Today we sit fireside with street outreach worker, author, and community facilitator Grant Shilling to discuss solutions to the growing homelessness issues across Canada, using my hometown as an example. Grant is a warm spirit. We get a small snapshot of his childhood in Toronto, a story about smuggling surfboards into Gaza and caught up to his latest work on a small housing project for queer and Indigenous youth. Keep your fire hot! 

https://dawntodawn.org/

Today we visit Secwepemc Territory with elected Chief Willie Sellars of Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) to learn about the start of their meteoric economic journey.  In this episode we discuss WLFNs recent $135M settlement in Supreme court, and the Prime Minister’s recent visit to walk the grounds of St. Joseph’s Residential School. We talk economic growth and how this nation is working towards self-governance without relying on the treaty process. Let's keep our fire hot!

People are seeking their fame and fortune in the virtual world. This episode explores how blockchain, NFTs, and video game development are evolving our social interactions and our own identities. My guest Andrew Knight is a veteran of the video game industry who has worked around the world. He is currently a Development Director at Electronic Arts.  

So you want to be a poet? Matt Rader is a poet, fiction writer and creative writing professor at University of British Columbia. In this episode we discuss Matt's journey to become a poet, parenthood, men's health and mindfulness. In the second half of the episode we keep our fire hot by discussing his new book Ghosthawk, a deeply personal volume of poetry and his fifth poetry publication. Ghosthawk is available October 31st, 2021 in Canada (Nightwood Editions) and early 2022 internationally.

Matt Rader on Instagram: @mattleerader

Matt Rader on Twitter: @mattleerader

Order Matt's new book Ghosthawk

Linguists, artists and culture keepers Ocean Hyland and Jesse Recalma discuss their pursuit of keeping Indigenous languages thriving and using them to wake a sleeping language called Puntlatch. We discuss why individual languages are so valuable and explore Indigenous perspectives on the southern coast of Canada.

Ocean Hyland Instagram

Jesse Recalma Instagram

Jesse & Ocean's Artwork and Website

There is so much knowledge hard-wired into languages and learning them is foundational to understanding any culture. Teacher and language keeper la̱lx̱sa̱n dala'ogwa Keisha Everson offers her perspectives on language revitalization and completely shifts my understanding of the struggles that Indigenous learners and elders are having reclaiming their ancestral languages. Listening to this discussion will give you a deeper understanding of Indigenous perspectives around reclaiming language and keep your fire hot! 

Wiga’xa̱n’s Yaḵ̓a̱nt̓alape Language initiative that I work on with Keisha and our Kumugwe crew.

Kumugwe Cultural Society A cultural group that Keisha and I are part of and contribute to in the Comox Valley, Vancouver Island, Canada

U'mista Cultural Centre - where Kwak'wala learning resources are available for purchase.

Search for the Indigenous language Kwak'wala on YouTube and Google.

Mo Moshiri is most known as a MC/rapper and co-founder of the Vancouver hip-hop group Sweatshop Union. Mo was born into the Iranian revolution and escaped the country on a camel with his mother after his father was captured and imprisoned.  Mo and I discuss his music, parenthood, navigating trauma and his spiritual journey to discover his identity.

Between 1960 and 1990, over 11000 indigenous children in Canada were taken from their natural families and placed into foster care or adopted in a social welfare initiative later called The Sixties Scoop. Nanekawasis George Littlechild, a prolific indigenous artist, is one of those children. In this episode George shares the incredible life story behind his art.