Well, I think that the young people, they need to be approaching their community elders, especially here in Cree country. I live in Edmonton right now because I’m going to school.
There’s such a wealth of knowledge with the people here and I think sometimes, we think there isn’t anything, like we say, “Oh well, I don’t know any elders that know things.” Or we think that, but really our parents have a lot of knowledge, as do our grandparents and I think that we just have to overcome that thinking and look around us and see all the good things that are around us, the good people that are around us that do want to communicate with us and teach us, you know, traditions.
I also think that tradition has a place in this contemporary society, you know, it really helps us understand who we are with that good grounding. Knowing who we are, then we can do anything, you know. We can be a filmmaker or we can be a dancer in the contemporary sense or we can do any of those things, that teacher, if we know who we are and we have a strong understanding and grounding in our culture. I think sometimes again, we underestimate what we know. Many of us do know things but maybe we just don’t value that knowledge and so if we start to think about that knowledge in a good way and really value it, we really start to value ourselves. But, I just think to encourage young people out there to go to their elders and to go their families and ask questions. And if you wanted to roadblock you just have to be willing to continue to go to someone else and ask and you know and be ready to do that. It’s not always easy, but there are some really good people here in Cree country and in other places too. There are really good, strong people that are willing to share things.