Look for a gap in research — that’s what students starting their master’s degree are often told. So Danielle Root drew from her own experience.

Root is raising her daughter while attending Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. When her daughter was born, the hospital waiting room was filled with people. Only a few were allowed in to see her though. The others weren’t considered “immediate family.”

“Well, yes, yes they are,” says Root.

Root is now a part of the Child and Youth Study program. She planned on getting into primary prevention for teens, but now focuses her studies on early development.  “What is better primary prevention, then working with young children” Root thinks.

She says a lot of the assumptions about family relations, and their degrees of importance, stem from the “attachment theory,” developed by John Bowlby. Root doesn’t believe it is entirely relevant across cultures, particularly in many First Nation’s communities, and indigenous cultures worldwide.

“The attachment theory falls short of our community as being family,” Root said.

She is now working on her thesis, titled “Aboriginal Families: Fostering Attachment Our Way.” Her work opened many doors, including the opportunity to present at a prestigious international conference in New Zealand this past November, known as “Healing our Spirits Worldwide” — a gathering of indigenous peoples from all around the world, with each day organized around a theme, such as “Indigenous Leadership,” and “Indigenous Solutions.”

Finding her focus

At first, finding a gap in research was a daunting task for Root.

“We were studied like specimens,” she said. “And the attachment theory — it’s been studied like crazy. But there’s no research done … barely anything — if not nothing — for indigenous people.”

Root is setting out to fill in some of that research, formally. She said a thesis is often begins with something you already know.

“We all know our sister-moms, and our auntie-moms,” she said.

The essential question to her work will be “what does attachment mean to you.” She’ll be gathering families to find out exactly.

Her work will be the very beginning, but she hopes it will lead to more.

“What I’m doing, of course, it’s going to have limitations. It’s urban aboriginals,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be built on.”

She can imagine the research having real-world implications. It may even lead to people being allowed to have their actual families in the hospital rooms with them.

“We all know and recognize that our families are community. But once you put it in research, there’s policy implications, and all that jazz.”

Of course, she doesn’t know exactly how her research will unfold, but she knows she would like to promote it. And she’s already started.

Going to New Zealand

Root wrote an abstract, to attend the “Healing our Spirits Worldwide” gathering in New Zealand. She didn’t expect anything to come of it.

“I just know that opportunities come when you keep pushing,” she said.

The committee had extended the announcement of successful abstracts one week due to the abundance of submissions they had to go through.  Still not expecting anything to come of it, Root was ecstatic when she found out that her abstract was among the ones chosen by the committee.  

“Ok,” she thought. “All I’ve got to do now is come up with all kinds of money.”

But she was determined, and even paid registration with her credit card.

While working with MSVU to try and develop the conference into a directed study course, she decided to write back home to Listuguj. The LMG ended up funding her entirely.

“If it wasn’t for them, I might not of been able to raise all that money to go. Either that or I would have been bankrupt doing it.” she said.

Participating allowed Root to meet some of women who have influence her work so far — women like Dr. Cindy Blackstock and New Zealand Native Indigenous scholar Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith.  It also allowed her to relate to indigenous people from around the world.

“I learned a lot about how indigenous people struggle,” she said. “While there’s so much variety, we’re all kind of fighting the same kind of struggle of colonization.”

She says she even made an “auntie,” there — a Māori woman. She met a lot of inspiring people, and was encouraged to continue her work, and career.

“It was a great learning experience,” Root said. “There were so many different indigenous people. But at the same time, it’s like I was so far away from home and I didn’t feel far away from home. Because indigenous people, they don’t make you feel that way.”

Derek Barnaby didn’t feel connected with his culture and traditions as a child.

“It wasn’t until I was 19 years-old that I realized – this is a part of who I am,” he said.

Growing up in Listuguj in the 70’s was a very different time than today. 

“If you wore  a t-shirt in school that says Mi’gmaq and pride, well back in those days – you were told to go home and change your shirt,” Barnaby said. “People weren’t ready to accept the ideas of what happened here in Canada.”

With some Polish ancestry, Barnaby said he often felt caught between two worlds at times in growing up. 

As a young man, he travelled to Ottawa, where he saw a Pow Wow.

“When I seen the dancing, and everything that was happening – I was really drawn to it.”

Barnaby says that he had always been drawn to dancing, even if it was just Michael Jackson, or Paula Abdul.

For awhile he struggled to get started, but met teachers who encouraged him. Now, him a his wife teach kids to dance and sew.

He says his connection with Mi’gmaq traditions have made him a stronger person, in many aspects.

“It’s not just about feathers and drums,” he said. “It’s about an understanding of a way of life.”

Barnaby is glad to consider himself part of the “rebirth of Mi’gmaq identity.”

“There has to be a sense of pride in being Mi’gmaq, and within that, there has to be a sense of history. And in knowing that, it creates a stronger, healthier nation.”

Being a police officer for 20 years in the community you were born and raised has its share of unique challenges.

Lyle Wysote was just honored for 20 years of service as a police officer in Listuguj.

“Sometimes you have to deal with family members. Sometimes you have to deal with close friends,” he said. “But the thing is, you have to try reason and let them know, explain – ‘I’m not here because I want to be here. I’m here because I have to be.’”

While it may be tough in unique ways, Wysote thinks it’s important to be working in his own community.

“The majority of us are from here,” he said. “We police our own community. I think that makes  a difference.”

Even though emotional situations can arise when running in to longtime friends or family, Wysote is careful to keep in mind the many factors that could be at play.

“You can’t take that to heart,” Wysote said. “We’re still friends.”

With brief amounts of time spent working and training outside of the community, Wysote has been settled here since 1996.

“From 2001 to now I’ve been in plain clothes, doing investigations – be it sex crimes, drugs, violent crimes.”

He has been serving for 19 consecutive years, 20 in total.

“Policing has changed a lot since 1991, when I first started, to present day,” Wysote said.

You can do everything right, and still not place in a competition Pow Wow. Especially if you dance “Old Style.”

Cheyenne Isaac has been dancing since she was seven years old, and grew up traveling to all sorts of Pow Wows with her father – a champion dancer himself. She calls herself “very competitive.”

“I know when I screw up,” she said.

She dances an “Old Style” Prayer Dance – which is often called a “jingle dress dance.”

Isaac says there are two main distinctions in all the different dances at a Pow Wow – “Contemporary” and “Old Style.”

“Contemporary” is the flashier of the two. The movements draw can even from modern dance moves, and the regalia is more colorful.

“Old Style” stays closer to a set of footwork, is more subtle, and has a more reserved look.

“I feel that the old style shouldn’t go unrecognized,” Isaac said.  “It’s still just as beautiful. And really – it’s where the dance originated. That was the first raw steps of each dance form before it became something else.”

Isaac says there are also two types of Pow Wow’s – competition and traditional.

The east mostly has traditional Pow Wows, where the focus is more on dancing for the people.

Isaac enjoys both for different reasons, but enjoys the pressure from a competition Pow Wow.

“It helps me try to get better at what I’m doing. But sometimes it messes with you – if you don’t place.”