丁香园AV

This heartfelt energy suffused the rest of the evening, as Alanaise shared her work on Indigenous land rights, youth mental health, and decolonizing research by leading with Indigenous community knowledge. In this deeply nourishing lecture, she acknowledged experiences that may resonate with all of us who live on this land, and to all of us affected by mental illness or suicide, while centring St贸:l艒 knowledge and experiences in the work to protect St贸:l艒 land and people.

Alanaise is a registered psychologist, an assistant professor in 丁香园AV鈥檚 Counselling Psychology program, and an Ojibway woman from the Sandy Bay First Nation, which is in Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. However, she was born, raised and currently lives and works on St贸:l艒 land in the Fraser Valley. 鈥淭his is not my ancestral homeland, but it is my home,鈥� she explained. 鈥淚 was raised to be Ojibway, but I was born and raised in St贸:l艒 territory and have lived in the active presence of St贸:l艒 people my whole life.鈥�

This concept of active presence was central to the work she shared. Although 鈥渞esilience鈥� was a key theme in both her lecture and this lecture series as a whole, she proposed an alternative to that term: 鈥渟urvivance,鈥� used by Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor to describe an active, ongoing, land-based Indigenous practice that goes beyond "loss, victimhood or mere survival鈥� from the traumas of colonization.

The work Alanaise presented in her lecture was a project called Youth on the Land, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She was part of a community-based research team with the  and the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). They ran camping trips for St贸:l艒 youth, giving them an opportunity to connect with Elders and their ancestral land and culture. The audience got a glimpse into the joy and richness of these camps through a short video set to music from the Sts鈥檃iles Singers.

The overarching goal of the project was to prevent youth suicide through St贸:l艒 concepts of land-based healing. Alanaise acknowledged that suicide is intensely painful and personal to many, and can be triggering to discuss, but that it is also important to do so in service of destigmatization. 鈥淚鈥檓 invested in normalizing how we speak about human suffering and despair. These experiences should not remain hidden,鈥� she said.

The research team was committed to ensuring that their work was guided by St贸:l艒 worldviews, concepts and practices, including four principles in particular that Alanaise wove into her lecture:

• Friends working together (osi:yaya yoyes)
• Reciprocal knowledge (ooyeqelhtel)
• Looking back is looking forward (okw鈥檕kw鈥檈stswitsem tl鈥檕s lexw kw鈥檈ts kw鈥檈 ts)
• Everything is connected (omekw stam ilileq鈥檛ol)

Alanaise explained how these principles were central to her team鈥檚 work. For example, the research team operated as 鈥渇riends working together鈥� outside of institutional hierarchies. Instead, she said, 鈥淎ll of us came to the work as equals, with different tools to offer.鈥�

Conventional leadership structure was flipped on its head. The principal investigators, like Alanaise, who were coming from academic institutions, looked to the knowledge of the research assistants: community members including Nikki LaRock, a band councillor for the St贸:l艒 community of Yakweakwioose, who also provided opening and closing remarks for this lecture.

Alanaise and Nikki also credited the team鈥檚 success to their shared personal goal of protecting the younger generation from the causes of suicide. 鈥淣o one held themselves higher or lower than anyone,鈥� Nikki said. 鈥淲e all sat as equals, we all listened and shared our stories, and we were all in it with our hearts to do what we could for the youth.鈥�

With the initial CIHR project funding, the research team built programming infrastructure that stayed with the St贸:l艒 Nation, so the community has been able to continue the work even after the original project wrapped up. The project was not just limited to academia-imposed research timelines and funding periods, and this supported their commitment to the St贸:l艒 principle of reciprocal knowledge.

鈥淚 see that as reciprocity in that what was given was durable and useful,鈥� Alanaise explained. 鈥淚f you鈥檝e done good reciprocal research, you鈥檝e left the community richer.鈥�

Standing at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge and psychology

Alanaise reflected on her position at multiple crossroads鈥攐f her ancestral roots with one Indigenous people and her lifetime spent on the lands of another; of her academic background in psychology and her deep ties to both Ojibway and St贸:l艒 teachings. She reflected, 鈥淚鈥檓 standing in the middle鈥擨鈥檓 not St贸:l艒, but I am Indigenous. I believe in the spiritual teachings from the land, but I also know of the research and literature on risk assessment and suicide. I also knew these models weren鈥檛 serving Indigenous people very well.鈥�

Giving St贸:l艒 youth access to these healing resources through the Youth on the Land project was what those in the public health field might call 鈥減rimary prevention,鈥� Alanaise explained鈥攂ut it was important for her and her team to reframe this approach through St贸:l艒 principles. 鈥淔or us, it meant giving people the tools and opportunities to engage with the land and each other, as a way of gathering the medicine that will keep them safe.鈥�

While it didn鈥檛 feel appropriate to impose western psychological theories on a community-based research team committed to centring St贸:l艒 knowledge, she did observe connections between St贸:l艒 principles and one particular model taught in 丁香园AV鈥檚 Counselling Psychology program: Thomas Joiner鈥檚 interpersonal theory of suicide (outlined in his 2005 book Why People Die by Suicide).

Joiner proposes that the desire for suicide can arise from feeling 鈥減erceived burdensomeness鈥� and 鈥渢hwarted belongingness.鈥� Alanaise sees the St贸:l艒 concept of 鈥渞eciprocal knowledge鈥� as disrupting that sense of perceived burdensomeness. When you see yourself as part of a circle, where each person contributes what they have and know, giving back as much as they鈥檙e receiving, you can never be a burden. And creating collectives of 鈥渇riends working together鈥� can overcome feelings of thwarted belongingness.

Seeing oneself as part of such a collective鈥攚hich can include not just people but the land and animals too鈥攃omes back to the St贸:l艒 principle that 鈥渆verything is connected.鈥� This is also central to the lecture鈥檚 titular concept of shxweli.

What is shxweli?

The St贸:l艒 concept of shxweli鈥攁 life force present in all living things鈥攚as central to the land-based resilience the project team sought to share with the youth. To describe shxweli, Alanaise drew on stories told by St贸:l艒 scholars like Jo-Ann Archibald, author of , and historian Sonny McHalsie. 鈥淭he best way I know to teach these concepts is with stories,鈥� Alanaise said, drawing on the idea that 鈥渓ooking back is looking forward.鈥�

Alanaise shared a video in which McHalsie explains how this life force connects St贸:l艒 people to the land: 鈥淪hxweli is inside us, it鈥檚 in our ancestors, it鈥檚 in the rocks, it鈥檚 in the animals. It鈥檚 what connects us to them and creates our responsibility to take care of everything that belongs to us.鈥�

Shxweli can also refer to living spirits embedded in natural landforms: ancestors transformed into stone long ago by X谩:ls, the St贸:l艒 transformer figure, as cautionary lessons to the St贸:l艒. The sites where these transformations occurred are sacred places known as 鈥渢ransformer sites.鈥� (Alanaise admitted that when she first learned about these transformer sites as a child attending  in Agassiz, B.C., she imagined them as characters from the Transformers cartoon show.)

Sharing these concepts of shxweli and transformer sites with the youth was perhaps the most innovative contribution of the Youth on the Land project, said Alanaise. Over the course of the project, the team came to recognize St贸:l艒 land rights and title as a central part of the work: 鈥淲e were developing the next generations of leaders to know why and how to protect their land.鈥�

Since the transformer sites hold stories and knowledge dating back well before colonization, they are part of what Wenona Hall, a UFV Indigenous studies professor on the research team, called the St贸:l艒鈥檚 鈥渓iving constitution.鈥�

Teaching St贸:l艒 youth about their long-standing rights, constitution and ties to their land not only improves their individual wellbeing by giving them a sense of belonging and connection. It helps them find a sense of collective purpose as they take up the role of land protectors for present and future generations, encouraging them to practice 鈥渟urvivance鈥� by participating in that active presence on their own land.

Alanaise described a powerful feeling she experienced in certain places which was almost inexplicable until she learned about shxweli. She believes this can be a universal human experience鈥攊magine driving through our beautiful B.C. landscapes, she said, and feeling drawn to a certain place along the road that makes your heart beat a little faster, compelling you to stop your car, get out and bask in that sense of connection with a living presence in the earth.

Maybe, like Alanaise, you have an 鈥渁bsolute favourite mountain鈥� of your own.

During the question and answer period, 丁香园AV president Joy Johnson asked Alanaise how people could engage further with the themes she鈥檇 shared. Alanaise鈥檚 primary suggestion was to learn about St贸:l艒 land by visiting it in person (if and when provincial health travel restrictions allow, of course, especially considering ).

For example, in Chilliwack, the former site of a residential school has been transformed into buildings dedicated to . Here you鈥檒l find a free, self-guided 鈥渨alking curriculum鈥� of billboards that tell the stories and the Halq鈥檈m茅ylem names of the transformer sites and other local landforms. A variety of  are also available, including some hosted by Sonny McHalsie.

In terms of exploring and emphasizing an active Indigenous presence on the land at 丁香园AV, one audience participant suggested visiting the 鈥� Watch House (kwecwecnewtxw) on Burnaby Mountain and learning about their work to monitor the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion on unceded Coast Salish territories.

Alanaise also cited and recommended the work of scholars, educators, authors and artists including the aforementioned ;  (who in 2020 became the  by the U.S. National Gallery of Art); and her colleagues at 丁香园AV including Jeannie Morgan, Mark Fettes and Gillian Judson (particularly her concept of the ).