The objective of this research stems from many visits to the Kainai Nation, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy located in the southern part of Alberta (a Province in Western Canada). The researcher spent over three years visiting the Reserve, an area where the Blackfoot people were forced to live...barren, windy prairies, forced from their homes in the beautiful and abundant Canadian Rocky Mountains. The research emerged from my visits to the Nation in a desire to create relationships with the teachers, administrators, and students at the three schools based on the Reserve. I intended to observe and write about the education system on the Blackfoot land.  However, after beginning my visits, observing and asking questions, I realized that I was not there to create a profile of the Canadian Indigenous tribe, but as a friend, I was there to listen to their stories, their anger, their hopes, and their tragedies.  My intent to "observe" the schools was quickly discarded and I continued to visit the community as a friend.  The relationships I made were authentic with both sides of the relationship.  We discussed our lives, ate together, worked with students together, we created artistic relics of the work we continued to do and the months quickly turned to years as I drove 400 km each way to visit the Reserve.

Instead of the research being my end goal, I realized that the relationships that we had created together deserved my ears and eyes. We often discussed Social Justice and the First Nations people gave strong opinions about the phrase and how shallow it was.  Listening became essential in our discussions, I heard stories from the children, the youth, the teachers, and the tribal Elders.  As much as I felt I was ready for engaging with the relationships that grew out of our visits, my own heart felt heavy and my feelings for the community deepened.  It was in the second year that the students and teachers began to discuss how they felt being "put" on a Reserve, dragged from their tribal lands with water, moose, deer, elk, fish, birds, trees: food, shelter, and a fullness of life.  Like many of North American Indigenous peoples, they were displaced and forced to live in uncomfortable and unknown areas.  By the 1900s, many became addicted to whiskey, and their communities were patroled by police: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and their souls were forced into Catholic, Mormon, and Angelican ways of being.

After the second year of my community engagement with my Blackfoot friends, I began filming in the community, the residents were thrilled that I wanted to film them and to hear their stories.  While filming them was basically for my own archival memories, I realized that there were two people I wanted to film and share with my own white colonial people.  I had become close to an Elder and his granddaughter, and asked them if I could film them.  I wanted to film their stories.  The Elder was a product of residential schools and was forced to live with Angelican priests for 12 years.  His granddaughter was a student at Kainai High School and a leader in her circles.  Both of them defied all the horrendous names and stereotypes that white Canadians had associated them with. 

The film was a poignant 23 minute film and I was given a blessing by the Elder and his granddaughter to share the product, allowing white people to see who they really were. 

I discuss importance of intercultural relationships and ways a simple research project became lifelong relationships and corrections to stereotypes.

When first meeting the Blackfoot people, I offered tobacco and handshake, there was no contract or document used.The first part of the "research" was not intended to be research, it was an act of community engagement. However, after spending time with the tribal members, they encouraged me to make the film in order to tell their story. Consequently, ethnographic interviews turned into short prompts and 1 hour turned into long story telling and explanations. The stories of both grandfather and daughter emerged by my listening and watching. The film became a testament to how intercultural relations emerge. While I learned and valued much of the Blackfoot ways of life, my friends learned much about my life and my ways. They were particularly interested in me being Jewish as they had been inundated by religious groups as they were colonized. I must note that this is the first time I have submitted this story and film to a conference, and I made sure that it was acceptable to the tribal members. They want their truths to be told and as I had become part of their family, I could tell the truths. See conclusion below for more depth.

I concluded that intercultural relationships are not just a way to achieve research or a paper, but they must be authentic and observations discussed and shared without hesitation or secrecy in this type of community engagement. I use that phrase a lot as it allows readers to know that these are not subjects but individual people who have welcomed me into their lives. It is essential to note (as it is in the film) that Abraham Maslow spent a great deal of time with the Blackfoot Confederacy Indigenous Peoples and took from them his model shaped like a tipi for hierarchy of needs. The Blackfoot accused him of coming into their communities and lying to them and were disgusted with his publication which did not acknowledge them. This is why I consider this presentation as sharing my story and my observations, but not as doing "research on." I consider my friends my equals and carry with me, their trust.

McDiarmid, J.(2019). "Highway of Tears." Toronto: Anchor Canada Publishing. Lowen-Trudeau, G. (2015). "From Bricolage to Metissage." New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Ross, Rupert. (2014). "Indigenous Healing." Penguin Books. Good, Michelle. (2023). "Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada." HarperCollins. Kovach, Margaret. (2009). " Indigenous Methodologies." University of Toronto Press.