WARNING: Disturbing content
A Cree journalist from Saskatchewan has been honoured for her podcast, which detailed the abuse her father suffered while attending the St. Michael’s Residential School.
In May, Connie Walker won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody award for her podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s.
Walker said telling her late father Howard Cameron’s story was very personal. The podcast series, which can be heard on Spotify, takes the listener on a journey on the experiences Cameron endured, but also how that trauma has impacted Walker’s family.
“This journey for me was a very personal journey, it was a personal story, to try to understand what my dad went through at that Indian Residential School,” she told delegates at the Assembly of First Nations summer meetings in Halifax. “To also understand how me and my family have been shaped and all of our parents’ experiences at those schools.”
Walker is from the Okanese First Nation and Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation.
Walker said she was very humble to be recognized, but stressed she was eternally grateful for those who trusted her with their stories.
“I’m thinking of the survivors of St. Michael’s who bravely told their truth, their stories so powerfully with use, because without them this was not possible,” She explained. “Survivors’ voices are so important and critical.”
(Photo of Connie Walker. Courtesy of CPAC.)
Support is available for those affected by their experience at Indian Residential Schools and in reading difficult stories related to residential school. The Indian Residential School Crisis Line offers emotional and referral services 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419. In Saskatchewan, the Regina Treaty Status Indian Services at 306-522-7494.