want to be near these people, but I do. So.

So culture is kind of the wrong word. Like it's. It's almost more racial.

Yeah. What would you say, Sandy? It's called? It's. It's more. It's bigger than culture.

Culture Bigger than culture to me.

Okay. I mean, culture is such a. Right. I don't know about the. The word culture has a. Has a shadow to it that may. I don't know.

Well, I guess like the word we have. To me, the word culture would imply that like you could be full blooded Swedish and be raised in any old culture around the world and that culture would be authentically yours. Whereas this has this blood memory bit. It's sort of like it does depend on who your ancestors were. Right.

Yeah, I think it's total. I think culture is totally different from. Yeah, your. Your hereditary. I can't think of the word. So what I was going to say is Violet, the little girl in the story, to me represents so many indigenous people separated from culture. Whether it's foster care system, the Indian schools, whatever it was that has those remnants inside them but don't understand it. They just know it makes them different. And everyone else knows it makes them different. So they're often excluded or ostracized from things. So that's why I think she resonated with me so much, because she had the blood memory. She just had no idea why she was different.

Is that what you were going for from the beginning, Julia?

Yes. Well, also her mother is ostracized for her. For her, you know, skin color in the town. And she's heard people say things about her mother that are racist. So she has. So she has real experience in the world of that, but also. Right. She has the connection in her marrow and in her blood memory of her heritage. Is that, did I say that right, Sandy?

I. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that I think is a huge part point and we got to give kudos to is her dad. So Violet's dad in the book is non indigenous, but he loves his wife, he loves her mom. He has a huge issue with people that ever judged his wife. So there's the epitome of the ally. You don't have to be indigenous to see us as valuable and lovable as friends or partners. And he, he represents that.

And. But at the same. Yes, he does. But at the same time he doesn't really understand her level of pain or alienation. That, that frees him out. The point is, you know, he doesn't. He doesn't.

But our allies don't. The people, the allies who actually think they understand everything about us are not allies. That's overstepping. Our real allies know they don't understand what we're going through, but they want to walk with us anyway. She doesn't understand the choices she makes in the book. I don't want to give too much away, but he never stops loving her or wanting her to be in his life.

Right. He just wants her to be happy.

Exactly.

And he's very. Yeah. And he does. He's very opposed to people who are mean to her or judge her.

Yeah.

Would you say that this is an appropriate book to read to someone of a similar age or younger or older?

I'd say 10 and up.

Okay.

You know, 10 to 100 is what I kind of say.

10 to 100.

It's not an easy book to read. There's some dark places in it and some. But also, you know, it's. There's a lot of big words and stuff. So for a 10 year old, it would have to be somebody who really likes to read, but it could be certainly read to a 10 year old. But you know, with the caveat that some kids maybe wouldn't be ready. There's a level of violence in it that maybe some parents would not want their child exposed to at that age. I don't know. What would you say about that, Sandy, in terms of age?

Yeah, well, I would definitely. I don't want to paint it as a children's book because it absolutely isn't. I think to truly get the depth of this book you should be an adult. Right. Who has seen things happening. Like even though this is set, it's historical. All of this applies in present day. So a child could definitely read it. I don't think there's anything hugely traumatizing in it, but they're going to read it as a cute story, whereas hopefully an adult would get so much more out of it.

Right. And the adult readers I've had, which have been, you know, a number of. One of their favorite characters in the book is an adult. I mean, they like Violet.

Oh, I know who you are.

Yeah, there's a. I mean, it's not really giving that much away to say that there's a woman photographer character in the book, you know, who's sort of ahead of her time. You know, she's a very strong individual and people really like her. You know, she's sort of a foil in the book. She's. I mean, she's a. She's a strong secondary character. But it surprised me when I found that so many people really, really related to her and wanted more about her and, you know, wanted another book where she was in it and stuff. So that. That's interesting. So that's an adult perspective. I mean, I think kids might like her, too, but I think for a younger reader, they would probably identify most with Violet, who's 12, and her struggle. But they also like Ms. Nadia.

So your readers kind of see themselves in her, right?

Yeah. No, I never looked at it that way. Yeah, I would think so. Right. A woman who's sort of making her way in a. In a man's world. And it was 1906, you know.

Right. 1906. Female photographer.

Yeah, I mean, they were around, you know, but yeah, that was a tough road to go on.

Turn of the century, man. What a cool time to tell a story in as well. What was Michigan like back then?

Well, it was the sort of the end of the lumber industry and the fish, like Michigan had been overfished and so were the rivers. So the destruction of the, you know, colonizer worldview was very apparent here. There had been multiple wildfires over the state of Michigan prior to this. But, you know, a lot of devastation, really. Environmental devastation based on, you know, the beavers were gone, the buffalo was gone.

Yeah.

All that was. Had been, you know, leveled.

Salmon devastated.

Yeah. So Michigan was, you know, still. I mean, the cherry industry was just beginning here. I mean, this part of Michigan industrialization was totally, you know, the railroad, steel industry, that stuff was all blossoming. But not. I mean, I don't know what Detroit. I really don't know what Detroit was like. Then, for example, it was. I mean, Detroit had always been a port and always, you know, and prior to colonization, it had been a trading mecca or center. So I imagine it was, you know, pretty vibrant still. Always had been. Same with Grand Rapids, probably.

Yeah. Well, certainly. Yeah. Great Lakes Shipping would have been well in full swing at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ore extraction, too, from the north still, you know, the copper mines were. Still. They were waning. They were winding down.

Yeah. And. Well, and mining, in terms of environmental destruction is its own conversation as well.

Indeed.

I was raised in Montana near Butte, which at one point was the world's largest Superfund site and the most polluted city in the world. And they supplied over 50% of the copper for making brass for ammunition for World War I and 2. So very important town, but tremendous environmental devastation as a result. And there are not so much in western Montana, but there are several different Native American tribes, several reservations. And the interaction between all those things is similar. There's parallels, I'm sure. But anyway, what was the. Well, a. Do you know, what was the relationship like between the United States government, the Michigan government, and the tribe? And is that even a factor in the book, really?

It's not really overt in the book. My understanding is that the relationship was definitely not good. There had been Santa. Do you know. Well, anyway, the Troll Treaty, the treaty thing is real complicated in Michigan. And my understanding is that from a very early time prior to this, prior to the early 20th century, there are many Indigenous scholars, I mean, lawyers fighting to get, you know, the treaties to be honored, which took till now pretty much for some of them, like the fishing rights and stuff like that was still, you know, and then being federally recognized was also really, really recent here in Michigan for the tribes. So it took a really long time to get anywhere with the government or through the legal system or through the Supreme Court and such. It's interesting in New Mexico, where I spend time, interestingly enough, the sacred water around Taos is called Blue Lake, actually, which is also the name of the lake that I call Crystal in the book. And that lake had been somehow not accessible to the Taos people, the Pueblo people. And it was Richard Nixon who restored Blue Lake to the tribe. So a lot of. A lot of people there have his picture in their house and stuff like that, because that was huge.

I love that.

To get that access back.

I love the way you say Richard Nixon, because it's like, you wouldn't expect that. Well, people think of him as this, like, horrible, soulless, you know, Republican from. From his era, but he actually did quite a few things that. That surprised. This is one. One example. But yeah, I think he's the reason that we started to finally kind of get along with China too.

Right.

Anyway, so, man, I don't know what else to. Because now I feel like the. The tree has sprouted of where I want this conversation to go, so I don't know which branch to go down.

Sandy, thoughts? Anything else you want to bring up or talk about or explore?

Well, just listening to the conversation about the treaties and government and history and of course it's different and the same here in Canada we have the opposite problem. We have John A. MacDonald, who is revered as one of our great prime ministers and he's the one that created the residential school system. So for indigenous people, not so much. Right. And I think that brings us down to the reason for. Julia, nice work. The change in the book and the reason for doing it. It comes down to perspective. And like, even with the treaties, what we're seeing here in Canada is people may think they're honoring the treaties, but it's their interpretation of the treaty. And the indigenous interpretation is often a lot different than the mainstream interpretation. Right. So the reasons we signed it and what we thought we were signing to is different than what Canada thought.

Yeah.

So that comes down to this book as well, that things happen and what we intended to do was show an alternative to how you interpret things.

Well, that's an interesting little point, or not little, but in the book there's a quite question about the legality of a certain thing and the interpretation of that thing. Right. And way you can sort of see why the people we don't like in the story believe the way they believe even though it's wrong.

Absolutely. And I mean, that's one of the things I use in my work. I run into people that have some really interesting opinions of indigenous people. They'll just put it that way. And I always remind myself that for one, to judge this person doesn't help anything. And two, all they're sharing with me is what they were taught.

Right.

So they had off and they probably had no say in what they were taught. So it's my opportunity to share a different perspective or. Or more information and to add to that knowledge as opposed to be offended by it.

Well, that's what I love. One of the many things I love about your book, the Path, because what it talks about is people have been trained and taught and conditioned a certain way and that's not necessarily their fault. And it's not. So if you can explore what that is in, in the other quote side or the other person or the other institution or whatever, and kind of. And if that's you, if that's me, and I'm. I'm the person with the ideas that don't serve the greater good, or let's say I have to think about how did I find? How did. How did that come to me? Why do I think that's the case? Why do I. Why do I believe? Do I even really believe it? Or do I just take it for granted that that's the way things are? So all that stuff is in the path about how that's important to find out about yourself and whoever you're trying to understand better.

Very few people carefully scrutinize their beliefs.

Right? Exactly. Yeah, that's true.

And more, they never go as far as asking, why does that other person believe that?

Right. Yeah.

Like, we judge them for what they believe and never look at, like, for indigenous people. I'll go back to my comfort zone here for a second. A lot of people behave in certain ways out of fear, right? And when you understand that, it makes their actions make way more sense. But if you never ask or you never take the time to wonder where it's coming from, then all you do is judge the result.

Right? Right. Right. Right.

To what extent I'm imagining that my listeners, some of them anyway, are my listeners. Anyone who's, who's maybe going to listen to this conversation, including myself, in the back of my head, I'm thinking.

This.

We're brushing up against some politically volatile conversations here, right? The word woke comes to mind. And it's like a. I figure you probably want to stray away from the politicization, at least insofar as, you know, the vitriol that goes one direction or the other. But you kind of can't avoid it, at least in terms of, like, we are talking about some legal questions at some point, right? The relationship between the tribal governments and either the Canadian government or the United States government or the Michigan government. So I, I imagine you don't want to get into it a ton, but if you do, that's fine, too. But how do you think about the. The politicization of the conversation of like, let's say a word, like microaggressions or just, just the woke conversation in general that we're having, you know, as a culture, as a people, but also politically, the conversation of. Well, the pendulum has swung too far, some would say, and now it's being overreacted to and the pendulum is going to inevitably swing too far the other way. And how do you feel the process of going through this fits into all that? If at all? Or are you trying to kind of stay away from those things? Things.

Sandy, what say you?

Okay, well, again, because I'm coming at it from my side of the feather or my side of the coin, whichever you prefer. To be indigenous is to be political. We don't have the choice. Our existence is political. Right. So. And I, yes, I hear, I understand the. Well, I don't understand the backlash against WOKE because to me, WOKE is just wanting everyone to thrive. I don't see what the issue is with that. And as someone who has been harmed because someone else tried to decide who I should be, I have an issue with that. We know who we are. And for me, for me, my cultural lens, that's a non issue. You tell me you're a Martian, you're a Martian. Cool mind to judge that. Right? Right. Like, does that work for you? Are you okay? Are people good to you? Like, I don't care if that's where you want to be. Who am I to say who you are? Even if it's outside of my belief system. Right. And I want to be careful because again, Canada, us, we have different politics, even though we're seeing a lot of the same similarities here. I have an issue with any belief system that is okay with someone else suffering. And this book is about human beings.

So is that because. Is that a Sandy Boucher metaphilosophy? Or is that in and of itself a Native American? Or literally or let's say an Ojibwe philosophy?

Well, okay, so good point from. Sometimes I forget how much my cultural lens. So in Anishinaabe culture, Ojibwe culture, and many, many indigenous nations and tribes, we believe that a child reveals to us who they are. We don't mold them into to who they should be. Right. That creator, God, higher power, whatever you want to say, the Creator sent who we needed. And who that person is is not up to us to change. Because then we're saying we know more than creator, which just wouldn't make sense. So acceptance, that humility, that respect, those are human. Huge part of my culture.

That's beautiful.

And that's why, like, I am so. I am so used to being different because I was raised in my Anishinaabe teachings. That's not mainstream. I have looked at things differently than non indigenous people since the day I was born. It. But that's Not a threat. They're not a threat. They just see things I don't see and vice versa. We can work together, Julia and I proved it, so I'm okay. I enjoy the journey of learning who someone is and trying to see the world through their eyes. And I know they see things differently than me. And my way is not right and their way is not wrong. It's just different. And different's okay.

That's awesome. That I'm gonna do my absolute best to take that to heart. The philosophy and then the meta philosophy that that enables. The philosophy is very cool there. Well, so we're coming up on 10:30 here and again, if you guys want to go to 11, we can. But if you want to wrap up, that's fine too. And we don't have to stop at exactly 10:30. This, you know, it's. It's community radio. We kind of do what we want here.

I love what we're talking about. What about you, Sandy?

I cleared my day because I was hoping to be there, remember?

Right.

So I'm good. I'm good.

If you're willing to keep talking about this. I'm excited to keep going because you have, you. You are really skilled at, you know, directing this conversation and I appreciate that.

Well, let's make me botchy that.

What? What'd you say?

Am I being bossy? Is that what you're saying?

No, no, no, I said no. What did I say?

Well, just that the conversation's going well. We might as well let it ride.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So then let's just take a break, listen to a little bit more John Trudell. I'll let my voice rest a little bit here and then we'll come back and. Yeah, I'm not sure what we're going to talk about when we get back, but we'll have however long this song is to think about it. All right, we will be back in three and a half minutes. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is WUWULPFM 100.1, Frankfurt, Alberta, and we are here talking to. Well, we have Sandy Boucher and we have Julia Gibson. And Julia is the author of a book called Copperstone, A Glimpse of Blood Memory, which is. It's a fictional mystical tale about a 12 year old girl in the year 1906 who has native American roots. And it's kind of the story of her processing that sort of that different perspective. Different certainly, at least from just regular old white folks like myself. So anyway, when we come back, we're going to talk More about that book here. I'm just going to bring us back in. Our off air conversation has now become our on air conversation. And would you repeat the question, if you would?

Well, I was, I was asking whether, you know, how do both of you here deal with listeners or participants in something that you're doing who are. I mean, you've got people on the air who call in and they start to be problematic.

Yeah.

You know, what do you do about that? And Sandy, I know that you deal with all kinds of situations where there's people who are mad or disagreeing or. Yeah, well, overly talkative or whatever.

I would figure it has to do with maybe like, what hat am I wearing? Like my hat right now is it's mostly my job to be as neutral as possible. But if my job is to be an instructor, and in that were the context, they would be like, well, I have to correct this. I have to explain to this person that what they're. Their thinking has issues, it's problematic and work through. Well, explains the wrong way because that's sort of, that's quite prideful and arrogant. But like, depends on the hat, I guess, is the point. If your role in the context is to control like what's being said and how it's being said versus, like here my only rule is like, don't break the law. Otherwise we could talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Okay, that's good. Sandy, you are a facilitator and a teacher. So those, those are two different hats in a way, aren't they? Kinda.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not a teacher anymore. So like everything else, when you're sort.

Of with people and you're facilitating their understanding of each side, is there not a teaching component as well?

100%. But what I was gonna say is again, everything I do is rooted in my culture. So I come at it with respect. And I have definitely had a hundred different times people in the audience that may disagree with what I'm saying.

So.

And there's just certain things I do to offset that. So the first thing at the beginning of say for example, a full day seminar, I establish the rules of the right, that this is a safe space, that we're not interrupting people, we're not yelling out, we're not going to be rude. You have the right to ask a question, but I call it asking it softly. And the example I always give them is tell me if you can see the difference between asking, I don't understand why indigenous people don't do whatever, or the second Example is why the heck don't indigenous people just do Link. The second is dripping in judgment, Right? You've already decided that indigenous people are not doing what they should be doing. That's not asking a question. Softly. You stay in your humility. I don't understand. Can you ignore. I will answer that question any day of the week. So. And I respect them. The other thing, if I think the crowd is, the phrase I use is really egotistical. Like they're so comfy in what they know that they have no room for hearing me. I actually have an exercise where I give them a little index card and I get them to write the words my ego on it and I make them go put it in the corner of the room.

The dunce cat.

I tell them, right? I tell them, here's the deal. I know I can learn from you. I know each of you carries so much wisdom and I could sit down and learn so much. But if you debate every single thing I say today, this is now a seven day seminar. So what I'm going to ask you to do is listen to what I say. You have complete power. At the end of today, you can dismiss everything I say and never think of it again. Or you might just decide to keep some of it because you took the chance and listened. And that's what I invite you to do.

Nice.

I'm. I'm curious.

Sorry.

No, no, go ahead.

I was just going to say I've had people ask very challenging questions and I've even gone as far as. Because I believe, like Brene Brown says, honesty is kind. I am never going to mislead someone or sugarcoat something. I'm not going to attack. I'm not going to be disrespectful, but I'm not going to lie. And when someone asks a challenging question, I've often said, okay, I'm going to answer it. You're not going to like the answer. I'm going to tell you right now, it's not the answer I know you're hoping for, but I'm going to tell you what the real answer is so we can move forward. So you hang on to your seat for a second, I'll give you the answer and then you can decide what to do with it.

That's lovely. I wish I had the patience to do that.

Well, you know what? Years ago. So I've been doing this for 16 years now. So in the beginning, every now and then. And it always seemed to be a 6 foot 5 guy. I don't know why? But it always seemed to be some dude that could just tower over me and they had attitude and anger issues and the whole bit. And I could almost physically feel my blood pressure going up. And at one point I realized, okay, Sandy, either like, you got to get this together or your career is going to kill you. Like literally. So you can't keep doing this. And that's when I really leaned on the teaching that whatever it is, whatever someone says to me, all they are sharing with me is what they were taught. So the next time that happened, instead of Picturing this angry 6 foot 5 dude in front of me, I pictured the 4 year old he used to be. And I found myself responding with, I wish you would never have been taught that. But if you're open to listening, I can share some information that might change how you view things.

I'm sure you have some feedback that has suggested that you have a certain amount of success with helping people. People become a little more open minded. You've done so for me in just this brief time. I'm curious. Well, I have a couple questions for Sandy, but real quick. Maybe not real quick. This might take the next 20 minutes. To what extent does the book itself kind of embody these philosophies and metaphilosophies that Sandy is talking about or explore them or.

I'd have to ask Sandy that question because I don't know, actually.

Okay, repeat the question please.

So when it comes to the metaphilosophy of. For one thing, I would say it sounds obvious to me that at the very least the book explores this idea of letting children discover who they are and being accepting of that or in some cases the problems that come from when people are not accepting of that. Is that fair?

That would be a sub theme, I think.

Okay.

Yeah, it's definitely not late. Yeah.

And then I guess. But more so you're talking about in your day to day as this person whose duty it is to correct inaccuracies and to help people better think about who Native American peoples really are. First of all, that they're actually people and not like this weird historical thing. Like actually people that have normal lives and stuff. Which sounds strange. The only reason I mentioned that is because I moved here from Utah and in Salt Lake City there's a museum where it's like a natural history museum, but they have a whole floor that's dedicated to the indigenous people of Utah, mostly the Utes and the Paiutes. But they, they do the whole display sort of makes it seem like they're extinct, like they're gone. They get treated like dinosaurs in a weird way. And I always found that really annoying and disturbing, but I couldn't really express what I didn't like about it. Exactly. But anyway, that's what's in the back of my head as I say this. So back to the core question is, to what extent does the book explore those kinds of issues? And maybe our main character sort of learns to be more and more open minded, perhaps by way of thinking about these blood memory types things.

Does the character. Yeah, I'm pondering this, but go ahead, please.

Okay. I don't think the book gets into that.

Okay.

Like it was my reasoning for wanting those adjustments made so that we weren't reinforcing stereotypes. But that is not what the book's about. The book's about, I don't want to give away too much, but a 12 year old, the misses her mom, right? And is dealing with, you know, people's perceptions of her mom and people's perceptions of her and of her dad. And I mean we've got class structures and class disagreements going on. Impoverished compared to the well to do. Like, I mean there's so many different, just like real life. So the fact that indigeneity plays into it is kind of again, like real life. It's just one of the nuances that's going on on a day to day basis.

I gotcha.

Definitely not the focus of the book.

So it's also, there's.

There's sort of. I don't know if this is answering your question at all, but. So the town of Frankfurt in real life and the town of Pigeon harbor, the fictional version is changing because it's been. Most of the native people have been displaced. There's still a tiny bit of native presence there. And so the big hotel, which is based on the Frontenac that was here, hires African American workers. So that's a little part of the story. A little part. And then this Ms. Nadia, the photographer is Jewish and she very much comes from the perspective of a family being persecuted in her lifetime. So I don't know how that answers your question exactly, but it is.

I worded the question quite strangely. I guess what I was trying to get at was to what extent are the discrepancies that were corrected core to let say the themes of the book and what you're trying to get at?

I don't know the answer quite. Do you understand? I mean they were, they are central to the theme of the book which has to do with the blood memory of ancestry. Right. And we tried to strengthen that and make that more real.

Yeah. I think what the changes were essential to is creating authentic, recognizable characters. And part of the original backlash was.

Instead of mascot, anything to do with.

Well, anything to do with the indigeneity was wonky. Right. It was like, that's not the way it is. And it really highlighted the lack of knowing rather than an opportunity to just be who we are. And by the way, I just wanted to go back, you had made some comment along the lines of that it's my job to educate people and correct them. No, my job is to build relationships with people authentically as who I am. And if you were to. If I was in a relationship with anyone and I said something that was inaccurate about who, who they are, I would hope they would correct me. And that's what I do. I'm not out to, you know, from some place of arrogance teaching the people what they get wrong. I just want them to know who I am. And you were talking about the historicizing indigenous people. It happens here in Canada too. Look at our history books. It sounds like we fell off the planet I don't know how many years ago. But we're your next door neighbor. Right. And we put out our garbage like you do as well. So yes, we may have different practices and maybe we see the world differently, but in so many ways we do the same thing.

Yeah. The mascotization maybe is another kind of way of. It's like what, you know, you expect your, your neighbor who's Native American to what, goes grocery shopping in a headdress, like what exactly seems normal, what feels normal. Yeah.

And yeah, we could go off on a dangerous tangent there.

We sure could.

Well, almost felt a rant swelling up, so I'll just back that.

This brings us back to a question that you posed about the politicalization and how, you know, where we sort of can position ourselves in talking about the book and other things where it's not immediately starting to scream at people.

Yeah, yeah, right.

I have.

Calling people bigots right off the bat's usually.

Right, Right.

Just going to make it harder.

I'm on a committee. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

I was just going to say back to the book. Like it's not like any of the cheating changes are blatant. Like no one's gonna go, oh, what's that? I didn't know that that's not gonna happen. But what they don't realize, again, the power of fiction as an educational tool as part of their story. They read something that's actually accurate. And that's what I was going for.

Versus reinforcing stereotypes. Yeah, I get it. Well, we have 12 minutes left and I would just love to give both of you the floor and talk about whatever you have left on, you know, sitting in your souls to talk about.

Sitting in your souls. My soul is really grateful for you and for Sandy and this opportunity to talk about these things that the book just gives us the opportunity to talk about, you know, all these issues. And your really great questions have been very nourishing and I think, you know, provocative in a good way.

Thank you.

That's where my soul's at right now.

Just so happy to have interesting people on the radio on a regular basis. It's great.

I mean, Sandy knows because I tell her, you know, but. And I tell everybody, you know, just getting to know Sandy and being able to work side by side with Sandy has been a massive gift and an expansion of my soul and my brain and my heart and everything. So I'm super grateful for that every day.

Right on. Beautifully said.

And I just. One last thought for the people listening. So I am Anishinaabe. I am Indian. I am an indigenous person and a successful business owner running my business for 16 years. But what your listeners wouldn't realize is I was also the stereotype. I was raised definitely poor. I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor. I've had alcohol blow my family apart more times than I care to count. I've sold furniture to feed my kids. Kids. But my past doesn't have to be my future. So when you see indigenous people or any other person struggling, that's not who they are. That's the chapter they're in right now. And it's back to, you know, taking care of your neighbor and caring about human beings because if that person finds good soil where they can grow, then maybe they'd be a guest on a radio show one day. So lovely.

Well, that's great. That was Sandy Boucher. Are you in Thunder Bay at the moment, ma'?

Am?

I am. And anyone who wants to know more about me, sandy boucher.com. it's spelled with an I, not a Y.

All right. Have you. Well, based on the book, not that I've read it, but I will, I promise. What's your impression of where we live? Right here, right now. How do you feel about the fictionalized Frankfurt and Crystal Lake? Do you want to come visit?

Definitely. Well, not in the near future. Things are a little scary at the border right now, so but that was the plan. I was actually going to be and I was very excited to be in the place where the book takes place, but we had to put that off for a while.

Well, the people of Frankfort and Alberta at the very least would gladly welcome you. All right, it is 10:52 and I will wrap up the remainder of the hour with a little bit of music and news. But thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much. That was wonderful beyond belief. Thanks James. Excellent, excellent conversationalist.

Thank you so much for joining me. This is great. Thank you. Okay, well, yeah, that's the end. We're going to let you go. Sandy, thank you so much for calling in and your insight and analysis were wonderful.

Awesome. You take care.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

All right. Oh, so that was Sandy Boucher and Julia Gibson. Julie is the author of Copper Stone A Glimpse of Blood which has been rewritten to correct some inaccuracies to do with indigenous people. It's a fictional story about a 12 year old girl who it's in a fictional version of Frankfurt and Crystal Lake who is kind of going through not to reveal too much, kind of sort of a coming of age but journey of discovering herself as all 12 year olds are pretty much doing. So check that book out. And Julia has a Talk tonight at 7pm at the Assembly Building of the CSA to talk some more about the book and the public are welcome. And then tomorrow, actually one real quick here, Julia, if you would tell us about what's going on tomorrow.

Oh, tomorrow at the Benzie Shores District Library, the most beautiful library in the world. I will be there with Sandy on Zoom at 4:00pm okay, so please join us. We would love to see you in person and hear your questions and have a conversation. Book signings and book signing. Yes, definitely.

Right on. Okay, well thank you so much for tuning in, dear listeners. That.