Archives as Good Medicine: Rediscovering Our Ancestors and Understanding the Root Causes of Intergenerational Trauma

Abstract

My field research was directed towards tracing back my genealogical history to comprehend the social ills that plague contemporary Cree and Métis communities in Saskatchewan. Moreover, I undertook this research to better understand why I, a reformed addict and homeless person, along with the rest of my biological family, was so troubled in the modern times and why we had so many negative social barriers and problems. Ultimately, however, this paper is a very preliminary work and is incomplete. In the future, I hope to publish a more-detailed body of work in an extended thesis which, I am hoping, will help other Métis and First Nations people understand, combat, and cope with intergenerational trauma. I am basically trying to build a template for Indigenous wellness through historical research. In peeling back the layers of the Métis historical onion, I found that we “Michif” are a nation that both predates Canada as well as suffers from the mechanical processes of colonialism that helped create it.