Charles Joseph is an accomplished artist who works primarily in cedar carving and has produced a body of work within and extending his native tradition. He is a member of the Kwakwaka'wa people, who have lived for thousands of years on what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. This was a deeply emotional conversation. Charles talks about his experience in residential schools, the way he blamed the world after getting out, rejecting religion, eventually finding God again, the meaning of reconciliation, and more. This episode was sponsored by Ladder Life, a company that provides life insurance for the elderly and disabled. When you apply for less than $3 million in coverage from your phone or laptop, Ladder s smart algorithms will tell you if you re approved on the spot, so they re not there to upsell you, just to help you. You can cancel within 30 days for a full refund. And if you like it by going to LadderLife.co/JBP today to see if you ve been approved, you ll get a discount of up to $100 a month or $10,000 a year. You can't get more than $100,000 in life insurance with L-A-D-R-L-E-R Life, which is 100% digital, without any hidden fees, and just $10 a month, just $100 per year. Try it by calling 1-800-LADDER and get 20% off your entire life insurance policy, plus a $100 in rebates, and you ll be set up for the future you deserve! Learn more about your ad-free version of the JBP Podcast by clicking here. JBP is a $10-a-month, $100 or $150 a year, and get 10% off of your first month, plus an additional $150 in free shipping when you sign up for JBP + $5,000 when you become a JBP+ membership! JBP can be your first year, plus you get $10 or $25, you get an ad free version of JBP Plus + $50 a month. . Subscribe to JBP by becoming JBP VIP! You'll get $100 and get $5 a month for a year of the podcast, plus $25 a month and $50 off your first JBP membership gets you an additional month, and a total of $50 or $75 a month gets you a FREE PRICING plan.
00:44:42.020while you're sitting with me i have family
00:44:45.840members up your house right now packing
00:44:47.840you and your family out and you're moving in the last ferry you're moving to camber river and i don't want you to see me the way you're gonna swear i'm gonna be i want you to remember me who i am and what i am now not when i get sick
00:45:04.340and i'm begging her not to do that because we still needed her and i still needed more knowledge from her
01:13:54.980yeah look there there's with alcoholism there's a scientific literature on alcohol abuse and one of the most effective treatments for alcohol abuse is spiritual transformation it's the only it's the only treatment so to speak for alcoholism that's really been validated and so that's that's really quite something and you know you said that you found something that was more important fundamentally i mean there's more to it than that but
01:14:24.960that's to be taken seriously you know i quit drinking when i was about 28 and the reason i quit was because i was writing well there's a couple reasons i was having kids and i wasn't going to drink when i had little kids i that just wasn't a good idea
01:14:38.480and uh you know the only time i was doing things that i would be ashamed of the next day or a week late or something it was always if i was drinking and so i thought well maybe i don't want to do things i'm ashamed of anymore
01:14:52.160but also because i was writing and i was writing about mythology and stories and all of that it was very hard work and very emotionally demanding but i couldn't do it well if i was hung over
01:15:03.900and so i thought well which do i want to be do i want to write this book or do i want to be hung over
01:15:09.300and so i stopped and i stopped for 30 years i guess i drank a little bit again when i was in my early 50s
01:15:17.560but i quit again after that because i found that even though it's about 25 years had gone by
01:15:23.060if i drank again i usually drank too much and then i you know was likely to do something stupid and i thought
01:15:29.020well no it's just not worth it at all it's not worth it at all yeah laughing with you
01:15:34.820yeah yeah no i understand and so how many people worked with you on that on those those big poles that you produced i mean you produced some eight footers for me
01:15:46.360eight and ten feet i guess the welcome figure must be nine feet about
01:15:49.940when i worked on your stuff jordan there was just the family me oceanic james and frankie
01:15:58.180myself my brother leonard my brother gordon my late nephew johnny and my nephew mike and orbit
01:16:15.140leonard jr and so it sort of it was uh like like i've always done i've always family effort right i make sure
01:16:24.580i keep my family involved and and so they they keep in touch with culture and then when we had that
01:16:32.820ceremony a lot of my family members didn't make it but one of the ones that did make it they were never
01:16:39.700you know introduced to the culture because they lived in vancouver all their lives are uh urbanized
01:16:48.100so when they got to come home it was a big teaching to them too right because they were
01:16:52.980never ever been involved in it so it was good to see that uh it works was it good for them to do the
01:17:02.500carving oh geez you should have seen how they felt when it got stood up they were so proud of being part
01:17:09.620of that you know what i mean and i was proud to see that how happy they look when they seen the creation
01:17:16.820that we did together as a family stood up somewhere where we're never going to probably go again you
01:17:23.140know who knows yeah that was it and so what do you think about it being in montreal and the
01:17:30.180busiest street there pretty much sherbrooke's a major street i mean it's one of the main streets
01:17:35.460of montreal it's beautiful street and it's in front of the museum of fine art which is really something
01:17:40.340because that's definitely one of the finest museums in canada it doesn't look like it's going anywhere
01:17:45.860soon no uh well i mentioned to them that you know one day you guys should return this pool and get your own
01:17:58.020but uh um and i tried to approach them with another idea was that as i would like to take a log there
01:18:06.020to the mohawk people a raw log and then work with the mohawk artists and see what we can come up with
01:18:14.420and that's that's one of the ideas i had just so um
01:18:24.020are do you have more of a car that are interested in jordan reconciliation with another tribe it's i
01:18:30.340don't know if i want to call it that i think it's just to to rekindle what our elders did before us
01:18:36.980you know and get go back to uh being related in in in uh all the nations across uh canada i guess
01:18:48.820so when you've approached the museum with that idea what happened um because that's a great idea do you
01:18:54.740have mohawk carvers that are interested i know of a couple that were and then we were gonna first
01:19:01.380get that idea on a table then i was gonna bring it to the mohawk chiefs that i that i didn't invited
01:19:07.140to the poll raising and then see what would become of it
01:19:14.900yeah so i haven't heard nothing back from that yet but one good thing that came out of that since that
01:19:22.340time though is um they had this thing that they were talking about the totem pole inside the museum
01:19:30.020and then they had people make footprints and what they thought about the story of the pole
01:19:36.820and then they leave their footprint behind i think that's one of the things that they did there and then
01:19:44.100on the 30th of last month they weren't uh national with the story of the pole
01:19:52.340i haven't got any feedback on my site and stuff about it yet but soon i guess
01:19:57.540so can i ask you a political question or two yeah why not well you know canada is hypothetically
01:20:05.540engaging in this soul searching process this reconciliation process and i'm kind of curious about
01:20:14.260i mean there's parts of it that i really not very i don't feel good about like for example now
01:20:21.300before most ceremonies before most public events in eastern canada there is a statement about the land
01:20:31.220that this the people this land once belonged to it i don't like that because it it seems hypocritical to
01:20:38.900me and and and not real and i think it's showy and false and well that might just be me but i'm pretty
01:20:47.300curious about you're looking at this from well from a completely different perspective than me and
01:20:53.300like what do you think about this reconciliation effort and has it been helpful to you and to people
01:20:58.740you know and is it real and okay jordan i need to ask you something this has been on my mind for a while
01:21:07.700and i wanted to ask you that quite a while ago but what does that mean reconciliation about this that
01:21:15.940in my mind that that means two parties that are are two parties that are saying they did something wrong
01:21:26.660and and trying to fix it that's that's what my thoughts what reconciliation means but that's why i don't
01:21:35.540agree with it because we're not the ones in the fault there they are
01:21:43.780so that's what i'm going to tell you a story charles okay okay i want to tell you a story
01:21:49.300this is a story that a friend of mine who committed suicide wrote
01:21:54.020uh he lived up in in high high prairie high level i think it was high level in alberta and there were a lot
01:22:01.140of native kids there and he was probably around 10 or so and he used to get beat up fairly regularly
01:22:07.620and was often by the native kids and he wouldn't fight back and the reason he wouldn't fight back
01:22:12.820was because he felt guilty and that guilt you know that guilt about i don't know it's the horrible hand
01:22:21.860of history i suppose charles that guilt like that eventually ate him up and killed him now he had other problems but
01:22:29.380where did his guilt come from well he felt that he was an interloper and he was an occupier and he
01:22:39.780didn't have the right to fight back and so he wouldn't fight back and you know then he he uh decided
01:22:46.900when he was a teenager that anything he did that was sort of masculine and achievement oriented and
01:22:51.860ambitious was wrong because it was associated with all this historical cruelty and so he just stopped
01:22:57.700himself from doing anything and it killed him it's not that uncommon you know and i've been thinking
01:23:04.820about this a lot you you look into the history of mankind and it's pretty damn bleak you know
01:23:10.020there's a lot of horror in the past a lot of bloodshed a lot of warfare a lot of cruelty
01:23:15.300a lot of malevolence and we all have to contend with that and like for me that you asked about
01:23:21.780reconciliation for me it's getting to know you you know i had some native friends when i grew up
01:23:27.300it was it was hard there was a big gap yeah you know i'll tell you a story i'll remember this man
01:23:33.060so i i had this friend off and on friend he was a native guy his name was dennis hellie i think dennis
01:23:39.220is still alive and we kind of had a friendship in grade six and he was a big rough kid and i was a bit
01:23:45.140afraid of him but he was a good guy good looking kid and he was smart but and we were trying to
01:23:51.220have a friendship and i'd invited him to go to the movie with me that night and then we were sitting
01:23:57.860in class and my dad was teaching the class and dennis was chewing gum and my dad said dennis stop
01:24:05.700chewing that gum you sound like a cow and i said dennis the cow ha ha ha and then he looked at me and he
01:24:13.780like and he meant you're you're dead after school and so i was terrified the whole damn day and
01:24:22.020after school i zipped out by where where the bikes were and dennis came after me and i was sort of
01:24:28.260running around the bikes and trying to stay away from him and i sort of hid behind this i don't know
01:24:33.460what it was there was some structure there and he was on the other side of it and i said dennis you know
01:24:39.460we could stop fighting i'd still like to go to the movie with you tonight and he broke into tears and
01:24:45.620ran home yeah so reconciliation that's a hard thing eh yeah and maybe that's kind of what you and i are
01:24:55.700doing i think so but what i wanted to know it's not easy you know because there's a lot of bad blood and
01:25:04.900there's a lot of horror and and none of us really know how to do it you know we come from very different
01:25:12.980places and we don't know how to make that work it's not a simple thing or why it happened you know why
01:25:20.420why are we so separated and then the greatest thing is now we're together
01:25:27.620well that's something isn't it and the totem pole's in montreal and that's something too
01:25:35.860we're not just friends we're family yeah that's what i mean about the greatest thing for me
01:25:42.420is how we reconnect is right and how you and i met and why
01:25:49.140you know i think a lot of this sort of thing has to be done at the individual level you know
01:25:52.980and then what i love about it is that we stay we're still connected we're still growing
01:26:04.420yeah we're doing our best man yeah and i love that it makes me feel good that i'm part of that
01:26:11.780yeah me too it's really been something charles this all these things that we've been through
01:26:17.060it was it was hard you know i've been sick for about three years now and i haven't talked to you much
01:26:22.660didn't have the stamina for it you know i was pretty isolated myself from pretty much everybody
01:26:28.740except my immediate family but we've been on some great adventures you and me that potlatch was really
01:26:35.780something that ceremony you know when you you and your guys came and your and your wife too your whole
01:26:42.500family came to my house to do the ceremony to open the third floor that was the same day so that
01:26:48.820was when i was inducted into your family you know people have made fun of that and said that i was
01:26:53.380lying and well it's not a lie no and and that was the same day that i was being accused of being a
01:27:00.100bigot and a racist at the university it was the same goddamn day the same day the debate the
01:27:05.140debate there was a big debate there when everything blew up around me so i went from this debate where
01:27:10.340you know i was basically being accused of being a racist and a bigot to this ceremony in my house where
01:27:15.380i was inducted into your family it was a pretty damn weird day i can tell you that
01:27:22.020okay when we've got to change that word
01:27:26.500abducted when we were when we had i chose our family had a meeting and we had a meeting with
01:27:35.220all of my joseph family and some hereditary chiefs about adopting you and your family into our family in
01:27:41.940the ceremony house and then the chiefs had asked me what was the reason for doing that and i explained
01:27:52.500to him what how we've met and how long i've been friends with you and your wife and kids
01:27:59.700and then the importance of hanging on to that friendship and the importance of what i was not just
01:28:08.980sharing with you but also learning from you and and your family and what what it was was that i
01:28:17.780i really was yawning for was that living in a happy positive way that you guys lived in and i wanted some
01:28:27.220of that i was hungry for it so i wanted to inhale all i could from you guys and learn from it
01:28:35.460and it makes me feel really good to be part of that because who would have thought that
01:28:43.460i would understand those feelings but i do
01:28:48.340and it's an awesome feeling to have is been able to have positiveness in your feelings even if it's just