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These are difficult stories. We bear witness in this chapter to the role of sport in furthering the settler colonial projects throughout Turtle Island. Here are some supports to access in the community and from a distance:
First Peoples House of Learning Cultural Support & Counselling
Niijkiwendidaa Anishnaabekwag Services Circle (Counselling & Healing Services for Indigenous Women & their Families) – 1-800-663-2696
Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre (705) 775-0387
Peterborough Community Counselling Resource Centre: (705) 742-4258
Hope for Wellness – Indigenous help line (online chat also available) – 1-855-242-3310
LGBT Youthline: askus@youthline.ca or text (647)694-4275
National Indian Residential School Crisis Line – 1-866-925-4419
Talk4Healing (a culturally-grounded helpline for Indigenous women):1-855-5544-HEAL
Section One: History
A) The Residential School System
Exercise 1: Notebook Prompt
We are asked to honour these stories with open hearts and open minds.
Which part of the chapter stood out to you? What were your feelings as you read it? (50 words)
| My initial feelings are the same as my feelings whenever I read about Residential schools — deep, deep sadness. How confusing and unexplainable to those children.
So many things stood out. Parents invited to performances? Sport as a means of assimilation. Only being allowed to play non-Indigenous sports, but also Lacrosse, but not as a sacred event.
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B) Keywords
Exercise 2: Notebook Prompt
Briefly define (point form is fine) one of the keywords in the padlet (may be one that you added yourself).
| For this padlet prompt, I added a piece of trivia that I learned about the Indian Act in an Indigenous course at some point. I don’t even remember what course it was. I have taken a number, both in my time completing my College Diploma and during my time at Trent.
When it was created, the Indian Act was the only piece of Legislation, across the entire globe, governing a entire group of people based on their ethnicity. As a sidenote, I hope there is no other legislation in the world that has done the same thing, but sadly, there probably is, somewhere. In addition to what I wrote in the padlet: The Indian Act:
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C) Settler Colonialism
Exercise 3: Complete the Activities
Exercise 4: Notebook Prompt
Although we have discussed in this module how the colonial project sought to suppress Indigenous cultures, it is important to note that it also appropriates and adapts Indigenous cultures and “body movement practices” (75) as part of a larger endeavour to “make settlers Indigenous” (75).
What does this look like? (write 2 or 3 sentences)
| Settlers appropriate Indigenous activities such as snowshoeing, hunting and Lacrosse and claim them as their own. By doing this, the settlers then make the claim that they are in fact “natives” of the land they have colonized. By doing this, settlers erase the Indigenous ways of knowing these activities.
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D) The Colonial Archive
Exercise 5: Complete the Activities
Section Two: Reconciliation
A) Reconciliation?
Exercise 6: Activity and Notebook Prompt
Visit the story called “The Skate” for an in-depth exploration of sport in the residential school system. At the bottom of the page you will see four questions to which you may respond by tweet, facebook message, or email:
How much freedom did you have to play as a child?
What values do we learn from different sports and games?
When residential staff took photos, what impression did they try to create?
Answer one of these questions (drawing on what you have learned in section one of this module or prior reading) and record it in your Notebook.
| Photographs were used in different ways. One of the most obvious examples of what staff were trying to accomplish is the side by side comparison of the young boy, first dressed in traditional clothing, with his long hair in braids, and then beside that a picture of the same young boy in a suit, hair cut short, standing in a casual pose leaning against a column. In this picture people could see that the Residential schools were doing what they were supposed to be doing — civilizing the children, making them look, and by assumption, also acting like civilized White children. (I really like the capitalization of White by Malcolm MacLean in Chapter 5 of Decolonizing Sport. The importance of making it a proper noun and forcing White people (us) to take responsibility for their actions.)
Another example of how photographs were used was to show how students were becoming civilized by participating in White activities such as brass bands and White sports such as hockey. McKee and Forsyth share Eugene’s story of these pictures in chapter 4 of Decolonizing Sport. Eugene shares a picture of his cousin’s hockey team. But his cousin reminds us not to believe everything we see in pictures. In our current world, we can photoshop whatever we want into a picture, so we should be wary of what we believe. In Eugene’s picture, rather than photoshop the staff just dressed the students in uniforms they didn’t have, that they didn’t play in regularly. This would leave the impression that the teams were so important that they were well taken care of. The true story is very different. In visiting the story of The Skate in the Witness Blanket, Eugene’s story is shared again — the pictures were used to brag about how much the Residential schools were doing to civilize the students, and weren’t they just so amazing. Photographs were used as propaganda.
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B) Redefining Sport
B) Sport as Medicine
Exercise 7: Notebook Prompt
Make note of the many ways sport is considered medicine by the people interviewed in this video.
| Sport as medicine happens in many ways, as identified by the Indigenous people interviewed for this segment. Not only is it medicine for individuals, families and Nations, it is also medicine for Canada itself in its work towards reconciliation. For the Residential School Survivors, sport was a way to hold onto their culture in an environment that was traumatic and designed to deny their culture, to kill anything “Indian in the child,” as we well know from any conversation about the history of Residential Schools. In sports, the opportunity to use their own language on the court/floor/field was therapy. Using their Indigenous language was an effective way to ensure the other team had no idea what they were planning as strategy, but it was also a way to hang onto that crucial piece of culture. The memories of the trauma never go away, but sport, particularly Indigenous sports/games such as lacrosse have always been medicine so being allowed to continue playing those allowed them to continue to be used as medicine.
One Residential School survivor described sports as therapy, a way to get out from under what is weighing you down. For that man, continuing with a sport he participated in as a young person in Residential School still gives him pride and pride in doing something well can be healing. For young people whose grandparents are Residential School Survivors, the pride in their Indigenous sports lives on – they take pride in being talented athletes because sports have always been an important part of their culture. Lacrosse, in particular, is described as being a gift from the Creator, a medicine game. Setting a strong example for youth, being a part of the team, contributing through coaching, all of that is medicine and a path to healing for the community, a path to strength for Indigenous nations and for Canada itself.
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C) Sport For development
Exercise 7: Notebook Prompt
What does Waneek Horn-Miller mean when she says that the government is “trying but still approaching Indigenous sport development in a very colonial way”?
| Waneek Horn-Miller makes the very strong point that there is no system in place to help Indigenous athletes develop their talent. They don’t have access to the coaching and facilities they need to be able to be successful and to build their involvement in sport, particularly those in remote and fly-in communities. Indigenous athletes are being treated just as any non-Indigenous athlete would be treated — they have to have the funds personally to be able to afford the coaching and facilities. If they want to train, they have to move away from their home communities. While this may be quite acceptable for White athletes, for Indigenous athletes this is reminiscent of Residential Schools — take them away from their families, communities and cultures if they also want to train to be Olympians. That is entirely a colonial approach because it does not recognize the importance of being safely in their home communities as a layer of support. Being pulled away from their culture removes their identity, rather than reclaiming it, as Horn-Miller would like to see as the focus. Rather than working athlete by athlete, or not really working at all, the government needs to develop a national strategy for ensuring Indigenous athletes are given the support they need to develop and move into elite sports.
As an additional note to the strength of Horn-Miller’s argument, the fact that she was even willing to represent Canada speaks volumes to her character and commitment after her treatment at the hands of the Canadian army. To have been stabbed by a soldier while protecting her sister, having to live with that trauma, yet still being willing to represent Canada is amazing. And then to take that commitment and find ways to support other Indigenous athletes is definitely something to be admired. |
Exercise 8: Padlet Prompt
Add an image or brief comment reflecting some of “binding cultural symbols that constitute Canadian hockey discourse in Canada.” Record your responses in your Notebook as well.
| I understand the binding cultural symbols mentioned in the reading — the ice, the “boys” of winter (pretty sure the girls are out there on the ice too, but somehow we always celebrate the boys more), the cold, playing pond hockey — but I also think the iconic image of Crosby leading the Team Canada to the gold medal in Vancouver is also a symbol in the Canadian hockey discourse. But then, so is the goal by Paul Henderson in 1972 — painted on walls in many small towns near where I grew up. It’s those seminal moments in hockey that are supposed to bind us together. In the important moments, we stand together, breath held, waiting on THE goal. I think maybe this year’s 4 Nations Cup win may get added to that list because of its importance/integration with the trade war/51st state craziness.
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Section Three: Decolonization
Decolonizing Turtle Island Game Map
