Revealing the Invisible: Connie Walker and the Power of Indigenous Stories

Winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, Connie Walker uses her personal journey to highlight indigenous realities to the general public. Indigenous Spaces spoke to him.

When Pamela George, a young Saulteaux from the community of Sakimay, Saskatchewan, died at the hands of two white men, Connie Walker is 16 years old. And she remembers it very well.

The murderers, who were both convicted, were described as young people without history. One was a they decided basketballthe other a hockey playershe says.

Pamela George was presented as a native prostitute. We didn’t even give his name… It was terrible. The way the media reported on her was very dehumanizingsaid Mrs. Walker on the other end of the line.

Connie Walker explains that she was still in high school and that she did not really understand what was hidden behind this difference in treatment.

But I knew that if they [les médias] said that about her, they could say the same thing about me. They could say the same thing about my aunts, my cousins…

The young Connie grew up in Saskatchewan where racist remarks are commonplace, according to her. I remember a girl once telling me “at least I’m not Indian”. My grandmother was a strong and very proud woman and always told us that we should not be intimidated.says Mrs. Walker.

After Pamela George’s death, she first considered becoming a journalist.

It was only several years later, at the age of 21, that she landed a first internship at CBC Halifax. She realizes how difficult it is to convince the media to talk about Indigenous issues. Despite everything, she persists. Little by little, she finds allies within her editorial team. After her internship, she decided to stay in the public service, but in Toronto.

According to her, the digital shift speeded things up, because for the first time, we were able to prove how many times an article had been read, how many times it had been shared on social networks, how many times a podcast had been downloaded. We had proof that Canadians are interested in these stories.

Indigenous women missing or murdered…

Almost as a matter of course, missing and murdered indigenous women are quickly at the heart of the work of Connie Walker.

The drama that affected Pamela George’s family has never left her since, a few years after the creation of CBC Indigenousa section of the website of CBC dedicated to indigenous issues, the team established a database that listed all unsolved cases of missing or murdered indigenous women across the country.

Connie Walker remembers her 13-minute bulletin report The National on Leah Andersona 15-year-old Cree girl from Manitoba, found dead near a snowmobile trail. There is so much about his life that we couldn’t includeshe laments.

Frustrated by the production requirements imposed by the television format, particularly the short time allocated to broadcast reports, Connie Walker told herself that a podcast would give her the luxury of going in-depth on the subjects.

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Pour Connie Walkerit was a great way to talk about residential schools, colonization, the history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the distrust that exists towards it.

As an Indigenous woman, telling such stories is not necessarily easy. While recognizing it, Connie Walker believes he learned a lot during the production of his podcast, which will be called Missing and Murdered.

I was able to learn how to provide support to families, but also instill best practices within our teamsshe specifies.

…at residential schools

In 2019, it’s time to Connie Walker to turn the page CBC. She then joins Gimlet Media with which she created a second podcast, very personal, which tells the story of her father: Stolen : Surviving St Michael’s.

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And Connie Walker knew that his father, Harry Bellegardehad attended a boarding school, she did not know that it was that of St. Michael’sin British Columbia. She had no idea what hell it had been, until the first disastrous discoveries near the former Kamloops residential school in 2021.

For the first time, members of his family break their silence. His brother publishes a part of their father’s story on social networks.

He worked at the GRC. In the late 1970s, while on night patrol, he saw a vehicle swerving and suspected the driver was drunktell Connie Walker.

Harry Bellegarde found himself face to face with a ghost: the priest of his boarding school, the one who had abused him when he was a child. My father told my brother that he had beaten the priest that night because of what he had done to him.she continues.

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When she learns this, Connie Walker is in shock. I had so many questions, but this also gave me a lot of answersshe whispers.

Why her father was violent, why she had never been close to him, why her parents separated when she was still a child…

Since I couldn’t interview my father [Harry Bellegarde est décédé en 2013, NDLR]I spoke to his siblings and they were incredible interviews. They told me a lot of things. These stories shaped his life and they continue to shape our familiesbelieves the journalist shouts.

I realized that part of the motivations [des membres de ma famille] was to help me get to know my father better.

Indeed, Harry Bellegarde didn’t just have a dark side. Thanks to his interviews for the podcast, Connie Walker was also able to understand how he had healed, how he had found his language, his link with his spirituality and his culture, and how much strength and resilience he had.

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In addition to continuing to inform Canadians about the consequences of residential schools, Connie Walker was somehow able to make peace with his father. This podcast allowed him to discover the extent of the abuse committed in this school, while maintaining a link with the present and what is happening in our communitiesadds Ms. Walker.

This story won him the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in the category audio report.

It was surreal. My work is part of a chorus of Indigenous journalists who are also stepping forward and telling their stories. I am proud of themshe said.

For Indigenous people to tell their stories

Connie Walker believes that we must now allow Indigenous people to regain power over their stories, to allow them to tell their own stories, particularly because they have a detailed knowledge of the historical context.

For a long time, it was said that Aboriginal people did not have the right to tell their own stories. They were seen as activists or biased peoplebelieves Mrs. Walker.

She pushes for journalists to become story tellers rather than story takersreferring to journalists who come to indigenous communities without commitment and who take stories then leave.

I want to help Canadians and everyone listening to us better understand our communities. I want to help break down some of the stereotypes that exist, and create a space for understanding and connection.

Today, Connie Walker is working on a new project, secret for the moment.

This news can be viewed in Chinese (New window) on the website of RCI (New window).