EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this episode of The Road to Your Name, host Lisa VanEvery sits down with Shayde Sandy, a Haudenosaunee multidisciplinary artist from Six Nations of the Grand River who specializes in oil portraits. Shayde shares her journey from painting at her grandmother's kitchen table to earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at Queen's University, and how she found her signature medium and subject: oil portraits centering on her family and community. The conversation traces her creative evolution from acrylics to oils, her thesis portrait of her grandfather, and the moment her work — a piece from her Intergenerational Love series featuring her grandfather, brother, and cousin — was selected to wrap a Metrolinx GO bus for National Indigenous History Month. Shayde and Lisa also talk about the artists who've shaped her practice, the realities of building an art business as a young Indigenous artist, and what community encouragement means to her along the way.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- Growing up surrounded by art — Shayde's grandmother's early encouragement and her father's work as a soapstone carver
- The path from Brantford Collegiate Institute to Queen's University's Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) program
- Learning printmaking techniques (silkscreen, intaglio, lithography) and why oil painting became her medium of choice
- Her process: photo references, projector sketches, blocking in color, and layering detail
- Painting as therapy, and working through long stretches of solitary studio time
- The thesis portrait of her grandfather that became part of her ongoing Intergenerational Love series
- Designing the Metrolinx GO bus wrap — the first Indigenous-designed bus wrap for National Indigenous History Month
- Public exhibitions at Casa Loma, the Runway of Resilience, and an upcoming group exhibition, Spirit of the Lake, at Crawford Lake
- Artistic influences: Kent Monkman, Kehinde Wiley, and subway-portrait artist Devon Rodriguez
- Building an online presence and using social media to document her process and reach an audience
- The business side of being a working artist — commissions, grants, merchandise, and the path toward a website
- Advice for young Indigenous artists starting out, and the role of community encouragement

GUEST BIO

Shayde Sandy is a contemporary Haudenosaunee artist from Six Nations of the Grand River, specializing in oil portraiture. She graduated from Queen's University in 2023 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), majoring in Visual Art and minoring in Film.  Her grandmother, Lois Porter, was her first art teacher, and she grew up surrounded by artistic relatives, including her father, noted soapstone carver Ryan Sandy.

Shayde's art is largely about her life and experience on the reserve, a focus that developed while she was studying at Queen's. Her ongoing series, Intergenerational Love, highlights the love within her community, and features members of her own family. In 2025, Metrolinx selected Shayde to design the first Indigenous GO bus wrap as part of its National Indigenous History Month celebrations; the wrap is based on a 2022 painting from that series and will remain in circulation across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area for one year.

Shayde's work has been exhibited at venues including Martin Luther University College, Queen's University, FirstOntario Arts Centre, Woodland Cultural Centre, Hamilton Artists Inc., Lynnwood Arts, Casa Loma, the Canadian National Exhibition, the Government of Ontario Art Collection, and Crawford Lake. She has also been featured in Queen's Women in Leadership Magazine, in APTN's social media coverage of Indigenous History Month, and in Seeing Red Media's "Reflecting Authentic Indigenous Representation" campaign. Her work appears in the Yellowhead Institute's report Twenty-Five Years of Gladue, and she illustrated the cover for the book Dream Visitors by Barbara Miller.

You can find Shayde's work on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok under Shayde Sandy Art
Website:  www.shaydesandyart.ca
 

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Aboriginal Legal Services — www.aboriginallegal.ca
- Road to Your Name program (Aboriginal Legal Services)
- Shayde Sandy Art — Instagram / Facebook / TikTok
- Metrolinx GO bus wrap (National Indigenous History Month)
- Intergenerational Love (Shayde Sandy's ongoing portrait series)
- Spirit of the Lake — upcoming group exhibition at Crawford Lake
- Casa Loma, Toronto — Runway of Resilience event
- Kent Monkman — artist referenced as an influence
- Kehinde Wiley — artist referenced as an influence
- Devon Rodriguez — subway/street portrait artist referenced as an influence
- Edward Curtis - photographer discussed for "stoic Indian" portraiture style
- Kyle Joedicke — muralist, Shayde's cousin
- Ryan Sandy — soapstone carver, Shayde's father

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Produced by Aboriginal Legal Services with technical assistance from True Seed Media.
Hosted by Lisa VanEvery (Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan).

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this episode, Lisa talks with Steve Johnson (who goes by Steve Haven), owner of Vexed Instruments and a tattoo artist working out of Six Nations of the Grand River. Steve builds and repairs electric guitars and basses by hand, from sanding and finishing to wiring and engraving — and he's the kind of maker who notices when a part doesn't feel right and decides to build the better version himself.

What started with fixing his own guitar after a repair shop turned him down has grown into a full custom-build practice: roughly a dozen guitars built since the summer of 2024, a three-month turnaround for custom orders, and details what nobody else seems to be doing — including fretboard position markers inlaid with wampum shell. Steve also talks about his parallel life as a tattoo artist trained under Steve Hill (16 Aces) in Ohsweken, the ethics that guide who he will and won't tattoo, and the unexpected lessons learned from building a five-foot-long guitar.

This is a conversation about craft, patience, and what happens when you decide to just teach yourself the thing nobody else will do for you.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- How Steve got into guitar building: a repair shop turned down his guitar for not being "good enough" to work on, so he taught himself instead
- Starting with assembly before learning to build individual components from scratch, beginning in the summer of 2024
- The full process behind an electric guitar build: sanding, painting, clear coat finishing, and wiring
- "Vexed," the name Steve engraves into each headstock and fills with epoxy so it becomes a permanent part of the instrument, rather than using a simple slide decal
- Building guitars for musicians in the hardcore and metal scene, including his experience seeing one of his builds played live for the first time with the band Reality Denied
- Custom touches that set his work apart: oil-finished necks instead of clear paint for a stickier-resistant, sweat-resistant grip, and fretboard inlay dots made from wampum shell — something Steve says he's never seen done before
- "Mystery finish" builds, where a thin layer of black paint covers the true finish underneath, designed to be worn away gradually through play rather than artificially distressed before sale
- Building electric basses as well as guitars, drawing on his background as a bass major at Mohawk College
- A look at famous guitars in music history, including Jimi Hendrix's left-handed Stratocaster and Van Halen's iconic red, black, and white instrument
- The challenge and lessons learned from building a five-foot-long guitar, including entirely new approaches to internal wiring and cavity routing
- Steve's process for learning the craft: deep self-study, online research, and following the tutorial videos of a luthier he credits with passing on hands-on, practical knowledge
- NAMM (the National Association of Music Merchants) as a potential venue for connecting with other builders and the wider music products industry
- Steve's parallel path as a tattoo artist: training under Steve Hill (tattoo name "16 Aces") of Ohsweken, starting his apprenticeship right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020
- His tattoo style, rooted in American traditional with his own illustrative, mischievous twist
- The ethics Steve applies before tattooing someone, including conversations about placement, life circumstances, and his firm rule against tattooing anyone under the influence
- Tattoo trends he's observed, including blackout tattoos and the realities of laser tattoo removal, which he's experienced firsthand
- Steve's hope to eventually combine both crafts — offering a tattoo alongside a custom guitar build or repair
- Where to find Vexed Instruments and Steve's work online

GUEST

Steve Johnson (Steve Haven) — Guitar and bass builder and repair specialist, owner of Vexed Instruments, based on Fifth Line at Six Nations of the Grand River. Bass major, Mohawk College. Also a tattoo artist trained under Steve Hill ("16 Aces") of Ohsweken.

Instagram: @vexedharshface

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Vexed Instruments — Instagram: @vexedharshface
- 16 Aces Tattoo (Steve Hill), Ohsweken
- NAMM — National Association of Music Merchants
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name

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Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this episode, Lisa visits with Jesse Brant, co-owner of Sapling & Flint, a jewelry business rooted in Six Nations of the Grand River. Jesse — known professionally as Yonenyà:kenht, meaning "transparent stone," after the Herkimer diamonds that grow in the Mohawk Valley — is a trained goldsmith who specializes in Herkimer diamond and wampum jewelry, working alongside her twin sister and business partner Dakota Brant.

Jesse's path here wasn't a straight line. She wasn't an art student in high school. She competed at Miss Indian World as a teenager. She spent seventeen years as a firefighter, including five as a platoon captain, all while building Sapling & Flint on the side until the business outgrew the side. What started as a couple of sisters selling their work at powwow tables in 2015 has become a jewelry manufacturer with a storefront in Ohswé:ken's Iroquois Village Plaza and customers ordering from around the world.

This conversation covers the craft itself — wampum cutting, gold and sterling silver work, lab-grown diamonds and the ethics of sourcing — as well as Jesse's hopes for building a silversmithing community at Six Nations, and a goal she's not shy about naming out loud: a future collaboration with a major luxury house.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- How Jesse, a self-described non-artist who took science and math in high school, ended up enrolling in the jewelry arts and design program at George Brown College — at her late mother Terry Lynn Brant's suggestion
- Competing in Miss Indian World in Albuquerque as a teenager, representing Six Nations, and how the experience pushed her toward beadwork for the first time
- Getting into George Brown's competitive program with only a handful of self-made beadwork pieces to show in her interview
- Studying Kanien'kéha at Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa for two years after finishing her jewelry diploma
- Her parallel career as a Six Nations firefighter for seventeen years, including five years as a platoon captain
- How the pandemic — and the arrival of her two children — pushed Sapling & Flint from a side project into a full-time business, as online orders kept coming even while the physical world shut down
- Learning lapidary and wampum-cutting skills informally, including time spent in mentor Audrey Maracle's basement workshop before Jesse could afford her own equipment
- The 2017 opening of the Sapling & Flint storefront in the Iroquois Village Plaza in Ohswé:ken, a space that once housed Shawana Jewelry
- Why the sisters named the business Sapling and Flint, drawing on the older Mohawk creation story names for the Creator and his twin brother — a fitting echo, since Jesse and Dakota are twins themselves
- The division of labor that makes the partnership work: Jesse focused on making, Dakota on the business and marketing side, including targeted promotions timed to lacrosse games for the Creator's Game collection
- A tour through Sapling & Flint's collections: the Creator's Game (lacrosse sticks), Haudenosaunee Traditions (Five Nations belt designs), Four-Legged Leaders (deer, moose, and caribou antler pendants), Trade Silver, and the birch bark–inspired Karhá:kon collection
- Working primarily in sterling silver and in 10K and 18K gold for wedding rings, with custom engagement ring designs developed in collaboration with a CAD designer based in Los Angeles
- Jesse's reasoning for choosing Canadian, green-energy lab-grown diamonds over mined stones, and her frank take on why "conflict-free" natural diamond marketing doesn't hold up — including the history of First Nations communities displaced by diamond mining companies
- Teaching the next generation: summer students, a nephew currently learning the trade, and Jesse's hope to formalize community workshops into something like a silversmithing society or gathering — one she'd like to see include other Iroquoian nations' silversmiths as well
- Naming Six Nations silversmithing legends and mentors, including Floating Canoe, Anthony Green, Larry McKenzie, and Audrey Maracle
- How the sisters incorporate Kanien'kéha words directly into their collection names and product descriptions as a mark of authenticity
- Jesse's biggest goal for the brand: a collaboration with a major international luxury house like Tiffany's
- Where to find Sapling & Flint's work and Jesse's own behind-the-scenes content

GUEST

Jesse Brant (Yonenyà:kenht) — Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River. Co-owner of Sapling & Flint. Trained goldsmith with a Diploma in Jewellery Methodology from George Brown College. Specializes in Herkimer diamond and wampum jewelry, learned through both formal training and mentorship from local wampum cutters and silversmiths. Former Six Nations firefighter and platoon captain (17 years). Member of the Canadian Jewellers Association. Co-recipient, with her twin sister Dakota Brant, of the 2022 Young Aboriginal Entrepreneur Award.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Sapling & Flint — saplingandflint.ca
- Sapling & Flint storefront — Iroquois Village Plaza, Chiefswood Road, Ohswé:ken
- Instagram: @saplingandflint (business) and Jesse Brant Jeweller, "Behind the Benchpin" (Jesse's personal content)
- TikTok and Facebook: @saplingandflint
- George Brown College — Jewellery Arts and Design program, Toronto
- Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa — Mohawk language immersion program
- Canadian Jewellers Association
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name

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Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

What does it take to walk away from a stable career to build something you actually love? For Kelsey Powless of Powless & Co., it started with a night market, a 3D sign she couldn't stop thinking about, and a Christmas present she had to talk her parents into.

Kelsey is a Haudenosaunee woodworker and artist from Six Nations of the Grand River. She's known for her intricate wooden mosaics — one-of-a-kind pieces that have found their way into the University of Utah, McMaster University, Cadbury's head office, and now the Royal Botanical Gardens. She has over 150,000 followers on Instagram and has shipped her work to customers across Canada, the US, and as far as England.

But four years ago, she was a 27-year-old programs and services manager climbing the ladder at her local employment agency, making good money and feeling miserable. It took her three-year-old son putting his hand on her face and asking, "Are you okay, Mama?" to make her finally ask herself the same question.

This episode is about what happens when you stop asking "why me?" and start asking "why not me?"

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- How Kelsey discovered scroll sawing at a Christmas night market in 2018 — and spent the next two weeks obsessing over a machine she'd never touched

- Growing up a "serial hobbyist" — beading, knitting, sewing, crocheting, baking — and why the scroll saw was the first thing that ever truly stuck

- Rising to programs and services manager at 27, one position below the CEO, and realizing she was anxious every single day going to work

- The moment her three-year-old son Dax grabbed her face during Paw Patrol and asked if she was okay — and why that was the turning point

- Reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne at an off-grid cottage in Mattachewan and having what she calls her "life epiphany"

- The difference between "why me?" and "why not me?" — and the mindset shift that made quitting feel possible

- How her grandmother and great-grandmother were bootleggers and entrepreneurs, and realizing she came from a long line of women who made their own way

- The terror of printing her resignation letter, standing in the hallway, and choosing to walk across the hall

- Going home to her mom's dinner night that same Tuesday, sobbing, and hearing her mom say "I am so proud of you"

- Waking up at 4 AM the next morning and thinking about texting her boss "just kidding"

- Why telling her team the real reason she was leaving was the moment the fog lifted and the decision became real

- Her partner's skepticism — and how she convinced him to give her one year

- The Six Nations community supporting her from day one, and what it means to walk into the bank or Chiefswood Park and say "I made that"

- Investing everything back into her business in year two — including a $20,000 laser she didn't know how to pay for until a huge school commission came through

- Building her own shop and the two-day window between moving in and the laser arriving

- How a chance conversation with strangers at the computer store — all of them talking about a friend who died before reaching retirement — reaffirmed she'd made the right call

- How wooden mosaics became her signature work: no two the same, the final result a surprise even to her, equal parts puzzle and painting

- Commissioned pieces for the University of Utah, Cadbury, McMaster University, and organizations in Washington and Idaho

- How a tool company sent her a $15,000 SawStop table saw in exchange for tutorials — the last item on her manifestation list

- Teaching high school students to use a scroll saw and wooden mosaics, and the joy of bringing a female perspective into the shop

- Learning to call herself an artist — and what it took to say it with confidence

- Her ornament line: over 900 sold, shipped as far as England, designed to get her art into people's hands at an accessible price point including Goldyn Mini Mo', Dawn Mini Mo', Sky Mini Mo' and Midnight Mini Mo'.

- Her artist-in-residence exhibit at the Royal Botanical Gardens (February–April 2026): four custom mosaics exploring goldyn, dawn, midnight, and sky — two named after her sister Skylar Dawn

GUEST

Kelsey Powless — Haudenosaunee woodworker, scroll saw artist, and wooden mosaic creator from Six Nations of the Grand River. Founder of Powless & Co.

Instagram: @powlessandco
Facebook: Powless and co
TikTok: @powlessandco
Website (custom orders): powlessandco.ca

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
- The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
- Royal Botanical Gardens artist-in-residence exhibit, February–April 2026
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name

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Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nya:węh for listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this episode of Yoha:te ne kahsen:na, The Road to Your Name, host Lisa VanEvery sits down with Warren Hill — professional lacrosse goaltender for the Halifax Thunderbirds and Student Mentor at the Ogwehoweh Skills & Trades Training Centre (OSTTC) in Six Nations — for a conversation about the game that shapes so much of life at Six Nations, and about the work he does helping students find their own path. Warren traces his lacrosse journey from picking up a stick "as soon as he could walk" through a lacrosse family, to playing at The Hill Academy, Onondaga Community College, and Syracuse University, to turning pro in 2016 and becoming one of the top goaltenders in the National Lacrosse League. He talks about what it takes to play the position, how the game has grown internationally, the deep cultural significance and craft of the traditional wooden lacrosse stick, and what it means to carry the responsibility of the Haudenosaunee origins of the game onto the world stage. The conversation then turns to Warren's "nine-to-fiver" as a student mentor, where he draws on his own difficult first experience with post-secondary education to help students at OSTTC — many balancing school with work, family, and other life circumstances — find support, community, and a path to their goals.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- Growing up in a lacrosse family at Six Nations and picking up the game before he could walk
- The path from The Hill Academy to Onondaga Community College to Syracuse University, and turning professional in 2016
- Finding his way into goaltending as a kid, and what makes a great goaltender ("80% mental, 20% physical")
- The maturity and life skills that professional lacrosse demands, on and off the floor
- Playing for the Georgia Swarm, Rochester Knighthawks, and the Halifax Thunderbirds
- The rapid global growth of lacrosse and its path toward the Olympics
- Sharing the Haudenosaunee origins and values of the game with international teams
- The craft, cost, and cultural significance of traditional wooden lacrosse sticks, and the stick makers who keep the tradition alive
- Raising the next generation — his two sons — around the game
- His work as a Student Mentor at the Ogwehoweh Skills & Trades Training Centre (OSTTC), helping students navigate the challenges of post-secondary life
- Infusing culture, community, and support into OSTTC's programming
- Balancing life as a professional athlete and a full-time community mentor

GUEST BIO

Warren Hill is a professional lacrosse goaltender from Six Nations of the Grand River, currently playing for the Halifax Thunderbirds of the National Lacrosse League. Drafted by the Georgia Swarm in 2016 after playing at The Hill Academy, Onondaga Community College, and Syracuse University, Hill has developed into one of the premier goaltenders in the league, previously leading the NLL in save percentage and ranking among the Thunderbirds' all-time saves leaders. He has also represented the Haudenosaunee Nationals internationally, including winning a bronze medal at the U19 FIL World Lacrosse Championship, and has won multiple Mann Cup national championships with the Six Nations Chiefs. Off the floor, Warren is a Student Mentor at the Ogwehoweh Skills & Trades Training Centre (OSTTC) in Six Nations, where he supports students — many navigating the transition to post-secondary education — with the kind of guidance and understanding he wishes he'd had during his own first, difficult experience at McMaster University. He is a father of two sons who are already following in his lacrosse footsteps.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Halifax Thunderbirds (National Lacrosse League)
- Ogwehoweh Skills & Trades Training Centre (OSTTC), Six Nations
- Six Nations Chiefs (Senior "A" lacrosse) — Mann Cup champions
- Haudenosaunee Nationals / Iroquois Nationals
- Syracuse University Orange lacrosse
- Aboriginal Legal Services — www.aboriginallegal.ca

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It’s All in the Dash — Genealogy, Family Stories, and the Anderson Legacy with Don Lynch

Episode Description

In this episode, Lisa sits down with Don Lynch, a member of the Ohsweken Genealogical Society and chair of the Six Nations Public Library Board, for a warm and wide-ranging conversation about family history, oral tradition, and why it matters to document the stories before they’re gone.

Don brings a collector’s instinct and a storyteller’s heart to genealogy. He’s less interested in names and dates than in “the dash” between them — the real lives people lived. And his own family turns out to be a remarkable thread through Indigenous history: his great-aunt Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture was the first Indigenous woman to become a registered nurse in Canada and the first Indigenous woman from Canada to serve in the United States military during the First World War. His uncle Arnold Anderson was a chemical engineer on the Manhattan Project and a founding member — and first executive director — of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).

From a grandmother who got her name because an uncle forgot what she was supposed to be called, to a grandfather who became a teacher after being injured by a jealous co-worker, to two Anderson brothers — one with a wooden leg, one with a glass eye — Don’s family stories are a reminder that every family has this kind of richness waiting to be found. This episode is an invitation to go looking.

What We Talk About

• The Ohsweken Genealogical Society — who comes to meetings, what happens there, and how people with nothing but a name can walk out with a thread to pull on
• Don’s philosophy: it’s not the birth date or death date that matters — it’s the dash in between
• How Don’s family became Andersons — tracing back to a mysterious adoption from the Tuscarora Reserve in New York State
• His mother, who graduated from McMaster University in 1935 as the first Indigenous woman to do so, and the scholarship named in her honor
• His Uncle Arnold — chemical engineer on the Manhattan Project and founding member and first executive director of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), with a scholarship now named after him
• His great-aunt Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture, the first Indigenous woman to become a registered nurse in Canada, who had to train in the United States because of the Indian Act, and went on to serve in France during World War One
• How a workplace injury turned Don’s grandfather from a farm laborer into a teacher — and how that accident changed the course of an entire family’s educational legacy
• The story of Mohawk Joe and Delaware Joe: lifelong enemies with the same name, a near-fatal fight, a flight to the Panama Canal, and an unresolved feud
• How Don’s grandmother became “Minnie Essie” instead of Charlotte because an uncle forgot her name when he went to register her birth
• Using ancestry.ca through the Six Nations Public Library — free, in-person, and more useful than people realize
• The Mohawk Kinship Project at the Six Nations Library, which traces the mother’s line through large visual charts available by appointment
• DNA testing services: what they can and can’t do for Indigenous families, and why Don has reservations about submitting personal data
• How posting a single family photograph on the library website led to a California man hiring a detective, tracking down a relative he didn’t know existed, and reuniting a family across the border
• Practical advice on photographs: label them now, digitize old ones, print digital ones, and never lend an original
• Photo restoration tools Don uses — Topaz and HitPaw — and how to colorize old black and white images
• Why oral tradition makes it especially urgent for Indigenous families to write stories down — and how one missed generation can mean a story is lost forever

Notable Family Members Mentioned

Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture (1890–1996) — Don’s great-aunt. Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk), Six Nations of the Grand River. The first Indigenous woman to become a registered nurse in Canada, the first Indigenous woman from Canada to serve in the United States military, and the first Indigenous woman to vote in a Canadian federal election. Barred from Canadian nursing schools by the Indian Act, she trained at the New Rochelle Nursing School in New York and graduated at the top of her class in 1914. She served as a surgical nurse at Base Hospital 23 in Vittel, France, during World War One. She returned to Six Nations and worked as a nurse and midwife on the reserve until 1955. She passed away in 1996 at the age of 105, the last surviving Six Nations WWI veteran. A street and park in Brantford, Ontario bear her name.

Arnold “A.T.” Anderson (1915–1983) — Don’s uncle. Six Nations. Chemical engineer at Union Carbide who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War Two, helping to process uranium-235 for the development of the atomic bomb. He held a chemistry degree from McMaster University. After the war, he received presidential commendations from Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter for his advisory work on Indigenous policy. In 1977, he co-founded the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) with six other Indigenous scientists and engineers and served as its first executive director. A scholarship in his name — the A.T. Anderson Memorial Scholarship — continues to support Indigenous students in STEM fields.

Guest

Don Lynch — Member of the Ohsweken Genealogical Society and Chair of the Six Nations Public Library Board. Author of the memoir The Metal Man, Drunken Pigeons, and Me (2022), available on Amazon.

Resources Mentioned

• Ohsweken Genealogical Society — meets the second Saturday of each month at Woodland Cultural Centre. Facebook: Ohsweken Genealogical Society
• Six Nations Public Library — free in-library access to ancestry.ca; home of the Mohawk Kinship Project (call ahead to view the kinship charts)
• The Metal Man, Drunken Pigeons, and Me by Don Lynch (2022) — available on Amazon
• Footpaths Through History by Penny Warner — the story of artist James Beaver
• CBC Marketplace DNA testing segment — search “Marketplace DNA test” on YouTube
• Photo restoration tools mentioned: Topaz, HitPaw
• ancestry.ca and 23andMe — discussed with context on their limitations for Indigenous research
• Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
• Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
• Facebook: Road to Your Name

Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

Keris returns to the podcast (Season 4, Episode 8) and shares with us about her acting career and budding singing career.  She starred in the films Rosie (2022), Little Bird (2023) and Youngblood (2025) and talks about beginning her singing career with her first gig at Six Nations of the Grand River.
Keris shares about her love for 'old country' music and learning to play the guitar and read music.  She talks of movies she watches and her goals in acting when she gets older.

Keris will be performing at Paddlestock on July 19, 2026, 4-8 pm, located at Chiefswood Park, 1037 Brant County Hwy. 54, Ohsweken.  For more information, contact:  www.sixnationstourism.ca

Road to Your Name | Season 8, Episode 3
This episode was recorded in November 2025.

Episode Description

Copyright affects every creator — and yet most people, Indigenous or not, don’t fully understand how it works or when it protects them. In this episode, Lisa sits down with Dr. Jean Dryden, an internationally recognized expert on copyright and archival material, for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with the basics and leads somewhere unexpected: the deep resonance between Indigenous communal knowledge and the unresolved questions AI is forcing copyright law to reckon with.

Dr. Dryden has spent more than 25 years working at the intersection of copyright law, libraries, and archives. She holds a Master of Laws degree specializing in intellectual property from Osgoode Hall Law School, has taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Maryland, and has represented the International Council on Archives at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. She is the author of Demystifying Copyright: A Researcher’s Guide to Copyright in Canadian Libraries and Archives.

The conversation covers how Canadian copyright law works, what it gets right and wrong for Indigenous creators, the gap between how copyright treats authorship and how Indigenous nations hold communal knowledge, and why AI is forcing everyone — lawyers, legislators, and creators alike — to grapple with questions that don’t yet have answers.

What We Talk About

• What copyright is — and why Dr. Dryden calls it “an ingenious but imperfect system” trying to balance creators’ rights against the public’s right to access and build on existing works
• A brief history of Canada’s Copyright Act, which dates to 1921 and has evolved through multiple amendments to keep pace with new technologies
• How social media changed the copyright landscape — and why Canada’s “user-generated content provision” (2012) was a practical response to the reality that policing every mashup and remix is impossible
• The three open copyright questions AI has created: whether AI-generated works are even protected by copyright, whether rights holders should be compensated for their work being used to train large language models, and who bears liability if infringement occurs
• Why courts — especially in the US — will likely shape copyright and AI policy before legislators do, and what Canada might learn from watching those cases unfold
• The brilliant connection Lisa makes: AI’s challenge to individual authorship parallels the challenge Indigenous communal knowledge has always posed to copyright law
• Why Canadian copyright law doesn’t accommodate communal ownership — and why the 70-year post-death expiry rule means most traditional stories and songs are technically in the public domain, even though Indigenous nations don’t see it that way
• Dr. Dryden’s argument that a separate, stand-alone law for Indigenous traditional knowledge — rather than trying to fit it into the existing Copyright Act — would be the better path forward
• Why such a law would need to account for more than economic value, including cultural and spiritual values, and different levels of access within communities
• What happens when an individual (Indigenous or non-Indigenous) asserts copyright over a traditional story or song — and the factors that determine whether anything comes of it
• Music sampling, industry guidelines, and how copyright enforcement evolves when monitoring every use is impractical
• How to protect your own creative work: copyright exists the moment a work is created, but registering with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (~$65) gives you a legal head start if challenged
• Why marking your work with the copyright symbol, your name, and the year is one of the simplest things any creator can do
• The “mailed envelope” trick — and why Dr. Dryden considers it copyright folklore
• How collective societies work as a middle layer between creators and users, making licensing more efficient for public performances of music
• How streaming platforms like Amazon Music compensate artists through negotiated licenses
• Recommended reading: Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide by Laura Murray and Samuel Trosow (2nd ed.) for a readable, user-friendly overview of the Copyright Act
• Dr. Dryden explains "public domain."

Guest

Dr. Jean Dryden — Internationally recognized expert on copyright and archival material. Dr. Dryden holds a Master of Laws degree specializing in intellectual property from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Taught at the University of Toronto’s iSchool and the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. Represents the International Council on Archives (ICA) at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Copyright Committee in Geneva, and is a member of the ICA’s Expert Group on Legal Matters. As Chair of the Bureau of Canadian Archivists Copyright Committee, she played a lead role in lobbying for copyright exceptions that benefited libraries, archives, and museums in the 1997 amendments to the Copyright Act. Author of Demystifying Copyright: A Researcher’s Guide to Copyright in Canadian Libraries and Archives (2nd ed., Canadian Library Association, 2014). Fellow of the Association of Canadian Archivists.

Resources Mentioned

• Demystifying Copyright: A Researcher’s Guide to Copyright in Canadian Libraries and Archives by Jean Dryden (2nd ed., 2014) — out of print but available at some libraries
• Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide by Laura Murray and Samuel Trosow (2nd ed.) — readable overview recommended for creators and researchers
• Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) — where you can register your copyright (approx. $65); cipo.ic.gc.ca
• Canada’s Copyright Act — including the user-generated content provision (2012) and fair dealing provisions
• CBC Marketplace segment on DNA testing — referenced as an example of testing methodology (search “Marketplace DNA test” on YouTube)
• Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
• Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
• Facebook: Road to Your Name

Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

In This Episode:

Gary shares with us about his experience at the residential school, The Mush Hole, where he went at the age of two.  He speaks about the challenges he faced after leaving there and how the experience affected him.
We talk about his exhibit, Tsi Non:we Entewaha'hara'ne and how painting his residential school experience came about.
Gary also discusses his art career and what's next for him.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this episode, Lisa speaks with Dr. David Milward, associate professor of law at the University of Victoria and a member of the Beardy's & Okemasis First Nation of Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. Dr. Milward assisted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in authoring its final report on Indigenous justice issues, and is the author of several books on Indigenous justice, including Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward and the newly released Indigenous Law and Canadian Criminal Justice, co-authored with Jonathan Rudin.

This conversation goes deep into the realities behind Canada's Indigenous over-incarceration crisis: what restorative justice actually looks like in practice, why it remains chronically underfunded, and how political rhetoric around "soft on crime" policy obscures both the data and the human stories behind it. Dr. Milward speaks candidly about his own path into this work, growing up in Indigenous urban communities in Edmonton and Calgary, the friends he lost along the way, and the racism he faced as a law student — including being told outright that he'd never become a lawyer unless he cut his hair.

This is a frank, deeply informed conversation about what genuine justice reform requires, and why the people doing this work keep showing up despite the frustration.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- The behind-the-scenes process of contributing to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report on Indigenous justice, including the commission's early restructuring under Murray Sinclair and Willie Littlechild
- Working under law professor Ken Roach to develop the justice volume's research, and how the unused material eventually became the foundation for Dr. Milward's own books
- Growing up in Indigenous urban communities in Edmonton and Calgary, and the toll those years took on friends and peers — including loss to substance abuse, suicide, and ongoing incarceration
- How a residential school survivor mother and strict upbringing shaped Dr. Milward's path toward law school
- Racism faced during law school at the University of Alberta, including the assumption that Indigenous students were only admitted through DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) criteria, and a direct, escalating conflict over wearing his hair in a single braid
- Whether overt racism in legal education has shifted into microaggressions over the decades — and why claiming racism is a thing of the past comes from a position of privilege
- Indigenous Law and Canadian Criminal Justice, his newly released book co-authored with Jonathan Rudin, written specifically to reach undergraduate students in their formative university years
- Pushing back on "tough on crime" political rhetoric, including commentary from figures like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, and why those arguments rarely engage with the role of untreated mental illness or lack of access to health services
- The data behind restorative justice: it costs roughly $120,000 a year to incarcerate an Indigenous woman in a federal penitentiary, versus approximately $30,000 a year for probation or a conditional sentence
- Why political incentives — not evidence — often determine whether restorative justice gets funded, since politicians fear being labeled "soft on crime"
- A look at the Nordic countries' low-incarceration model as a counterexample to the assumption that less punitive justice systems lead to societal breakdown
- Research from retired University of Toronto criminologist Anthony Doob showing how public opinion on sentencing shifts dramatically once people are given specific cost and reoffending-rate data
- How a single high-profile failure gets weaponized in media coverage against restorative justice and Gladue-informed sentencing, while the many successful turnarounds rarely make headlines
- The JD/JID program at the University of Victoria, which teaches Indigenous legal orders such as Cree law, Anishinaabe law, and Gitxsan law alongside Canadian law — and the real-world resistance graduates still face when raising Indigenous legal principles in court
- Why current correctional security classifications rely heavily on past behavior despite literature showing dynamic factors — such as relationships with elders and present-day progress — are stronger predictors of future behavior, particularly for Indigenous people
- The chronic shortage of healing lodges, with only a small number currently serving Indigenous women nationwide, and the broader need for more Gladue report writers, Indigenous lawyers, and frontline harm reduction and counseling workers
- Dr. Milward's advice for young people entering frontline Indigenous justice and health work: patience, the inevitability of frustration and pushback, and finding sufficiency in knowing the work itself is good
- We need more Indigenous lawyers and Gladue Writers in the justice system
- If you are Indigenous and working in the justice system, you will experience frustration, but stick with it!

GUEST

Dr. David Milward — Associate Professor of Law, University of Victoria, and Director of the JD/JID (Joint Indigenous Degree) program. Member of the Beardy's & Okemasis First Nation, Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. BA (History), University of Calgary; LLB and LLM, University of Alberta; D.Phil., University of British Columbia. Assisted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada with its final report on Indigenous justice issues. Author of Aboriginal Justice and the Charter: Realizing a Culturally Sensitive Interpretation of Legal Rights (UBC Press, 2012), co-winner of the K.D. Srivastava Prize for Excellence in Scholarly Publishing; The Art of Science in the Canadian Justice System (with the late Dr. Charles Ferguson); Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward (Fernwood Press, 2022); and Indigenous Law and Canadian Criminal Justice (Emond, 2025), co-authored with Jonathan Rudin. Co-author of the widely used Gladue Handbook with Allard Hall Professor Debra Parkes.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Indigenous Law and Canadian Criminal Justice by David Milward and Jonathan Rudin (Emond, 2025)
- Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward by David Milward (Fernwood Press, 2022)
- Aboriginal Justice and the Charter by David Milward (UBC Press, 2012)
- The Gladue Handbook, co-authored by David Milward and Debra Parkes
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada — Final Report (Justice volume)
- Anthony Doob's public opinion research on sentencing, University of Toronto (retired)
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name

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Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

Road to Your Name | Season 7 / Episode 10

Episode Description

Samantha Doxtator of the Oneida Nation at Oneida of the Thames returns to the Road to Your Name podcast for a conversation that reaches across the galaxy. Samantha is a Haudenosaunee astronomy researcher and presenter who travels to Indigenous communities, universities, and museums across North America — and as far as the Hayden Planetarium in New York City — sharing the star knowledge of the Haudenosaunee.

This episode begins with a deeply moving story: how Samantha came to carry on the work of her late sister Sasha, who spent three years gathering Haudenosaunee astronomy research before passing away from cancer. That work — continued in Sasha’s memory, with her presence still felt in dreams and through others — has grown into something remarkable.

From the Pleiades as a celestial navigation marker to the connection between dying stars and our own blood, from the Great Law of Peace and solar eclipses to her dream of building an Indigenous science center — Samantha brings ancient knowledge into vivid, present-day conversation. This is an episode about how the sky has always been speaking to us. We just have to learn how to listen.

What We Talk About

• How Samantha’s late sister Sasha spent three years gathering Haudenosaunee astronomy research — and how Sasha’s presence, even after passing, guided Samantha to continue the work
• What it felt like to be “downloaded” with knowledge once Samantha accepted her calling to carry on Sasha’s research
• Presenting at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City — the most visited planetarium in the world — as the first Indigenous woman to do so, and receiving its first-ever standing ovation
• Designing her own planetarium show: asking to see the universe from the sky’s perspective, not Earth’s
• The Pleiades as a celestial marker — a guide for travel across the Milky Way, a signal for planting and harvesting, and a connection to where Haudenosaunee people come from and return to
• The 2024 total solar eclipse passing through Haudenosaunee homelands for the first time in 99 years — and what it means when the sun and moon’s paths cross
• The connection between solar eclipses and the formation of the Great Law of Peace
• How modern science is catching up to Indigenous knowledge: the iron in dying stars is the same iron that makes our blood red
• Wampum belts and their hidden connections to the stars — through the diamond shapes of the Oneida wampum belt
• Traveling to Indigenous communities, museums, and universities across Ontario, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and beyond
• Her goal of owning a portable planetarium ($100,000 USD) and eventually building a stationary Indigenous science center
• What it’s like to tour communities — and why she’s starting to realize she needs a road manager and social media help
• Why she does this work: so people walk away feeling how brilliant and connected Onkwehon:we people truly are

Guest

Samantha Doxtator — Oneida Nation, Oneida of the Thames. Haudenosaunee astronomy researcher and presenter. Samantha travels across Turtle Island sharing Indigenous star knowledge with communities, museums, and institutions, carrying on the research begun by her late sister Sasha.

Connect with Samantha

• Email: justalittlestardust@outlook.com
• Facebook: Samantha Doxtator
• Instagram: Life of a Freelancer (or search Samantha Doxtator)
• GoFundMe (coming soon) — to support the purchase of a portable planetarium
• To book a presentation for your community or organization, reach out via email

Also Mentioned

• Wilfred Buck — Cree astronomer and star knowledge keeper, who also presented at the Hayden Planetarium
• The Hayden Planetarium — American Museum of Natural History, New York City
• NASA’s solar eclipse database and their 2024 eclipse programming in Niagara Falls, NY
• Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
• Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
• Facebook: Road to Your Name

Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

What does it mean to be present for someone at the very end of their life — and what does our culture already know about death that we've forgotten how to practice? In this episode, Lisa speaks with Diane Boots, director of Iahki'nikónhkétskwas (Lifting Their Minds Center) at Akwesasne and an end-of-life doula, birth doula, and pipe carrier.

Diane has supported over 200 births in Akwesasne, and after a near-death experience of her own, she found her way to death doula work following a wake where a grieving family felt abandoned by their community. What she shares is unflinching, deeply practical, and quietly beautiful: the legal documents every family needs before someone passes at home, the physical realities of how a body naturally prepares for death, how hearing remains for roughly thirty minutes after a person passes, and how Haudenosaunee teachings — particularly the Condolence — already contain almost everything we need to know about how to grieve and how to show up for each other.

This is a conversation about honoring the spirit's transition the same way we honor its arrival, and about what gets lost when a circle community starts taking care of only its own.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

- What an end-of-life doula actually does, and how the role mirrors the work of a birth doula in providing education, presence, and support through a major transition
- The essential legal documents every family needs before a loved one passes at home: DNR, will, medical proxy, power of attorney, and executor — and what happens if they're missing
- Why feeding a dying person, however loving the instinct, can cause real physical distress as the body's digestive system naturally begins shutting down
- Encouraging patients to keep living during their final transition: doing something they enjoy, inviting students to keep learning from them, treating the dying process as something other than simply lying in wait
- The medically documented fact that hearing remains for up to thirty minutes after a person passes — and what that means for how families say goodbye
- Diane's own path into doula work: more than 200 births supported in Akwesasne, a gift she describes as "the coming and going of the spirit," and two personal near-death experiences that removed any fear of dying
- The wake that changed everything: a grieving family devastated not by their loss alone, but by a community that didn't show up — and what that taught Diane about the responsibility of a circle community
- Writing the grant that funded Iahki'nikónhkétskwas (Lifting Their Minds Center), with support from the Mohawk Council Healing Grant, the Mohawks of Akwesasne Trust Settlement Fund, and CKON radio
- The difference between training community members in end-of-life care versus certifying professional doulas, and why Diane intentionally keeps her community classes informal and accessible
- Hands-on training that includes wearing adult briefs and being repositioned in bed, so caregivers understand what the experience actually feels like for a patient
- A breakdown of funeral options most people don't know exist: green burials, home funerals without embalming, and what New York State law actually requires (and doesn't)
- The spiritual dimension of dying: the parallel between the energy felt at a birth and the energy felt as a spirit prepares to leave, and a simple hands-on exercise anyone can try to feel that energy themselves
- A story about a man in his final days who was frightened by visions of his deceased parents in the room — and the peace that came once he understood what was happening
- How Haudenosaunee Condolence teachings already map out the grieving process, down to the specific instruction to change your dinner time so you stop watching the door for someone who isn't coming home
- The post-COVID shift Diane has observed in community caretaking, and her concern about families pulling inward at exactly the moment connection matters most
- The "compassion pouch" Diane created for home care workers: essential oils, tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and a written prayer to use between patients, so caregivers have a moment to ground themselves before moving on to the next family
- How Diane cares for herself doing this work, including the support of her husband, learning to allow herself to rest, and finding peace in trusting that the people she's helped have arrived somewhere safe
- The practice of washing a person in cedar, dressing them, lighting candles, playing music and creating space for family to lie beside them and say goodbye privately before a funeral home becomes involved.  She describes it as a sacred time.
- Diane's offer to travel to other communities and provide her two-day training course

GUEST

Diane Boots — Director of Iahki'nikónhkétskwas (Lifting Their Minds Center) at Akwesasne. End-of-life doula, birth doula (200+ births supported), and pipe carrier.

Facebook: Diane Boots (note: search carefully, as another page with a similar name exists)
Email:  dianeb13655@yahoo.com
Phone:  (518) 317-8927

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Iahki'nikónhkétskwas (Lifting Their Minds Center), Akwesasne
- Mohawk Council Healing Grant
- Mohawks of Akwesasne Trust Settlement Fund
- CKON Radio, Akwesasne
- Akwesasne TV — interview feature on Diane's work
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name

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Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Continuing this special on-location episode, Lisa takes the podcast to the Six Nations Language Commission's Indigenous Language Day symposium, where language keepers, teachers, and program coordinators from across Haudenosaunee territory gathered to mark Language Day and talk about what it takes to keep Kanien'kéha (the Mohawk language) alive and thriving.

Recorded live in the hallways and gathering spaces of the symposium, this episode features three conversations: a second year language immersion student, a fluent language teacher at a university, and a mature student returning to school to learn her traditional Cayuga language.

Across all three conversations, one theme keeps surfacing: language isn't just vocabulary. It's identity, healing, culture, and a way of seeing the world that survived residential schools and is being actively rebuilt, one word, one sentence and one conversation at a time.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

Conversation One: Immersion student learning with Katsyenhasehton (Tazline Mansell)

- Inspired by her cousin in the immersion program to apply herself.  She learned self-discipline and commitment to self.
- The immersion program fostered an environment of caring for one another and encouraging one another
- Being in the immersion program encouraged her to attend Longhouse and helped her to be in conversation with family members
- She encourages young people to begin by learning words as a starting point should they want to begin their language journey
- Katsyenhasehton shares a glimpse of her language skills
- Language focused excursions to aid in their language journey
- Her goals are to be in language retention as a teacher
- She's made a tutorial making a ribbon skirt all in Kanienke:ha
- Language is meant to bring us together 

Conversation Two:  Instructor at Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa and Professor of Linguistics at University of Toronto, Oherohskon (Ryan DeCaire)

- Bringing his daughter to the immersion class as he and his wife are raising her as a first language speaker
- His work in language revitalization at the University of Toronto
- His research reflects that immersion is the best way for adults to learn a language
- How the root word method and exposure to the language is the key to learning (2000 hours)
- How can A.I. assist in language retention (Canada Research Council).  It's a tool but won't solve our problems
- Starting our learning a language, you could take a night class.  There are benefits when you stick with it
- We all have a role to play in learning language and language retention
- Work to normalize the language in your community

Conversation Three: Immersion student in the Cayuga lanaguage, Gannowiyohsta' (Fran Henry)

- Retiring from work to study the Cayuga language in 2014 at Six Nations Polytechnic, graduating with a university degreee from the program in 2018
- Then returning to study language in 2023.  If you don't use it, you lose it.
- Using the language at meal time
- What drives her to continue to learn her language
- The language and the culture are interconnected
- She shares the reason she wanted to learn her traditional language
- What more we can be doing to inject language in our community
- Gannawiyouhsta' shares a story of a young man from Florida in his journey of language retention
- It's never too late to learn

GUESTS

An immersion student of Kanienke:ha at Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa

An immersion instructor at Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa and researcher in linguistics

A mature student of the Cayuga language

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Six Nations Language Commission — host of the Indigenous Language Day symposium
- Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa — online and in-person Mohawk immersion program; Facebook page and website available for the first 40 words and more
- ETS (Everlasting Tree School)
- OLP (Ogwehoweh Language Program)
- BAOL (Bachelor of Arts in Ogwehoweh Languages)
- Ohén:ton Karíhwatéhkwen (the Thanksgiving Address)
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name

---
Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this special on-location episode, Lisa takes the podcast to the Six Nations Language Commission's Indigenous Language Day symposium, where language keepers, teachers, and program coordinators from across Haudenosaunee territory gathered to mark Language Day and talk about what it takes to keep Kanien'kéha (the Mohawk language) alive and thriving.

Recorded live in the hallways and gathering spaces of the symposium, this episode features three conversations: a language nest coordinator from Kahnawà:ke who started her program around her own kitchen table in 2005, a program director and instructor at Six Nations' adult immersion school who breaks down the "root word method" that's transforming how the language is taught, and a teacher and potter from Akwesasne building a language program rooted in the natural and ceremonial calendar.

Across all three conversations, one theme keeps surfacing: language isn't just vocabulary. It's identity, healing, culture, and a way of seeing the world that survived residential schools and is being actively rebuilt, one family and one classroom at a time.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

Conversation One: The Kahnawà:ke Language Nest with Ieronhienhawi (Tatum McComber)

- How a language nest coordinator and a small group of friends started an immersion program for families with young children in 2005, inspired by the Māori language nest model in New Zealand
- The early days: cooking, gardening, harvesting, tapping trees, and singing together entirely in the language, with first-language speakers always present to keep the environment accurate
- Why the original program ran from 2005 to 2007 before dissipating as life circumstances changed
- Bringing the language nest back in 2014 after a dream pointed the way, and applying for grant funding to make it sustainable
- Why the program now runs two full days a week per family group instead of the original five
- A typical day: morning mingling and conversation, guided questions, hands-on activities, formal teaching moments, and lunch together
- How something as simple as talking about the weather becomes a rich daily language lesson
- Why older children face a harder transition into immersion than younger ones
- The practice of asking parents to teach what they've learned to a partner, parent, or older child at home
- The healing that parents report experiencing simply through learning to speak the language
- Why self-determination is one of the biggest factors in becoming an advanced speaker
- A glimpse into the science: using ultrasound imaging to study tongue and throat movement during speech, and how it's been applied to study sounds across different Indigenous languages
- The nest's current size (14 families) and future goals: expanding to serve older children and more of the whole family, and returning to a more traditional way of living and working the land together

Conversation Two: The Adult Immersion School (Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa) at Six Nations with Rohahiyo (Jordan Brant)

- A program that began in 1999 and now runs two cohorts at a time, aiming for 1,000 contact hours of full-time immersion across two years
- How the instructor went through the program himself in 2013, graduated in 2015, and was offered a job as a teaching assistant and followed by being hired as an instructor so he never left
- The program's core goal: restoring intergenerational transmission of Kanien'kéha by training adults to a proficiency level where they can raise first-language-speaking children
- An explanation of the "root word method," developed by the late Kanatawakhon (David Maracle) of Tyendinaga, which restructured language teaching around verbs rather than nouns
- Why over 90% of Kanien'kéha is verbs, and what it means for a language to be "polysynthetic" — entire English sentences expressed in a single word
- The 63 pronominal prefixes, grouped into "red," "blue," and "purple" categories, that students learn early to start building sentences almost immediately
- A driving-school analogy: learning the formal rules first, then graduating to navigate the language's real-world variation
- Why literacy has become just as important as spoken fluency in 2025, given how much daily communication happens through text
- How to start learning on your own: the first 40 words available through the Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa online program, and the importance of figuring out your own learning style
- The role of standardized orthography, developed in the 1980s with major contributions from the late Karihwenhawe (Dorothy Lazore), in making resources mutually intelligible across Mohawk communities from Six Nations to Akwesasne to Kanesatake
- The program's ultimate goal: to become unnecessary, because the language is once again strong enough in the community that nobody needs an immersion program to learn it
- The urgency behind honoring the speech patterns of the community's last elderly first-language speakers as that generation passes

Conversation Three: Language, Land, and Pottery at Akwesasne with Nihahsenaa (John Peters)

- A teacher and potter from Akwesasne whose family has unbroken lines of Kanien'kéha speakers on both sides, despite residential and day school history
- How his mother's work at the Freedom School led his parents to actively pass on the language to their youngest children
- His school's approach: building curriculum around the Haudenosaunee ceremonial and natural cycle rather than grade levels, organizing learning by life stages instead
- A current planning year spent securing funding and refining the intake process, with plans to reopen in September 2025
- The chronic funding challenge facing community language programs that often compete for the same limited grants
- Learning to make traditional maple syrup using clay and wood instead of contemporary methods, as part of the program's seasonal curriculum
- How the Mohawk word for "what is your clan" literally translates to "what is your clay" — a direct linguistic link to pottery and to the Haudenosaunee creation story
- Studying traditional pottery techniques in Oklahoma with renowned pottery makers, including harvesting and processing clay and pit-firing pieces the traditional way
- Why so much traditional knowledge and language was lost alongside art forms like pottery and basketry as those practices declined — and the effort now underway to recover both together
- His family's small business, Fox & Forest Studio, where he creates pottery and his wife creates traditional finger-woven pieces
- A shared goal among Akwesasne artists and crafters to establish a dedicated studio and storage space — a kind of co-op for traditional pottery makers
- The youngest children in the program reciting the Ohén:ton Karíhwatéhkwen (Thanksgiving Address) from memory by age six or seven

GUESTS

A language nest coordinator from Kahnawà:ke, co-founder of the community's family immersion program (est. 2005, relaunched 2014)

A program director and second-year instructor at the adult immersion school at Six Nations (est. 1999)

A teacher and potter from Akwesasne, co-founder of Fox & Forest Studio

RESOURCES MENTIONED

- Six Nations Language Commission — host of the Indigenous Language Day symposium
- Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa — online and in-person Mohawk immersion program; Facebook page and website available for the first 40 words and more
- Fox & Forest Studio — pottery and traditional finger weaving, find them on Facebook
- Ohén:ton Karíhwatéhkwen (the Thanksgiving Address)
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aborig...

This episode was recorded in March 2025.  This episode may include offensive language.
Episode Notes: Tom Wilson - Creativity, Identity, and Reclaiming Mohawk Heritage

Host: Lisa Van (Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan)
Guest: Tom Wilson
Episode: Season 7
Produced by: Aboriginal Legal Services
Technical Assistance: Tru Seed Media

Episode Overview

This episode features acclaimed creative artist Tom Wilson, who discusses his multifaceted artistic practice across painting, music composition, theatre, and writing. The conversation centers on how creativity has become his pathway to reclaiming his Mohawk identity and decolonizing himself from the impacts of colonialism and forced assimilation.

Key Themes

Identity and Reclamation

• Tom's identity was kept from him for 53 years; he was never told he was from the Mohawk nation
• His journey to reclaiming his identity is deeply intertwined with his creative practice
• He quotes director Shane Belcourt (Métis): "You're not putting on an Indian costume. You're taking off the costume that colonialism put on you."
• Tom emphasizes that reclaiming identity is about stripping away the bonds of colonialism rather than "putting on" culture

The Creative Process as Meditation and Healing

• Painting serves as Tom's meditation and grounding practice
• For someone with a "hyper brain," the detailed, meditative process of painting provides calm
• The creative process is deeply personal and not meant to be observed; its true power lies in the finished creation
• Through creativity, Tom has built opportunities and navigated life's challenges
• He has sustained himself emotionally and spiritually through writing, music, painting, and performance

The Role of Artists in Society

• Artists have a pure light of wanting to create something for the world that wasn't there yesterday
• Unlike governments, religions, and corporations that seek to control, artists contribute without seeking control
• Creative work has the power to inspire and translate across audiences

Tom Wilson's Background and Early Life

Childhood Separation and Adoption

• Tom's mother was a teen when she gave birth to him
• Born in 1959 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario
• Separated from his mother immediately after birth; she was sedated and prevented from seeing her newborn
• Placed in foster care through Catholic Children's Aid, then adopted by Bunny and George Wilson
• His adoptive parents kept his Mohawk identity a secret throughout his childhood
• This was the condition of the adoption agreement; he was forbidden from knowing he was Indigenous

Family Reunion

• At age 12 (now 53 years later), his grandfather John Lazore came from Kahnawake, Quebec to claim him
• His great aunt and uncle, Bunny and George Wilson, became his caregivers and he describes them as his heroes
• Though his adoptive parents gave him "a fighting chance," they perpetuated colonial harm by hiding his identity
• Tom honours his adoptive family while acknowledging the complexity of their choices

Growing Up as an Only Child

• Felt like he was "dropped out of a spaceship in the wrong backyard"
• Found solace in time spent alone and in creative pursuits from an early age
• This early isolation contributed to his comfort with solitude and introspection

Tom Wilson's Creative Works

Beautiful Scars (Play)

• Theatrical production that premiered in Hamilton at Theatre Aquarius
• An art book was published accompanying the play
• The play tells Tom's personal story of identity recovery and reclamation
• Described as "a Hamilton story" but fundamentally "a Canadian story" and "an Indigenous story"
• Tom wrote it to invite people in, not to "beat people over the head"
• Scheduled to tour at the National Arts Center in Ottawa and beyond in 2026-2027
• Like The Lion King, it requires multiple viewings

Documentaries

• A documentary film was made about the creation of Beautiful Scars
• Directed by Shane Belcourt (Métis)
• The documentary process itself became a journey of cultural discovery for Tom

Film Soundtrack: First Land Back Movement Documentary

• Currently composing for a film (Ni-Naadamaadiz:  Red Power Rising, 2025) by Tanya Talaga, directed by Shane Belcourt
• Focuses on the First Land Back Movement in Kenora, Ontario
• This was one of the first times Indigenous Peoples stood up for themselves in a modern, organized way
• Features historical resistance that is often omitted from Canadian history books
• Tom's music for the film is the "music you never hear but would miss if it wasn't there"
• Music serves as invisible emotional infrastructure for film

Literature

• First book: Autobiographical, telling his own story (published)
• Second book: Currently being written for Random House
• Focuses on identity and his mother's story
• His mother's narrative deserves to be heard and recognized for its power to inspire

Painting

• Creates detailed paintings on his kitchen table
• Views painting as meditative, requiring nose-to-the-canvas focus
• Recent work continues despite challenging personal circumstances
• Uses painting to express Mohawk identity in its truest form

Music Composition

• Composes for film and other media
• Uses music as an emotional and spiritual tool
• Emphasizes the integral role of music in storytelling and human experience

Current Life and Challenges

Recent Personal Struggles

• The past 10 months have been "tumultuous"
• Mother passed away in November 2024
• Serves as primary caregiver to multiple family members
• Currently visiting aunt in the hospital
• Despite these challenges, continues creative work

Ongoing Connection to Roots

• Plans to visit Kahnawake (home community) when possible
• Hasn't been able to visit recently due to caregiving responsibilities
• Despite geographic distance, maintains spiritual and creative connection to Mohawk identity

Quotable Insights

On Feeling Mohawk:
"When I paint, I feel Mohawk."

On Colonial Impact:
"You're not putting on an Indian costume. You're taking off the costume that colonialism put on you when you were too young and unaware to know that you were wearing it."

On the Artist's Role:
"Artists have the pure light of just wanting to create something for the world that wasn't there yesterday."

On Perspective:
"Looking back in anger is one thing. Moving forward with positivity and love is a lot harder, and that's what we're doing here today."

On Creative Process:
"The creative process is like watching somebody stand still. You don't see anything happening and at the end of the process, something beautiful is created, something that was not there yesterday."

Resources & Links

• Aboriginal Legal Services: www.aboriginallegal.ca
• Podcast: Yoha:te ne kahsen:na: The Road to Your Name (Facebook: @RoadToYourName)
• Support: Donations available at Aboriginal Legal Services website

This episode is part of Season 7 of the Yoha:te ne...

Episode Description

Is law really black and white? Criminal defense lawyer Jaime Stephenson doesn't think so — and in this episode, she joins host Lisa to unpack what that means in practice. Jaime is a partner at Stephenson and Valeri, based in Hamilton, and practices regularly in the Brantford Indigenous People's Court, where she and Lisa first met.

After 18 years of practice, Jaime speaks candidly about the realities of criminal defense: how legal aid works in Ontario versus the public defender system in the US, why she screens potential clients as carefully as they should screen her, and the cases she won't take on. She shares the story of one of her first Indigenous clients — a meeting so disconnected that it became the turning point in how she approaches cross-cultural trust, education, and the role of Gladue reports in sentencing.

The conversation moves into the heart of the Indigenous People's Court: the circle process. Jaime describes her first circle as one of the most powerful experiences of her career, and the two discuss what's gained when the system slows down enough to actually listen — and what's lost when it doesn't. They also talk about the uphill battle to bring an Indigenous persons court to Hamilton (update:  The Hamilton Indigenous People's Court opened on June 16, 2026), the inconsistency of judicial education around Gladue principles, and the gap between knowing the law and knowing how to apply it with care.

Jaime also opens up about life outside the courtroom — her farm, her seven horses, and the role animals have played in helping her carry the weight of a job that asks a lot of the people who do it well.

In This Episode

- [00:42] Meet Jaime Stephenson: criminal defense lawyer, Stephenson & Valeri
- [00:51] Is the law black and white? Jaime's take
- [01:31] The path to becoming a lawyer in Ontario: law school, articling, and the bar exam
- [04:00] Does justice depend on what you can afford? Legal aid vs. the public defender system
- [06:01] The cases Jaime won't take on, and why
- [08:46] Jaime's philosophy after 18 years: respect, honesty, and managing expectations
- [10:02] Why clients should interview their lawyer too
- [13:09] The story that changed her practice: an early client, a Gladue report, and a hard lesson in trust
- [18:05] What Gladue reports are, why they're not always requested, and what's at stake
- [21:32] The education gap: why there's no real course on handling Gladue reports with care
- [25:28] Inside the circle: how sentencing circles work in the Brantford Indigenous People's Court
- [26:19] Jaime's first circle, and why it still affects her
- [29:58] When the system slows down — and when it doesn't
- [32:31] A proposal: circling back after rehabilitation, not just before sentencing
- [35:33] The challenge of consistency: rotating Crowns, court officers, and judges
- [37:19] The decade-long fight for an Indigenous People's Court in Hamilton
- [44:33] A day in the life: driving circuit, client loyalty, and the commitment behind the wheel
- [44:44] Horses, dogs, and the role they play in coping with the weight of the work
- [47:53] A future goal: equine therapy for clients
- [49:39] Final thoughts: education, sensitivity, and getting clients out of the revolving door

Credits

The Road to Your Name Podcast is hosted by Lisa, produced by Aboriginal Legal Services with technical assistance from True Seed Media.

Road to Your Name | Season 7:  Episode 4
This episode was recorded in December 2024.

Episode Description

In this episode, Lisa sits down with two co-authors of a landmark new book: Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Turtle Clan, from Kanehsatà:ke — land defender, filmmaker, artist, and human rights activist — and Sean Carleton, settler historian and professor of History and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba.

Their book, When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance (Between the Lines, 2024), is the first account of the 1990 Kanehsatà:ke Resistance told from Ellen’s own perspective. Written as a conversation, it traces her life before and after the 78-day standoff — when Mohawk land defenders stopped the municipality of Oka from bulldozing a cemetery to expand a golf course — and her decades of advocacy since.

What emerges is a conversation about what the media got wrong in 1990, the central and largely erased role of women in the resistance, what it means to hold land as identity rather than resource, and why Ellen believes the international stage — not Canadian courts or legislatures — is where Indigenous sovereignty must be defended. This is a conversation about truth-telling, the long work of decolonization, and what it means to live a life committed to the land and to future generations.

What We Talk About

• How the book came to be — Sean meeting Ellen during his PhD work and proposing a conversation-based format to uplift her voice and reclaim her own narrative
• What the media got wrong in 1990: the resistance was not a “warrior society” story — it was women, children, and elders defending their home, and women went to the front three times when police arrived
• How the focus on men in camouflage made it easier for governments and media to label land defenders as terrorists and obscure the real issue: 270 years of land theft
• The role of women as title holders to the land in Haudenosaunee governance — and why any negotiation over land must go through the women
• How colonization deliberately undermined the political authority of Indigenous women, including through imposing band council systems and patriarchy
• The windows of opportunity — and dysfunction — during the 1990 negotiations, and Ellen’s direct account of what it felt like to have weapons pointed at her community while the government said it wouldn’t negotiate “with a gun to its head”
• Self-care during crisis: what survival looks like when there is no time for it, and the elders who helped Ellen stay grounded
• Sean’s framing of his role: not ally, but “co-conspirator” and “uplifter” — and how the Two-Row Wampum offers a model for non-Indigenous people in this work
• Ellen’s quote from the book: “For Onkwehon:we peoples, the land is precious and priceless. It contains all aspects of our identity.” — and what that means for Haudenosaunee language, clan systems, and relationship to all of creation
• Deskaheh’s 1923 journey to Geneva and why Ellen continues that tradition of international advocacy at the United Nations — including the push for Indigenous nations to have permanent observer status
• Why Canada’s domestic record means the international level is the only viable arena for protecting Indigenous rights
• Ellen’s art practice as survival — meditative, absorbing, and a thread of continuity throughout decades of hard work
• Sean’s reflection on becoming a new father during the book’s release, and how it sharpened his sense of responsibility to build a different world
• Ellen’s current work: a third documentary about Kahnawake’s support during the 1990 resistance, and her continued work on land defense, climate, and youth mentorship

About the Book

When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance by Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel with Sean Carleton (Between the Lines, September 2024). With a foreword by Pamela Palmater and afterword by Audra Simpson. The book has been longlisted for CBC Canada Reads and Ellen’s companion documentary film Kanà:tenhs – When The Pine Needles Fall won Best Canadian Short Film at the International First Peoples Festival and has been recognized at over 30 festivals in a dozen countries.

Guests

Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel — Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Turtle Clan, Kanehsatà:ke. Spokesperson for the Kanien’kehá:ka community during the 78-day Kanehsatà:ke Resistance of 1990. Documentarian, visual artist, Indigenous human rights and environmental rights activist. Former President of Quebec Native Women. Board member of the National Executive Steering Committee for Indigenous Climate Action. 2024 Grand Prix recipient from the Conseil des arts de Montréal — the first Indigenous artist to receive the prize in its 38-year history.

Sean Carleton — Settler historian and professor of History and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory. His research examines the history of colonialism, capitalism, and schooling in Canada. Author of Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia (UBC Press, 2022).

Resources Mentioned

• When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance — available from Between the Lines Press and wherever books are sold
• Kanà:tenhs – When The Pine Needles Fall — Ellen’s award-winning documentary film (2022)
• Strong Spirits — Ellen’s first documentary film, on Indian Residential Schools in Canada (DOC NYC 2021)
• The Women’s Nomination Belt — Haudenosaunee wampum belt referenced in conversation
• Deskaheh’s 1923 mission to Geneva and the League of Nations
• UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
• Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
• Facebook: Road to Your Name

Update:  Katsi'ksakwas Ellen Gabriel recently participated on the panel of judges of the 57th session of The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT) on Indigenous Children held in Montreal from May 25-29, 2026. (permanentpeoplestribunal.org)

Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Niá:when for listening.

Episode Summary:
In this episode, host Lisa sits down with Indigenous photographer and visual storyteller Nadya Kwandibens (Aniishinaabe, from the Animakee Wa Zhing #37 First Nation in northwestern Ontario). Nadya discusses her journey from studying film and English literature, to moving into portrait and event photography, to becoming an ambassador for the brand Canon and the Photo Laureate for the City of Toronto. Together they explore how photography becomes a tool of cultural reclamation, language revitalization, community connection and personal growth.

In This Episode:
• How Nadya’s early education in film production led into photography, and how that first portrait session in regalia sparked a career.
• The transition from dark landscapes to bright, vibrant portraits and events: her evolving style of boosting colours like red, yellow and blue, and capturing Indigenous gatherings in full strength.
• Memorable assignments: covering marches for the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls movement, round dances, cultural gatherings, and key moments of community activism.
• The story behind Nadya being named Canon Ambassador and how that partnership works (mentorship, gear, brand representation).
• Her ongoing portrait series: the “Red Chair Sessions” — using Indigenous names, place-names, languages and land acknowledgements in each portrait; now touring nationally.
• Upcoming projects: “Kitchen Table Talks” — a hybrid portrait + documentary series bringing Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people together around conversation, food, family and cultural memory.
• Nadya’s role as the Photo­Laureate for the City of Toronto: what the role entails, her vision (including an ambitious sky-visible, copper-inspired installation reflecting Indigenous presence).
• Her personal dream: a tiny house by water on her homeland reserve, where simplicity, land connection and creativity converge.
• Advice for young Indigenous photographers: “Just get out there and do it. Practice, be mindful of light, meet people, do what makes you happy.”

Key Quotes:

Connect with Nadya Kwandibens / Red Works Photography:
Website → RedWorks.ca

Instagram / Facebook / X → check @redworks (or search “Red Works Photography”)
Look for her “Red Chair Sessions” and be on the lookout for her book and documentary to come.

About the Show:
The Road to Your Name explores conversations with Indigenous voices reclaiming identity, purpose and place. Each episode highlights how culture, story, creativity and land intersect in everyday lives and work.
Follow the show for more inspiring stories like this one.

Road to Your Name | Season 7, Episode 2

Episode Description

In this episode, Lisa is joined by Dr. Yotakahron Jonathan, a Mohawk Bear Clan physician from Six Nations of the Grand River. What unfolds is a deeply honest conversation about the long road to becoming a doctor — one marked by determination, racism, heartbreak, and healing. From attending her grandmother’s appointments and noticing something was wrong with how doctors communicated, to becoming one of the very few Indigenous physicians working in rural and remote communities across BC and the Northwest Territories, Yotakahron’s story is one of perseverance and purpose.

She opens up about the racism she faced in medical school, including a traumatic incident that led her to take a leave of absence and the cyber-bullying that followed. She talks about how Indigenous community support — even communities not her own — helped her heal. She also shares her role in pushing McMaster University to add Indigenous health content back into the curriculum, and the changes she’s seen since.

Beyond medicine, Yotakahron is a traditional doula, a beader, a tiny house builder, and a traveller who has visited 51 countries and all seven continents — including Antarctica with National Geographic.

What We Talk About

• How Yotakahron knew from age four she wanted to be a doctor — and what she noticed in her grandmother’s appointments that shaped her approach to health care
• Choosing social sciences over health sciences for her undergrad, and why that decision made her a better physician
• Not getting into medical school the first time, and what happened the very same day she found out
• The racism she faced in medical school, including being singled out as the only visible Native student, the cutting of Indigenous health from the curriculum, and a traumatic public incident involving a residential school survivor panel
• Taking a leave of absence, healing through ceremony and counseling, and eventually going back
• Training in UBC’s Indigenous Family Medicine program — the only one of its kind in Canada
• Working in coastal BC communities including Alert Bay, Bella Bella, and Haida Gwaii, and what it meant to be surrounded by Indigenous community during some of her hardest moments
• The complex question of practicing medicine in your own home community
• Traveling to 51 countries and all seven continents — and why Antarctica was the trip that helped her close the chapter on medical school
• Beading as a stress gauge and creative practice
• The Heartberry Podcast — two seasons of conversations about navigating racism in post-secondary education
• The full-circle moment of realizing she had become the kind of Native doctor who inspires the next generation

Guest

Dr. Yotakahron Jonathan — Mohawk Bear Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River. Family physician working in rural and remote Indigenous communities. Research and Project Coordinator for the Interactive Indigenous Research Ethics Repository at UBC’s Office of Research Ethics. Traditional doula, beader, tiny house builder, and world traveler.

Resources Mentioned

• Heartberry Podcast — available on major podcast platforms
• Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
• Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
• Facebook: Road to Your Name

Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nya:weh for listening.

Episode Description

What does it take to reclaim a language two generations after it was taken away? In this episode, host, Lisa, sits down with Maggie Yakorennio Powless-Lynes, a Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan member from Six Nations of the Grand River, who recently began her first year of the Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa (Our Language Society) adult immersion program in Ohsweken.

Maggie holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from McMaster University and a Master's in Indigenous Public Health from the University of Toronto — but after years of "maybe next year," she finally ran out of reasons not to learn her language. Two months into the intensive full-time program, she shares what the journey has been like so far: the entrance exam that requires memorizing 40 pronominal prefixes, the terror of the first two weeks, the warmth of teachers who are themselves graduates of the program, and the joy of studying alongside her older brother.

A lifelong pianist and bassoonist with the Brantford Community Symphony Orchestra, Maggie also reflects on how being a musician shaped her approach to language learning — the patience, humility, and willingness to "sound terrible for a long time" that both pursuits demand. As she puts it, you can't become a speaker without speaking.

Looking ahead, Maggie dreams of bridging two worlds that rarely meet: conducting community research entirely in Kanien'kéha, capturing people's realities in the language they actually think in.

Her traditional name, Yakorennio, means "she has a good song." It fits.

In This Episode

- [02:00] Meet Maggie: from biochemistry and public health back to community
- [03:16] Growing up with "little words and phrases" — the residential school generation and the gap it left
- [06:05] The entrance exam: 40 prefixes and one root word
- [10:00] The first two months of immersion: terrifying, intense, and deeply rewarding
- [12:28] Language and identity — "filling up a place in yourself"
- [14:16] Gratitude for the speakers who carried the language forward
- [16:16] Learning alongside her brother, and a mom who now wants to learn too
- [17:52] Maggie the musician: piano, bassoon, and performing with Semiah Smith
- [19:15] What music teaches about language: dedication, humility, and the long game
- [24:46] Places where the language is waiting: from Everlasting Tree School to adult immersion
- [27:10] The dream: doing research entirely in Kanien'kéha
- [29:05] "She has a good song" — the meaning behind Yakorennio, her traditional name

About Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa

Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa (Our Language Society) was established in 1999 by Owennatekha Brian Maracle and Onekiyohstha Audrey Maracle with the goal of creating fluent adult speakers of Kanien'kéha. The program offers first-year and second-year full-time immersion at Six Nations in the village of Ohsweken, as well as an online program for those who can't attend in person.

Links

- Aboriginal Legal Services: www.aboriginallegal.ca
- Donate: click "Donate" at the top of the ALS homepage
- Find us on Facebook: Road To Your Name

Credits

The Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services with technical assistance from True Seed Media, and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, coordinator of the Yoha:te ne kahsen:na (The Road to Your Name) program.

In This Episode:
• Kathy’s career path: from correctional officer to penitentiary warden to Deputy Commissioner for Indigenous Corrections.
• The current state of Indigenous representation in federal corrections: approximately 32% of the population and around 33% admissions.
• Key priorities: Raising the voice of Elders and culturally-informed interventions within CSC.
• The role of Elders, knowledge-holders, and spiritual advisors in correctional facilities—how their cultural work must be better understood and respected.
• Indigenous-stream programming in correctional institutions, including trauma-informed care like horse-therapy, women’s healing lodges, and expanded mother-child programs recognizing extended-family relationships.
• The significance of Section 81 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act: transferring supervision of federally-sentenced Indigenous persons to Indigenous community organizations, and the positive results of Healing Lodges.
• Challenges and opportunities in the role: policy updates, community engagement, recruiting Indigenous staff, and influencing outcomes for Indigenous offenders.
• Kathy’s motivation: influencing policy, creating choices for Indigenous people in the system, and working toward better outcomes.

Key Quotes:

Connect with Kathy Neil:
(As a senior executive public-servant, direct social media links are not listed; interview conducted by Aboriginal Legal Services)

About the Show:
The Road to Your Name explores Indigenous voices reclaiming identity, purpose, and community leadership. Each episode delves into how tradition, culture, and systemic change intersect on the journey forward.

Follow the show for more conversations like this one.

Episode Summary:
This episode was recorded in December 2023.  In this episode, Lisa sits down with Serene Porter—Wolf Clan, Mohawk Nation, at Six Nations of the Grand River—who served as the Director of Culture & Engagement for the 2023 NAIG in Halifax. Serene discusses how she infused Indigenous culture into a major multi-nation event, how her background in graphic design and photography informed the experience, and how her consulting work now supports Indigenous youth, wellness and cultural competency. The conversation explores the power of language, art, safe spaces and community-led design in creating meaningful Indigenous-led experiences.

In This Episode:
• Serene’s role in planning the 2023 NAIG: from airport arrival to sport venues, cultural villages in Halifax and Dartmouth, to supporting 5,000+ Indigenous youth.
• How Indigenous culture was integrated into every aspect of the Games: traditional sports like box lacrosse and canoe/kayak, language signage for Mi’kmaq, translation phonetics, Brave Spaces in athlete accommodations.
• The concept of “Brave Spaces” rather than “safe spaces” — enabling youth to feel seen, share, and connect through art, smudging stations, weaving, journaling and quiet space.
• Serene’s background in graphic design, photography, and the self-care workshops she facilitates (art materials, nature, mindfulness) and how this work overlaps with her consulting business.
• The cultural awareness training Serene developed for over 3,000 NAIG volunteers: covering pre-contact history, Treaty education, allyship, privilege, bias, and actionable reconciliation.
• Serene’s current work: consulting for youth-focused Indigenous programs, supporting organizations in Indigenous cultural competency, and her role with the Juno Awards in Halifax as cultural advisor.
• Creative life: Serene still plays hockey and golf, is re-engaging in drawing, beading and watercolor art as part of her grounding and cultural expression.

Key Quotes:

Connect with Serene Porter:
Instagram/Facebook: [Insert Serene’s handles if available]
Consulting & Workshops: [Website pending – “coming soon” as per interview]

About the Show:
The Road to Your Name shares conversations with Indigenous voices reclaiming identity, purpose and connection. Each episode celebrates the work, creativity and leadership of Indigenous people shaping culture, community and future-pathways.
Follow the show for more stories like this one.

Episode Summary:
This episode was recorded in July 2023.  In this episode, host, Lisa, sits down with Samantha Doxtator, of the Oneida Nation and Wolf Clan, who specializes in personal-development consulting grounded in Indigenous values, and has recently stepped into the role of steward of the Haudenosaunee star-stories research originally led by her late sister, Sasha. The discussion covers Indigenous astronomy, the deep traditions of star knowledge within Haudenosaunee culture, how this knowledge can heal and uplift Indigenous identities, and how Samantha is continuing the work of intergenerational knowledge transfer.

In This Episode:
• Samantha shares her background: travelling with life and employability skills workshops across nations, and how Indigenous astronomy gradually became a key focus.
• The research journey of Samantha’s sister Sasha, her academic work collecting Haudenosaunee star-story knowledge, her passing in 2021, and how Samantha accepted her legacy and continues it.
• The concept of star-world, sky-world, water-world, earth-world interconnections in Haudenosaunee cosmology: Samantha’s near-death experience, vision in a coma, and how it reinforced her role.
• A detailed star story: the Big Dipper (as a Bear and three warriors) and how it functions as both calendar and guide for seasons, cultural understanding, and identity.
• How meteors/meteor showers are interpreted as gifts from sky-world; the metaphor of star-dust in our veins reminding of our connection—Indigenous science meeting contemporary astronomy.
• The importance of reclaiming knowledge: the difference between “lost” and “misplaced” star-stories and the invitation for individuals to share what they know, gather oral tradition, reconnect.
• Samantha’s upcoming work: writing a kids’ book, creating a digital recording of her presentation, and continuing to share her workshops in person and online.
• How listeners can engage: seeking out stories, stepping into the sky-world connection, and inviting the knowledge back into everyday life.

Key Quotes:

Connect with Samantha Doxtator:

• Facebook: Samantha Doxtator
• Instagram: @samantha.doxtator (aka “lifeofafreelancer”)
• Email: srdoxtator [at] hotmail.com
   Samantha offers presentations on Indigenous astronomy and star-stories for schools, community centres and online workshops.

About the Show:
The Road to Your Name features conversations with Indigenous voices reclaiming identity, purpose and connection. Each episode explores how culture, story, creativity and place come together to shape personal and community futures.
Follow the show for more stories like this one.

Episode: Tyler Hill on Lacrosse, Culture, and the Creator’s Game

This episode was recorded in May of 2023.  In this episode of The Road to Your Name Podcast, host Lisa welcomes lifelong lacrosse player Tyler Hill of the Mohawk Nation. Tyler shares his journey with lacrosse — from playing catch with his dad as a child to competing at the senior level — and reflects on how the game is deeply tied to Haudenosaunee culture, spirituality, and identity.

Together, Lisa and Tyler discuss:

• Tyler’s early memories of the game and the significance of his first wooden stick
• Lessons from other sports that shaped his style of play
• The cultural and spiritual roots of lacrosse as the Creator’s Game
• Challenges facing modern lacrosse, including the culture of alcohol around the sport
• The importance of leading by example, maintaining a good mind, and playing with respect
• Tyler’s passion for mentoring youth and incorporating life lessons into coaching
• His business 4 by Hill, stringing lacrosse sticks and growing the game
• His children’s book Worm Burner, which weaves lacrosse, nature, and positive values into a story for kids
• Future projects like lacrosse camps, a board game (Rip It), and a short film

Tyler closes with an inspiring message: no matter where you are in life, you always have the power to make the right choice and help lift others up.

In This Episode:
• Jon’s early inspiration: spending movie nights with his grandmother, watching films like Jurassic Park and the extended special-features of The Lord of the Rings—the “first film school”.
• His path: studying film production (BFA) at York University, learning editing, camera work, cinematography, then directing.
• What makes Indigenous storytelling different: community, authenticity, humour, heart, deeper meaning.
• The importance of involving Indigenous crew members at every level, especially on his latest short film set on Six Nations with 65-70% Indigenous crew.
• His current projects: a narrative short about runaways from the Woodland Cultural Centre’s former Mohawk Institute Residential School, commercials for major brands (e.g., Tim Hortons, Nike) through an Indigenous-run agency.
• Advice for newcomers: start as a Production Assistant, dip your toes into departments, find what you like, build from there.
• Job realities: filmmaking is freelance, you’ll need to be your own secretary, accountant, social-media person; but the industry has grown and offers real opportunities.

Key Quotes:

Connect with Jon:
Website → jonbelliott.com

Instagram → @jon.b.elliott

About the Show:
The Road to Your Name shares conversations with Indigenous voices reclaiming identity, purpose and connection. Each episode explores how tradition, story and art intersect to build community and future pathways.

Follow the show for more stories like this one.

Show: The Road to Your Name
Host: Lisa VanEvery
Guests: Kaity Adams & Montana Adams, owners of Adams Family Ink and Boutique
(This podcast was recorded on location at Tuscarora Road.  Their business has since moved to the Log Cabin at 986 Hwy. 54 on Six Nations)
🎧 Listen: [Add your Transistor link here once live]

Episode Summary:
In this on-location episode, host Lisa visits The Adams Family Ink and Boutique on Tuscarora Road at Six Nations of the Grand River to talk with owners Kaity Adams and Montana Adams. Together they share their story of building a community-based tattoo studio and Indigenous boutique, blending art, culture, and entrepreneurship.

Kaity and Montana discuss how tattooing connects to Indigenous identity, safety standards in the industry, and how they’re helping community members express pride in who they are. The couple also highlight how traditional tattoo practices and modern business approaches come together to create a welcoming, culturally informed space for all.

In This Episode:
• Opening The Adams Family Ink and Boutique in 2021 and growing through community markets and social media
• Montana’s path to becoming a tattoo artist and his black-and-gray illustrative style
• Kaity’s exploration of hand-poke Indigenous tattooing and cultural significance
• The rebirth of Indigenous tattoo traditions as acts of reclamation and confidence
• Tattoo ethics — originality, artist integrity, and cultural respect
• Business structure, pricing, and the realities of self-employment in the tattoo industry
• Health and safety protocols, consent forms, and client comfort
• Balancing motherhood, family, and running a small business on reserve
• Boutique offerings — Indigenous-made products, beadwork, home décor, and plans for an in-house apparel line

Key Quotes:

Connect with The Adams Family Ink and Boutique:
📍 Six Nations of the Grand River, located at 986 Hwy. 54 (at the Log Cabin), Ohsweken, Ontario
Instagram → @adamsfamilyinkandboutique
Instagram:  @montysillustrations
(add if applicable)
Facebook → Adams Family Ink and Boutique

About the Show:
The Road to Your Name shares conversations with Indigenous voices reclaiming identity, purpose, and community. Each episode features stories of resilience, entrepreneurship, and cultural revitalization on Haudenosaunee territory.

Follow the show for more Indigenous stories told in a good way.

From his experiences in the Dakota 38 Memorial Ride to his involvement in an Indigenous-led circle court, Cody’s journey reveals the power of cultural connection and community healing. Today, he works as a youth facilitator and digital storyteller, helping Indigenous youth find their voice online and offline.