Living Legacy Project with Celia Haig-Brown

Celia Haig-Brown

Four community sessions  will invite the public to join a dialogue using art and conversationEach session will offer a chance for speakers and audience members to examine what it means “To be in good relation. 

The series draws on the “Four Rs” proposed by Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt. Using each of the Four Rs, Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility and lastly Return, sessions will focus on practical ways to work well together. Tickets are $12.

Celia Haig-Brown, the youngest of the Haig-Brown children, has returned to her home river, house, and community that shaped her. In conversations with Indigenous writers, artists, and other Haig-Brown family members, she reflects on the lasting impact of the lessons passed down from her parents. 

Four community sessions and a workshop will invite the public to join the dialogue using art and conversation. Each session will offer a chance for speakers and audience members to examine what it means “To be in good relation.”  

The series of conversations draws on the “Four Rs” proposed by Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt. Using each of the Four Rs (Relevance, Reciprocity, Responsibility and lastly Return), sessions will focus on practical ways to work well together. The first session will use the theme of relevance to examine what it means “to be in good relation.” The second session will focus on reciprocity, the third, responsibility, and the fourth, return. Underlying all of them will be how to work with respect.     

Celia especially thanks Verna Kirkness (Cree), Jo-ann Archibald (Sto:lo), Kaaren Dannenmann (Aniisinaabe), Ruth Green (Haudenosaunee), and the students and staff of UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program (NITEP) as some of the many who have shared Indigenous knowledge that informs these sessions. Each session will include time for Q&A with the audience. 

Session 1:  To be in good relation: relevance 

Saturday, January 25
Time: 1:00 to 3:00 pm  
Location: The Museum at Campbell River  
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door 

Wickee Cussee/Randy Fred of the Tseshaht Nation, a publisher, videographer, and co-author, will join Celia for this opening session. Randy, who previously worked with Arsenal Pulp Press, recognized the value of Celia’s manuscript Resistance and Renewal when other publishers had turned it down. Randy saw his own experience at residential school reflected in the manuscript and knew immediately that it needed to be published. It became one of the first books to give voice to residential school survivors in their own words. 

In this session, Randy and Celia will discuss their collaborative work over the years, including their 2022 book Tsqelmucwílc: Kamloops Indian Residential School—Resistance and a Reckoning, which is a revisiting of the original manuscript published in 1988. 

A key focus in the conversation will be the importance of building strong relationships with the people you work with, which is essential for successful writing, filmmaking, and publishing. Randy and Celia will share the teachings that have guided their work together. Randy’s move to filmmaking combined with Celia’s journey moving from text to film and back again provide a range of entry points for the audience to question, and to reflect on their own strengths and interests. 

The session will end with a screening of Pelq’ilc/Coming Home, a short film co-directed by Celia and her niece Helen Haig-Brown, an award-winning Tsilhqut’in filmmaker. The film focuses on the place of education in renewing Indigenous culture and tradition. It is based on interviews with the children and grandchildren of residential school survivors first interviewed for a 1986 study done by Celia Haig-Brown. 

Session 2:  To be in good relation: reciprocity 

Saturday February 22
Time: 1:00 to 3:00 pm  
Venue: To be confirmed
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door.

Garry Gottfriedson is a writer and poet as well as a Secwepemc Nation knowledge holder and cultural leader. He joins Celia in the second community conversation examining what it means “to be in good relation.” This session holds reciprocity as its theme.  

Their presentation draws on and makes explicit the reciprocity that has shaped their work and their friendship; the mutual support, collaboration and the shifting of roles from teacher and student. Celia served as Garry’s grade 10 English teacher in Kamloops many years ago. Over the years, they have often switched roles as teacher and student. Most recently, each has contributed a foreword to the other’s publication. In this session, Garry will read from his current work of poetry and engage in discussion of content and process with the audience/participants.  

The session will conclude with the second short film co-directed by Celia and her niece Helen Haig-Brown, an award-winning Tsilhqut’in filmmaker. This one, entitled Cowboys, Indians and Education features Garry as one of the major contributors. It draws on interviews with children and grandchildren and former students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School where both Garry and his mum were students. It follows the journey of families as they work to regenerate traditional knowledge in their current contexts. 

Session 3:  To be in good relation: responsibility 

Saturday, March 22 
Time: 1:00 to 3:00 pm 
Venue: River City Theatre 
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door.

Grandson of Roderick and Ann Haig-Brown, Sihlgyang/Desmond Bowker is a Haida artist and poet and will be leading with session with his mother, Mary Haig-Brown. Sihlgyang is a successful artist, carver, and educator who also works with poetry and music. He will discuss his process of coming to artistic practice in these varied forms.  

Sihlgyang grew up in Vancouver and Victoria after being adopted into a non-Indigenous family. This third session in the series will include a conversation between adopted son and mother, and examines the responsibilities such a relationship creates. Responsibility to each other, to birth family, and to community.   

The second part of the session will focus on a short film created by independent filmmaker Jordan O’Connor. Entitled The Pink Typewriter is in the Jam Closet, it is a reflection on the relationship amongst the Haig-Brown siblings as they return to the Campbell River and Haig-Brown House in the summer of 2018. In Jordan’s words, “Having met Celia Haig Brown when working as an editor on her film, Listen to the Land, I learned about Celia and her siblings. When the opportunity arose to film all the siblings together in the house where they were raised, a film was born. As for the title, “Pink Typewriter”, you’ll have to watch and see. 

Session 4: To be in good relation: return 

Saturday, May 3 on Ann Haig-Brown Day 
Venue:  Vineyard Christian Fellowship at 2215 Campbell River Road 
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm  
Tickets: $12 available here and at the door.

This final session brings the series full circle. On Ann Haig-Brown Day, Celia Haig-Brown engages in conversation with her brother, Alan Haig-Brown, on a day that feels especially fitting. Returning to the place and rivers where he was born, Alan will read from and discuss his newly completed work White Boy (m̓am̓aɫa) Goes Fishing. The book starts with lessons from his late father-in-law Herb Assu during Alan’s decade of working on the Assu-family seine boat. He views this experience as the beginning of his international career in publishing, writing, and photography, focused on fishermen, commercial fishing, and the broader marine industry. Alan will be joined by his daughter, the acclaimed Tsilhqot’in filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown, known for her award-winning film Legacy and co-directing Edge of the Knife, the first film made in the Haida language. 

Workshop: Conducting respectful research  

Saturday, April 5, 2025 
Time: 10:00am to 4:00 pm 
Venue: Museum at Campbell River 
Maximum: 16  people
Register here

Celia Haig-Brown, Professor Emerita and Senior Scholar at York University in Toronto, will lead this workshop for those interested in respectful research. Drawing on her work over the years with Indigenous peoples and more recently with women involved in producing rodeo, she will present some of what she continues to learn. Whether working with print or film, whether creating or reading research, respect for those involved is integral to being in good relation to the work. From initial connections to creating an archive after the completion of the work, Celia will share her current thinking on working with people in respectful ways. Writers, readers, teachers and other interested community members should bring their work and their questions to the session. 

Museum at Campbell River respectfully acknowledges the Liǧʷiɫdax̌ʷ First Nation, on whose traditional lands we work to preserve, interpret and share the collective human history of North Vancouver Island. The Liǧʷiɫdax̌ʷ First Nation is comprised of the We Wai Kai, Wei Wai Kum and Kwiakah First Nations. Our closest neighbors are the Coast Salish Xwemalhkwu, Klahoose and K’ómoks First Nations.

These nations have close connections to the land where Campbell River is located today.

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