MichifDesigns

Happy Peoples Day!

Today I'd like to thank all the wonderful people in my life. I am grateful to my mom who raised me in culture. I grew up always knowing I was Métis - going to Batoche, dancing as a child and being surrounded in ceremony and culture.

I'll share a little story about my regelia as a kid.

My mom, and godmother auntie alma had stopped at a Métis trading post at fishing lake in the 90s. With $50 and a giant aboloni shell my mom traded for my regelia. The first time I danced was at Wabema - I had earned my first $5 in an old photo cartilage. While dancing, I felt so free and beautiful - I saw elders smile, and the energy was ecstatic. I was dancing just a few years after the last residential school closed.

This same regelia - I kept with me for a very long time. I'd take it out and smell the leather when times were tough. I kept this regelia with me with every move - in CFS. When I was about 18, when I had transitioned out of fostercare living on my friends couch in Maple Ridge I had left my reglia at her house while moving to coquitlam. Her partner had thrown out my regelia. It devastated me. That regelia represented my childhood innocence - of simpler times. I often times think about dancing again - but haven't taken the steps do it.

I'm very proud to be Indigenous. However, there have been times I've been ashamed to be Métis. With the pretendian movement, and folks reconnecting for pure benefits - I've felt anger over the years. It felt like a slap in the face for all the things my family, myself and my loved ones have had to overcome. Going to university challenged me - I was this high school dropout, I didnt have the language of an academic or family to ask to help when I was struggling. I had to learn a whole new world to get out of choas - and I'm still learning.

I am the direct descendant of Charles Trottier and Ursula Laframboises (moms). Charles was the leader of the Round Prairie Métis community, leader of the Trottier Brigades, Official messenger of the Métis govt (spoke 12 Indigenous languages), and fought in Batoche for Indigenous rights. I will always carry this spirit and never forget I'm their dream.