{"id":36411,"date":"2025-06-12T15:15:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36411"},"modified":"2025-06-20T12:38:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T16:38:31","slug":"walking-through-the-fire-highlights-truth-reconciliation-through-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/walking-through-the-fire-highlights-truth-reconciliation-through-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking Through the Fire highlights Truth & Reconciliation through collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to light a path forward together was one of the 94 Calls to Action in the final report of the National Truth & Reconciliation Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Indigenous leaders give all levels of government a failing grade in truly addressing the Calls to Action, action achieved unspooled at Aurora Town Square on Thursday evening as it played host to Walking Through the Fire, an album and film produced by the Sultans of String and more than a dozen Indigenous collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking Through the Fire brings diverse Indigenous voices \u2013 First Nations, Inuit and M\u00e9tis \u2013 together in a musical collaboration that explores many of the toughest issues in the way of Truth & Reconciliation, including Residential Schools, Indigenous-Crown relations, repercussions of the Indian Act, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film, the brainchild of Sultans violinist Chris McKhool, features artists Marc Meril\u00e4inen (Nadjiwan (Ojibwe)); Crystal Shawanda (Ojibwe Potawatomi); Raven Kanatakta (Anishinaabe Algonquin \/Onkweh\u00f3n:we Mohawk); Leela Gilday (Dene); Leanne Taneton (Dene); Northern Cree (Cree); Shannon Thunderbird & Kate Dickson (Ts\u2019msyen); Dr. Duke Redbird (Chippewa\/Anishinaabe); The North Sound (w\/ Forrest Eaglespeaker \u2013 Blackfoot); Kendra Tagoona & Tracy Sarazin (Inuit); Don Ross (Mi\u2019kmaw) and M.J. Dandeneau (M\u00e9tis); and the M\u00e9tis Fiddler Quartet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was presented by McKhool, joined by Thunderbird and Dickson, in the ATS Performance Hall on June 5 to coincide with National Indigenous History Month and while the music resonated with the more than 70 audience members, it also raised tough questions and tough responses from the trio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOut of the fire comes a few ways of being, of thinking, of seeing,\u201d said Thunderbird in reference to questions on Ontario\u2019s controversial Bill 5 and ongoing wildfires in the Prairies. \u201cWhen you look at the fire as a bit of a metaphor, there\u2019s always new growth, and even with the devastation that is going on in the Prairies, there will be new growth that comes out of that, as horrifying as it is to watch right now. But fire is powerful and when I looked at Walking Through the Fire\u2026 I have been on a fire walk all my life, coming through many things. There\u2019s warmth and there\u2019s goodness about fire, but there\u2019s also great, deep knowledge about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For McKhool, the spark that resulted in Walking Through the Fire was stoked by Dr. Duke Redbird, who questioned how the Sultans would follow up their Refugee Project, which shone a light on new immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody says no to Duke Redbird,\u201d joked Thunderbird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was about two years of writing and connecting with Indigenous artists and the whole recording process,\u201d McKhool continued. \u201cThen, we only ever thought it was going to be a CD. We thought, okay, we\u2019re going to make a beautiful piece of art \u2013 it\u2019s going to be a statement and people can learn from it, but we never imagined that it would actually turn into a live show [and film] but that really caught fire and we spent the last two years doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll just say from my point of view, because I grew up in the Ontario school system, I thought I knew a lot. Through this experience, I realized I knew nothing about the actual Indigenous experience, that everything I was taught in school was a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot was accomplished in a comparatively short period of time with the project, both personally and professionally, but, the presenters agreed, the same can\u2019t be said regarding the 94 Calls to Action in the last decade since they were published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complete failure,\u201d said Thunderbird. \u201cThis is the tenth anniversary of the release of the Commission Report and the 94 Calls to Action, and to this date, 13 Calls to Action have been completed out of 94, and they were the simple ones, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I am asked to do a land acknowledgement, I refuse,\u201d she continued. \u201cWhat am I acknowledging? That it was okay for the Crown to take the land? Really? What Kate (Dickson) and I do is what\u2019s called a Land Statement in which we explain our relationship with the land, with the environment, and how that is the bedrock of our spirituality and our cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dickson noted it\u2019s important to \u201cfeel what you feel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s that old phrase of knowing sets you free,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure how that sets you free, however you have to just know about everything, no matter how awful it might be, no matter how unpleasant it makes you feel, because being unsettled spurs you to action\u2026. We need help to find our way. We\u2019re refusing to give up. We will never give up, and regardless of who they think are the fathers of this country, we will not go away. But because you\u2019re now looking at the collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, which is a partnership now, we can give you solace, we can give you philosophy that goes back to help your soul, and you can help us with the politics. How does that work for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that you sit here, and the fact that you listen to us, the fact you\u2019re taking it in, and the fact that there is a communal sympathy here in the room means absolutely everything. It means everything to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on The Sultans of String and Walking Through the Fire, visit sultansofstring.com\/2023\/08\/walkingthroughthefire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to light a path forward together was one of the 94 Calls to Action in the final report of the National Truth & Reconciliation Commission. While Indigenous leaders give all levels of government a failing grade in truly addressing the Calls to Action, action achieved unspooled at Aurora Town […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/2025-06-12-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9th","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:56:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36415,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36411\/revisions\/36415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}