Natalie Pepin – Cultural Educator
Its a beautiful thing, the feeling of home, familiarity and connection that taking part in ones culture offers. Being immersed in ones culture can offer a sense of place and continuity. And from my experience, it also can offer insight into who we are as individuals. We begin to “make sense” when the context of our old ones comes into view.
It is this connection to culture that many in our nation have faced growing up without. For many historic reasons, there is a familiar moment that many Metis people share, a moment of realizing that they hadn’t known about their heritage, and that they missed out on a life full of connection to that culture.
This is an experience that I cannot share in. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know my heritage. Through the efforts of my grandmother, my geneology has been no secret to me and as a child I saw no reason that I shouldn’t be proud of that heritage…I remember being an 8 year old girl in school in Winnipeg. In our “Canadian Studies” curriculum, my social studies teacher would recount the story of the Red River “Rebellion” as it was laid out in the texts. At several times I would interject “That’s not true”, as he outlined the story to the traitorous Louis Riel. My teacher was patient with me and acknowledge that I saw it differently. One one occasion he used the word “Amerindien” to describe my culture (in English American Indian), to which I asserted “Non, monsieur, moi je suis Michif” (In English “No sir, I’m Michif”) …he simply smiled and said “D’accord” ( In English “Okay”).
I was blessed to eat at a restaurant that served Metis food downtown in Winnipeg called Piwisinin (my spelling is likely off), watched plays recounted in Michif (which my father later admitted he had to sneak me in to as children weren’t allowed), and grew up with many of the foods that we know and love as Metis people still to this day.
My Grandmother, Frances Pulscher (nee Plouffe), my father’s mother, has been our strong and active tie to our culture and worked within our community for years with the Metis Resource Center in Winnipeg. My father ensures we attended activities and events that would allow us to connect with our culture. I am a descendant of Pierre and Marie Falcon (Marie is sister to Cuthbert Grant, Pierre is our well known and loved writer of songs in our Michif language and helped lead our nation alongside his brother in law Cuthbert Grant), Javier Ritchot (who stepped on the surveyors chain as the group of 12 of our ancestors took a stand against the surveyors of our homelands), Alexi Bonami L’Esperance (a renowned York Boat Captian of the LaLoche Brigade), Marie Lavallee, Marguerite L’Esperance (a daughter of the fur trade who spoke many many Indigenous languages) and Onesime Falcon (grandson of Pierre Falcon) and so many others.
Though I can’t claim to share the experience of a watershed moment of realizing that my culture had been hid from me, I can share in the realization that I wasn’t able to fully experience my culture. I knew even as a child that there was more. I felt the loss of those experiences. That feeling of yearning for the parts of my culture that were still out of reach for a young girls growing up in the 80’s, became even more out of reach with the divorce of my parents. I was isolated from that side of my family, though not maliciously. It is simply that we moved away to Southern Alberta, and what connection I had with my culture was all but severed. In Southern Alberta, I learned quickly that there was no love for a French speaking Metis girl in my new home…so I did as many had before…I didn’t show that side of me.
When I married and became pregnant with my first child, I realized how much my culture had meant to me growing up. I wanted my children to have that same pride. So, I sought out elders. I learned our traditional arts, learned to Jig, started to learn Michif (though I suspect this will always be ongoing), and I served at the Vice-President of the Metis local 2003 in Southern Alberta for a short time before moving further north. I spent as much time as I could with elders from both my culture and the Blackfoot culture and was blessed by the friendship and council of Metis Elder Rod Mcleod and Blackfoot Elder Narcisse Blood, both elders who would impact my life in profound ways.
Elder Rod Mcloed encouraged me to give of my talents to my community, to not worry about the political climate surrounding our nation, and to focus on living our values of family and community which he shared so beautifully. He also reminded me of the importance of ours tie between nations . He so perfectly displayed that importance in his relationship with other Indigenous elders in Southern Alberta.
Narcisse encouraged me to dive deeper into my culture, to learn the kinship ties that we had to the land and to other nations, to the plants and the animals. And, his counsel didn’t fall on deaf ears. I have sought at every opportunity to reconnect, in any way I can with the foods, medicines, songs, dance, arts, ceremony, and language of my people. And, I have dedicated my life to sharing those things.
I was blessed to receive some school funding to attend my studies at Harvard from the Belcourt Brosseau Metis Awards. In my grant application essay for my studies, I wrote about the importance of my culture to me, and how being Metis informed the path I would take with my studies, finding a middle path with respect for tradition and the world around us, combined with an understanding of the importance of responsible economic development. I graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB undergraduate degree) with a focus on International Relations.
While in school I gave renewed focus to our arts as a medium for expression and focus. The skills that had been shared with me became an increasingly important part of my life, and I poured myself into learning more and more, practicing, and find deep meaning in these skills as a connection to my culture, the Elders I valued so much, and the history of my people. I continued beading and learned to fingerweave (although I am still admittedly a novice many years later).
I recalled many times the counsel of Elder Rod Mcloed to serve my community. I had waited to apply for citizenship for years, wanting to be sure that I could offer back to my nation. In the arts classes that I offer for people of all backgrounds, but focused on the traditional skills of the Metis people, I am blessed to connect with Metis, First Nations, and people of European descent with our culture.
I have been fortunate to have elders sit with me in workshops as we tan hides and stitch moccasins. I have been lifted by their words of encouragement to continue sharing these skills…and to share more of our culture as I do. They knew, as I had also noticed, that though these arts brought people to learn, that the lasting value was in the connection to our cultures. “There is a hunger, it is important to feed it”.
All these years (nearly two decades) later, I have found my exploration into our culture deepening again as I share in learning with Elders the birth teachings that have welcomed and anchored our people for hundreds of years. Rooted in an ever deepening identity as a Metis woman, I am exploring our kinship and continuing relationship with our Anishinaabe and Nehiyaw family on this journey.
I am blessed to have Ketehayak Jerry and Joann Saddleback to learn from and I’m grateful to them everyday for the beautiful teachings they offer me. I am a learner and beginner speaker of Michif and Nehiyawewin, a ceremony helper, and I’m blessed to share culture in my community. Teaching about protocol is something I’ve been asked to share, and do so regularly.
I run a culture camp in Northern Alberta called Wâsakâm, where we share Indigenous food sovereignty teachings, and about our relationship with the land.
With the current project Meeting My Ancestors, I am heeding the guidance I’ve been given, and offering the teachings I have been blessed with to the students that I work with by sharing our culture within every arts program I teach.
Though this cultural learning is but one stop along their path of discovering our culture, I pray continually that it will be a step in the right direction for them.
Beyond my work with Meeting My Ancestors, I am always excited by the work that I do in promoting Indigenous food systems by supporting the design and implementation of gardens and food forests that feature our traditional foods and medicines. These plant relationships are a source of constant comfort and anchoring for me. In 2020, we were able to work with the Metis Nation of Alberta in the design and implementation of their new Indigenous community garden.
As a steward of tobacco, sweet grass and sage, in the land that I live, I have been able to gift these living medicines to the MNA upon request for reclamation efforts.
I support many of my nation’s communities, organizations, and our nation’s government (in my region the MNA), by offering teachings in community when requested.
Beyond my education at Harvard, I am trained in Consensus Based Decision Making through the Alberta Arbitration and Mediation Society and Certified to teach Traditional Aboriginal Games. I also studied Renewable Resource Management before beginning my studies at Harvard.
