Four community sessions will invite the public to join a dialogue using art and conversation. Each session will offer a chance for speakers and audience members to examine what it means “To be in good relation.”
The series draws on the “Four Rs” proposed by Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt. Using each of the Four Rs, Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility and lastly Return, sessions will focus on practical ways to work well together. Tickets are $12.
Celia Haig-Brown, the youngest of the Haig-Brown children, has returned to the home river, house, and community that shaped her. Celia will host four community sessions and a workshop and invites the public to join the conversation using art and conversation. Each session will offer a chance for speakers and audience members to examine what it means “To be in good relation.”
The series of conversations draws on the “Four Rs” proposed by Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt. Using each of the Four Rs, Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility and lastly Return, sessions will focus on practical ways to work well together. The first session will use the theme of relevance to examine what it means “To be in good relation,” the second, reciprocity, then responsibility and lastly return. Underlying all of them will be how to work with respect.
Celia especially thanks Verna Kirkness (Cree), Jo-ann Archibald (Sto:lo), Kaaren Dannenmann (Aniisinaabe), Ruth Green (Haudenosaunee), and the students and staff of UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program (NITEP) as some of the many who have shared Indigenous knowledge that informs these sessions. Each session will include time for Q&A with the audience.
Session 1: To be in good relation: relevance
Saturday, January 25
Time: 1:00 to 3:00 pm
Location: The Museum at Campbell River
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door
Wickee Cussee/Randy Fred of the Tseshaht Nation, a publisher, videographer, and co-author, will join Celia for this opening session. Randy, who previously worked with Arsenal Pulp Press, recognized the value of Celia’s manuscript Resistance and Renewal when other publishers had turned it down. Randy saw his own experience at residential school reflected in the manuscript and knew immediately that it needed to be published. It became one of the first books to give voice to residential school survivors in their own words.
In this session, Randy and Celia will discuss their collaborative work over the years, including their 2022 book Tsqelmucwílc: Kamloops Indian Residential School—Resistance and a Reckoning, which is a revisiting of the original manuscript published in 1988.
A key focus in the conversation will be the importance of building strong relationships with the people you work with, which is essential for successful writing, filmmaking, and publishing. Randy and Celia will share the teachings that have guided their work together. Randy’s transition into filmmaking, along with Celia’s journey of moving between text and film, offer valuable insights for the audience to reflect on their own strengths and interests.
The session will end with a screening of Pelq’ilc/Coming Home, a short film co-directed by Celia and her niece Helen Haig-Brown, an award-winning Tsilhqut’in filmmaker. The film focuses on the place of education in renewing Indigenous culture and tradition. It is based on interviews with the children and grandchildren of residential school survivors first interviewed for a 1986 study done by Celia Haig-Brown.
Session 2: To be in good relation: reciprocity
Saturday February 22
Time: 1:00 to 3:00 pm
Venue: NIC Q̓ə pix ʔidaʔas (the Indigenous Gathering Place at North Island College, Campbell River Campus)
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door.
Garry Gottfriedson is a writer and poet as well as a Secwepemc Nation knowledge holder and cultural leader. He joins Celia in the second community conversation examining what it means “to be in good relation”. This session holds reciprocity as its theme.
Their presentation draws on and makes explicit the reciprocity that has shaped their work and their friendship; the mutual support, collaboration and the shifting of roles from teacher and student. Celia served as Garry’s grade 10 English teacher in Kamloops many years ago. Over the years, they have often switched roles as teacher and student. Most recently, each has contributed a foreword to the other’s publication. In this session Garry will read from his current work of poetry and engage in discussion of content and process with the audience/participants.
The session will conclude with the second short film co-directed by Celia and her niece Helen Haig-Brown, an award-winning Tsilhqut’in filmmaker. This one entitled Cowboys, Indians and Education features Garry as one of the major contributors. It draws on interviews with children and grandchildren and former students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School where both Garry and his mum were students. It follows the journey of families as they work to regenerate traditional knowledge in their current contexts.
Session 3: To be in good relation: responsibility
Saturday, March 22
Time: 1:00 to 3:00 pm
Venue: River City Theatre
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door.
Grandson of Roderick and Ann Haig-Brown, Haida artist and poet Sihlgyang /Desmond Bowker and his mother Mary Haig-Brown will lead this session. Sihlgyang is a successful artist, carver, and educator who also works with poetry and music. He will discuss his process of coming to artistic practice in these varied forms.
Sihlgyang was adopted into a non-Indigenous family with Mary Haig-Brown as mother, growing up in Vancouver and Victoria. This third session in the series will include a conversation with adopted son and mother, and examine the responsibilities such a relationship creates. Examining the responsibility to each other, to birth family, and to community.
The second part of the session will focus on a short film created by independent filmmaker Jordan O’Connor. Entitled The Pink Typewriter is in the Jam Closet, it is a reflection on the relationship amongst the Haig-Brown siblings as they return to the Campbell River and Haig-Brown House in the summer of 2018. In Jordan’s words, “Having met Celia Haig Brown when working as an editor on her film, Listen to the Land, I learned about Celia and her siblings. When the opportunity arose to film all the siblings together in the house where they were raised, a film was born. As for the title, “Pink Typewriter”, you’ll have to watch and see.
Session 4: To be in good relation: return
Saturday, May 3 on Ann Haig-Brown Day
Venue: Vineyard Christian Fellowship at 2215 Campbell River Road
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door.
This final session brings the series full circle. On Ann Haig-Brown Day, Celia Haig-Brown engages in conversation with her brother, Alan Haig-Brown, on a day that feels especially fitting. Returning to the place and rivers where he was born, Alan will read from and discuss his newly completed work White Boy (m̓am̓aɫa) Goes Fishing. The book starts with lessons from his late father-in-law Herb Assu during Alan’s decade of working on the Assu-family seine boat. He views this experience as the beginning of his international career in publishing, writing, and photography, focused on fishermen, commercial fishing, and the broader marine industry. Alan will be joined by his daughter, the acclaimed Tsilhqot’in filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown, known for her award-winning film Legacy and co-directing Edge of the Knife, the first film made in the Haida language.
Workshop: Conducting respectful research
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Time: 1:00pm to 4:00 pm
Venue: Museum at Campbell River
Tickets: coming soon.
Maximum: 16 people
Celia Haig-Brown, Professor Emerita and Senior Scholar at York University in Toronto, will lead this workshop for those interested in respectful research. Drawing on her work over the years with Indigenous peoples and more recently with women involved in producing rodeo, she will present some of what she continues to learn. Whether working with print or film, whether creating or reading research, respect for those involved is integral to being in good relation to the work. From initial connections to creating an archive after the completion of the work, Celia will share her current thinking on working with people in respectful ways. Writers, readers, teachers and other interested community members should bring their work and their questions to the session.
