Woman documents journey to Metis identity

Page 16

Merelda Fiddler has been asking questions all of her life.

"I was always big into questions as a kid and I would talk to strangers a lot. Which used to freak my mother out a lot because I was always talking to whoever was around. I always wanted to know what it was they did and why. I believe that 'why' was probably the first word out of my mouth," she said.

With her inquisitive nature, combined with a love of politics and writing, it's no wonder the 27-year-old from Meadow Lake became a journalist.

"I used to write plays in junior high and in high school and when I got to university, I was always trying to think of ways to make money as a writer. And so I guess that sort of sets you up for journalism as a profession. It seemed like a natural fit and what I like the best about it is telling stories," she said.

Fiddler completed a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and communications from the University of Regina, and is currently an associate producer with CBC Radio in Regina. She also teaches a course in communications arts at the First Nations University of Canada, and is taking part-time courses towards a master's degree in Metis history.

Fiddler has recently completed work on a documentary, Fiddler's Map, in which she explores her Metis roots and some of the obstacles her heritage presented while she was growing up. The documentary was aired for the first time on Global television in early August.

One of the personal stories she shares in the documentary is about not being invited to a friend's sleep-over birthday party because she was Metis.

"I have very fair skin and I used to have blonde hair but I've since dyed it. I guess in some ways if I had grown up in the city no one would have really known that I had any Cree blood in me. No one would have known I was Metis. But growing up in Meadow Lake everybody knew everybody. So the story I told in the documentary-about my being 10 and the birth-day party and sleep over and not being able to go because of my last name being Fiddler-was a painful experience because it did not really matter to them what I looked like. It was the way they treated me as an Indian," she said.

"My cousins have darker complexions and they look more like Aboriginal people than I do and I never understood what they were going through until then.

"I remember being told, 'Why don't you just say you are French? Wouldn't life be much easier if you did, if you just did not tell people that you are Aboriginal? My mom is not Aboriginal, she is French, and I remember going home and telling her what happened with this sleep over and she said 'You know there is nothing that I can tell you that is going to make this better, and there is nothing you can do about certain people and their attitudes or how they view the world. But what you have to understand is being different is not a bad thing, that you can still do all the things that you want to do no matter what.' She was really supportive."

Fiddler's goal in making the documentary was to increase public awareness of the Metis people and their culture.

"A lot of people do not understand what 1885 was all about. I guess doing this documentary was because I wanted people to know that we as Metis people did not go away and disappear in the 1885 rebellion. That there are still Metis people in Canada and that we exist and that we will continue to exist. We live all over the place and in almost every community across Canada. It is sort of like the treaties, they ask 'When is this going to end?' Well it does not end. Culture does not end. It keeps growing and changing and becoming other things but it is still there and it is constant," she said.

While society wasn't always welcoming to a young Metis girl growing up in Saskatchewan, Fiddler is encouraged by the way things today are slowly changing for the better.

"They now have Elders in schools and First Nations art classes and they have all kinds of things to make you proud to be n Aboriginal person. When I was growing up they did not have these things, it was very mainstream," she said.

And Fiddler herself is working to help speed those changes, through projects such a Fiddler's Map.

"One of the things that my mother taught me was that I was in this world to make a difference," she explained.

"My mother said to me that with some people I was never going to change their mind. 'You are never going to make them see because they do not want to see, but I still think that everyone has an obligation to say something about it and then walk away'. She would tell me that it did not matter who I was or what race I was from, that everybody had a gift and life was all about us recognizing each other and creating an understanding for the differences," she said.

"I believe that everything is not a hill to die on and sometimes you've just got to say, 'OK that is your point of view but let me know if you want to know something else. If you want to ask me a question I'm open to that.' That is how you've got to be. You have to be strong."