And All Other Duties as Required

By Chelsie Parayko, 1st year MDP student

When signing up for the MDP program, I did not envision what exactly working with community would look like, and I would imagine typically that’s not something that most people consider. It is likely that most of us thought about the great work in research we will do, the positive impacts we may potentially have and maybe, just maybe, we think about how community will change us and impact who we are. 

On Blackfoot traditional territory during the Pathways Annual Gathering: “Land-based learning and healing”

What we don’t talk about is how sometimes we have to roll up our proverbial sleeves and drive a 15-passenger van down a windy highway, be a cheer leader for a young artist who is unsure of her talents, run bear-watch, or how we might have to become hosts to elders and run to ensuring their dinner is everything they expect, and their water is always topped up.

We have been told to “check ourselves at the door” and to enter a community with humility, understanding and with no set idea of how your time will turn out to be, but this is just the beginning of that story. As Dorothy says, “we are no longer in Kansas anymore,” we are here for the community and most of our preconceived notions are proven to be completely incorrect.

Elder Mabel Horton sharing teachings in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation

Our job as researchers is to disrupt the norms and to be the community’s biggest advocates. During a fire-side-chat, Bonnie Healy, of the Blood Tribe, said that “we are all aware that Indigenous peoples have been researched to death, but it is our responsibility as Indigenous researchers to research ourselves back to life.” This is true for both Indigenous researchers and our allies as well.

I have had the great pleasure of working with Nanaandawewigamig this summer and I have seen this happen in its truest form. The staff in the Research Department have an extremely long list of experience, western education and what seems like endless knowledge of and appreciation for Indigenous ways of knowing and being. 

This group of individuals make up some of the foremost Indigenous researchers, however when tasks need to be taken on, they are always the first to roll up their sleeves and do what needs to be done. I am perpetually in awe of this group of people and feel incredibly privileged to have had to opportunity to learn from and to have worked along-side them.

Traveling North - Pisew Falls, MB. (B-F) Rachel Bach, Stephanie Sinclair & Chelsie Parayko