Canoe journey strengthens understanding, connections between urban Indigenous people and health service providers

by Sharon Mah

Assistant Professor Lyana Patrick’s latest project with the Surrey Urban Indigenous Leadership Committee (SUILC) saw her and her team organizing a canoe journey for a diverse group of people including Indigenous people who live in Surrey, BC as well as health and social service providers.

She had several objectives for this project which was funded by a Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She wanted to determine if being involved in Indigenous-led cultural and land-based practices and experiences would change the attitudes of service providers towards urban Indigenous people in Surrey. And, she was also looking to create new opportunities for urban Indigenous community members to access land-based teachings and ceremonies, two factors that had been identified in Patrick’s previous research with SUILC as key to the health and well-being of Indigenous people living in Surrey.

The premise of this project is simple, states Patrick. “The canoe journey is an experiential learning project and it's a cultural safety project because it's about bringing together people that often have unequal power dynamics and really addressing that through the teachings of paddling together and being on the land together.”

Shaping the Canoe Journey project

When Patrick and her research team initially designed this project, the initial plan called for participants to travel along the Fraser River for several days, moving through the traditional territories of 14 First Nations and engaging them in this project. However, coordinating permissions to travel through multiple ancestral territories, organizing proper observation of each Nation’s cultural protocols, securing research ethics approval for the project, sourcing canoes, and planning logistics and safety for all involved proved to be very complex.

Ultimately, it was the intergenerational design of the project – intentionally including children, adults and Elders as participants – that caused the group to shift their plans to Howe Sound, using a lodge on Gambier Island as their camp and staging area for day trips in the canoes. Not only were the activities more physically accessible to all body types and abilities, but the proximity of the camp to the Lower Mainland made it much easier for participants to travel to and from the site.

“The new trip was designed…to provide an introduction to this kind of land-based learning for people who may not have spent much (or any) time on the water, for people who may not have a high comfort level being out [on the land] and camping. It was really about recognizing where people are at and meeting them there.”

The shift to Gambier Island allowed the research team to offer a range of activities to the participants, in accordance with their abilities, their energy level, and their preferences. In addition to shorter canoe trips, archery and guided hikes were on offer. Participants could also stay at the lodge to enjoy the views of the mountains and the water.

“[It was] really important not to just have people be constantly on the go. I think that [having] space helped us to come together as a group and get to know each other better,” observes Patrick.

Patrick and her team had intended to generate a set of learning materials about land-based learning for health service providers including videos about how to more deeply engage with urban Indigenous community members in a way that is not stigmatizing. However, the videographer hired for this event fell ill the day before the trip. Patrick decided that she could still collect audio recordings and proposed this change to participants. In a moment that would transform the project, participants volunteered to film, photograph, record and/or share the moments that most resonated with them, making the event truly participatory and community-based. “Because people were sharing what was important to them, we have all these photos and videos and audio song stories. I just thought this is a really beautiful transformation [of the original project],” says Patrick.

The research team has reviewed submitted data from participants and have shared preliminary findings.  Indigenous and non-Indigenous people on the trip had several opportunities to engage with each other, and many reported their learnings to the team. More than one provider participant on the trip found the experience invaluable because prior to the canoe journey, their Indigenous learning experiences had been based in rural settings only. One commented: “I'm always thinking about Indigenous communities in rural areas, but sometimes it's easy to forget that there are also Indigenous people in urban settings like Surrey.”

New experiences, new learnings

One non-Indigenous service provider saw connecting with Indigenous clients through this Indigenous-led experience as “an opportunity actually to do what I feel like we need to do, which is have better understanding and actually be able to relate and connect and learn about each other a little bit more.”  A different provider similarly remarked: “I think the most important thing is to be authentic and be yourself and then also be curious. We're here to learn. That's our role in this project. My main role will be listening and maybe asking respectful questions when appropriate, but not taking it as a time to be an expert.”

This shift in the relationship was welcomed by Indigenous participants, with one observing: “I think it would be hugely impactful in dissipating some of the stereotypes people have in their minds about Indigenous people. A lot of times…when somebody goes in to see a healthcare provider, a lot of times they know kind of what's going on with themselves, and people don't always take them for their word."

A participant who regularly accesses health care at the Fraser Region Aboriginal Friendship Centre explained the appeal of that health service space: “I've been able to access an elder on site, and that part of healthcare has really been nice. And just knowing that it's like an Indigenous environment and just part of space and all that, it's really shaped how I view it, because I feel more comfortable going there than anywhere else, really.”

Patrick hopes to be able to share these perspectives and learnings more broadly with health and social service providers in Surrey, providing actionable steps that people can use to deepen their learning and ability to provide culturally safe care to Indigenous clients. She also hopes that this project will find a way to become an ongoing learning experience. “I know so many people who would love to do this [work]. I think it's the companion piece to San’yas and other [cultural safety training programs]. You read about [cultural safety], maybe interact with people, you talk, you have to study and then you go and experience [it].”