Saskia Van Viegen, our guest blogger this week, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at York University. Her research and scholarship focus on bi/multilingualism in education.

As I write this post, Canada marks the second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30, 2022.  The purpose of this day is to recognize and account for historic and ongoing injustices toward Indigenous peoples in Canada, to make visible the dispossession of Indigenous lands and communities by white settler society, and to restore value in Indigenous ways of knowing. 

Toward these purposes, my reflection here is but one layer in locating myself as a white settler in this context, to consider my positioning in relation to Indigenous languages and to engage my responsibility, as a language educator and applied linguist, to support work toward their revival.  Drawing on the work of Indigenous scholars in Canada who generate, articulate and share such knowledge, including, for instance, Jan Hare, Onowa McIvor, Belinda Daniels, Eve Tuck, Donna Patrick and others, I hope to contribute to continued efforts to reverse the gaze and understand how whiteness and monolingual norms have been centred in language education, and to consider the roles and responsibilities of settlers and allies in supporting their work.

I am a white settler Canadian, with roots in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. My mother and father immigrated to Canada with their families after the second world war, leaving behind their experiences of war, destruction, and starvation.  My mother and father landed at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1949 and 1952, respectively, and their families ultimately settled in a working-class community in southern Ontario, a small town on the north coast of Lake Erie. 

My father’s parents opened a grocery store and my father learned to be a butcher from my Opa.  My mother’s father worked at the local nickel processing plant and her mother worked as a housekeeper for many years.  My mother became a teacher, back when a university degree was not a requirement for the job. 

We moved around a lot when I was growing up – I went to 5 elementary schools, so I learned to fit in and make friends quickly.  Moving a lot is hard as a child, particularly because one misses out on having a stable community or peer group.  I always felt like an outsider.  When I was in fourth grade, we moved to Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, based in Nelson House, Manitoba, located 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg.  My mother took a job teaching English language arts at the secondary level, work that enmeshed us in cognitive and linguistic imperialism, a white family coming from the outside.  My brother and I attended the community’s elementary school, Otetiskiwin Kiskinwamahtowekamik (OK).  Reviewing the school’s website today, it describes the school’s programming as consistent with First Nations traditions, laws, customs, culture and philosophy.  Today, I can read and ask about what this means, but as a child, I simply experienced it.

One of the most important parts of this experience was my immersion into the community – experiencing Cree language and ways of being, knowing and doing that were very different from what I had known before my arrival.  As a child, this difference was felt and apprehended rather than understood, opening a lifelong interest in language and cultural difference alongside a steadfast alliance with the Cree community members who warmly and tenderly welcomed and included me, without prejudice, into their lives.

I recollect the circle of girls who took me into to their group, making sure I kept up as we roamed the community and the woods nearby.  We were always on a journey. They knew all the best places to go, and it seems we spent so much of our free time walking and talking, them mingling Cree with English as they spoke with me.  We visited their aunties’ and grandmothers’ homes, we passed by the local Hudson’s Bay store, and we went looking for polar bears.  Because it was spring thaw and the ground was soft with melting snow and thick mud, we flew down the wooden planks that were placed on top of the mud, that made it possible to traverse.  Our arms outstretched like airplanes, we balanced ourselves carefully to avoid falling in and losing our boots.  I followed close behind my friends so I wouldn’t get lost.  But I remember too, that they always waited, stopping with a hand outstretched to help me find my way.  I felt connected, together with them; without them, I felt alone. 

On one of our journeys, my friends told me about what it means to walk in the footsteps of others.  Our legs were too short to match some of the big strides, so we hopped and jumped into each big footprint in the snow.  These footprints made our walking easier.  My friends told me that it was like walking in ancestor’s footsteps, but I didn’t know what they meant.  I didn’t understand the word ancestor and was unfamiliar with the concept.  They patiently told me that ancestors are family passed and gone, but still around to guide our way.  They explained that ancestors included not only immediate family, but all members of the community. They seemed puzzled that I didn’t understand.

These small fragments are part of my understanding of what it means to be a white settler.   My Cree friends showed me many things I didn’t know how to do, they taught me new concepts and ideas.  Through my child’s eyes, I saw a different way of life and experienced different knowledge.  It was obvious to me then that I was a visitor on their land and in their community, I felt it.  Today I know more about what it means to behold the significance of this position and identity as a white settler, its importance for continued survival on land and together, and its value to enacting support for Indigenous colleagues and their work.

From Belinda Daniels I recently learned that Cree people mark the seasons following the cycle of water in northern lakes and rivers.  She explained that there are two extra seasons in this cycle – in addition to Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, there is Freeze Up, Mikiskāw, when water freezes in the cold weather and Break Up, Miyoskamin, when the ice melts in the lakes.  With this teaching, I now know that I experienced the Miyoskamin season in the Nisichawayasihk Nation, but I didn’t know it when I was living there.  Today I wonder what else I don’t know – what I, a settler on these lands, have yet to learn.