Stories North Reflections

With their words still hanging heavy in the air Bessie Cooley and Joanne Henry consoled one another. They had just relived their traumatic residential school experiences by telling us, a group of journalists, about what they had lived through. To me, these people were two members of a community, bound together by shared stories of survival. I was taken aback when they asked us how we were feeling after the three-hour residential school awareness workshop. In my mind the room was clearly divided into two halves — in one the survivors, sharing stories important enough to warrant painful retelling and in the other the journalists, listening at a respectful distance. But we were being asked to cross that invisible line, to share something of ourselves in return. And I think we needed to; this was the first time many of us were confronted by the human cost of residential schools.
The post-workshop atmosphere was emotionally charged. After each of us expressed our reaction to the testimony we had just ingested, the sense of catharsis was palatable. The community in the room had grown from two people to twenty. In making ourselves vulnerable and giving what we could back to our sources — a human reaction — we were all connected as people, at least in that moment. While the journalistic tradition dictates a division between sources who share and journalists who listen and interpret, I think any story that came out of that workshop room would have been all the more powerful for our moment of interconnectedness and shared vulnerability. Of all the things I learned during our month in the North, my realization about the need for these moments is already changing me as a person and as a journalist.

To maintain the momentum of this lesson in my personal life, I want to seek out moments with my friends and family that will allow us to truly connect. I take so many of these relationships for granted, allowing distractions and technology to intrude on the time I spend with the people closest to me. I also forget, and I’m ashamed by this, that my loved ones have fascinating stories to tell. I’m planning to suggest to certain friends and family that the next time we get together, we do it in a place that’s important to them. As occurred in our walk and talks, I want to learn about their connection to a place, the memories and emotions associated with it, and things they might not have been inclined to share had we met up at a bar, mall, or restaurant. I’d like to try the same set-up with future story interviews, which leads into my second post-Stories North resolution.
Whenever possible, I want to conduct in-person interviews with sources. This is something I always do for video and radio pieces, for obvious reasons, but I usually conduct interviews for print pieces over the phone. And I think my works suffers for it. I love print as a medium, and I want to improve my ability to write compelling stories. I think face-to-face interaction with my sources is one way to do this. You can cultivate so much more trust when you’re present with someone. You get to see the person in their element, and allow them to see you. And it feels less extractive. I’m showing up, and actively listening. We need to meet our sources halfway.
On a similar note, I want to make an effort to show my sources the stories they’re featured in — before publication when possible, and certainly post-publication. If I truly want to embrace the vulnerability and connectedness this course has taught me we all need, I must make an effort to make my work available to the people it wouldn’t exist without, especially when sources have shared something intimate. I think in the past I’ve avoided doing so for fear of criticism or a request that I rework something I’ve created. Allowing for either would require making myself vulnerable or extending myself for someone else — both of which I often shy away from. In truth, constructive criticism and forced accountability are exactly what I know I need to become a better journalist and a better person. I’ve come so far in the last month, and I want to keep going.

Alongside my personal and professional evolution, my understanding of Canada’s North has also developed. I started this trip with ideas about this part of our country — the centrality of environment and resources, a heightened sense of community resulting from relative isolation — and interestingly, I discovered many of these assumptions indeed ring true. However, I learned so much more, including many things I didn’t know I didn’t know; the strength and resurgent power of Indigenous people in the North being the most important of these things. It would be impossible to recount here all of the information I’ve encountered and processed, but I think the work I’ve produced over the past month depicts my learning curve quite well. From the first tentative Facebook posts on National Indigenous Peoples Day to the coverage of the Atlin Arts and Music Festival to the short documentary about MMIW, healing, and resurgence that I co-created, I think the quality and the nuance of my journalism about Northern issues has improved. I hope to return to the North in the future because my interest in this part of Canada has been piqued. The Wild is calling.
