Biography & Autobiography Personal Memoirs
Crossing the River
An unsettling memoir
- Publisher
- AgroMedia International Inc
- Initial publish date
- Jun 2023
- Category
- Personal Memoirs, NON-CLASSIFIABLE
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781777296766
- Publish Date
- Jun 2023
- List Price
- $30
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 17 to 18
- Grade: 12
Description
Sandra invites you on a journey every Canadian can take. By digging into her own story, she beckons you to come along to reconcile and make new a flawed history that left out Canada’s Indigenous origin. Join her as she recalls her childhood, cheering on Cree dog mushers, keeping her feet warm in her treasured moose hide mukluks. Join her, too, as she reaches the inescapable realization that she knew little of her Indigenous neighbours and that she had gathered her own set of discriminatory beliefs over the years.
Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, she absorbed the notions of continuing racism and prejudice against Indigenous people. After graduating from university in Winnipeg she returned home to The Pas, Manitoba and became a social worker with the federal government. She was responsible for removing ‘at risk’ Indigenous children from their families, often sending them to residential school.
Profoundly affected by a brutal murder near The Pas in 1971, Sandra eventually began listening to her intuition, and followed her abiding curiosity, the wisdom of Elders and Spirit. She was led to advocacy work with Indigenous communities and developed a passionate dedication to unlearning and relearning Canada’s real history.
Sandra faced the task of ‘crossing the river’ between two communities, the mostly white town where she lived, and the Cree nation on the other side, going back and forth, both symbolically and literally many times.
You will be shocked, saddened, encouraged and ultimately challenged to ask yourself the questions she asks herself even now—what kind of Canada do you want and how will you be part of that unfolding story?
About the author
Contributor Notes
Sandra was born and raised in The Pas, in Northern Manitoba on Treaty 5 territory, and has practised as a psychotherapist, trainer and consultant in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities for many years. She began her professional life in The Pas, working in northern First Nations communities, and later, providing mental health consultation in Manitoba First Nations Addictions and Treatment Centers.
Having spent twenty years working in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, near Williams Lake, B.C., Sandra considers herself fortunate to have learned from Elders in the Cree, Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in traditions. She is active in justice work and right relations events both in her church and community. A memoir she wrote about her childhood called One Life, was published in 2012. Currently she lives and works in Calgary on the traditional and ancestral territory of Treaty 7 including the Siksika, Piikani, and Stony Nakoda Nations consisting of the Chiniki, Bearspaw and Good Stoney bands and the people of the Tsuu T’ina Nation, as well as Region 3 of the Métis Nation of Alberta.
Sandra is married to Lyall and they have three adult children, Sasha, Paige and Drew, and seven pretty sweet grandchildren.
Excerpt: Crossing the River: An unsettling memoir (by (author) Sandra Hayes-Gardiner)
The North and South Saskatchewan Rivers flow from the icefields of the Rocky Mountains, meandering through the prairies, merging at Saskatchewan River Forks to become the Saskatchewan and eventually emptying into Lake Winnipeg. Along its way, it passes through Northern Manitoba, and divides two communities: the Town of The Pas on the south side, where I grew up, and the Opaskwayak Cree Nation on the north side, known to me at the time as ‘The Reserve’. Although the river was only a few hundred yards wide and these communities were accessible to each other, that divide, in terms of knowing one another, might as well have been measured in miles.
This story is my journey to symbolically cross that river’s divide, to understand racism, especially my own. How easy and filled with wonder my life was in so many ways, in that town I’ll love forever. I lived on one side of that river where businesses, government offices, the hospital and the schools were located. I am the white-skinned descendant of British ancestors and attended school, church, and community events freely and openly in that beautiful little town. I never earned any of the privileges I was given nor did I know that the land where I lived had originally been occupied by the Cree people of The Pas Reserve, forced to move across the river to satisfy a white agenda. As a youngster I knew the Indian and Métis people lived ‘across’, but I never went to the reserve, except with my father.
Over that same bridge, and fifteen miles north, was a special place where we had a cabin, another home, in the summertime. Another privilege. And in summers, I crossed that bridge often, heading to Clearwater Lake and its shimmering emerald green water.
I don’t remember when I recognized the divide between my community and the Cree people, because it was always there. It was a fact of life and I knew where I belonged. And yet, there was something in me, something else—a mixture of curiosity, admiration, and respect, combined with judgment and superiority. There was an unsettledness in me about that divide that never went away.
You will read here of mistakes I have made, that created in me a struggle for truth, as well as, the noble scaffold of self-sacrifice and guilt I built, especially around my early career choice ‘to help the Indians’. But this book is less about what happened to me, than what woke me up. To cross over that river in a good way now, I know what is required of me:
- the bridge beckons me to dig deeper into my heart and soul where devaluing another human being rests and my racism began;
- the bridge invites me to acknowledge that racism does not exist only in one town, one city, one institution, or one horrific event. If that were so, a “cure” for racism might be easier to find;
- the bridge summons me to be open, to never stop learning from Indigenous and non-Indigenous Elders;
- the bridge tells me to look at and consider both sides of the river—where I have come from and where I am going—to begin my story of reconciliation;
- the bridge suggests a balance of grief and joy, compassion and pain, blame and responsibility;
- the bridge insists that both sides are in me; and most importantly,
- the bridge urges me to see compassion and love in all that I write here.
There is no formula, no prescription pad of instructions, only an invitation to walk alongside me. If by chance there is something that influences you the reader, it is your knowing, not mine, that will guide you. I bless you on your journey and thank you for taking your time and energy to read these words.
Editorial Reviews
Sandra’s struggle to discover what reconciliation means in her own life is evident throughout her story. The various encounters she has had with systemic racism and the continuing impact of injustice experienced by us, as Indigenous peoples, has weighed heavily on her.
This book is a great contribution to the new context in Canada. In my lifetime I have moved from the acceptance of colonial oppression to angry reactionary behaviour and more recently I dream of peace and justice on this land.
—The Very Reverend Stan McKay Moderator, The United Church of Canada, 1992 - 1994 Ochekwi-Sipi Fisher River Cree Nation