John McDonald. (Submitted photo/Bookland Press, Kymber Rae Photography)

By Ian Gustafson

National Indigenous Peoples Day

Storyteller urges keeping stories passed down by former generations alive

Jun 14, 2021 | 5:02 PM

Leading up to National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 paNOW is featuring Indigenous professionals, storytellers, entertainers, artists and others. Stay tuned for more throughout the week.

Born and raised in Prince Albert, aboriginal storyteller and artist John McDonald said he began telling stories after it was passed down to him from Elders who told him different legends and stories they knew.

“I’d be asked by these Elders, ‘Well, you could tell the story. Ask him, he’ll tell it to you.’ That’s kind of a way of passing on the baton. Elders’ way of saying it’s your turn to start telling these stories,” McDonald said.

When asked to be a storyteller for the first time, McDonald admitted he was very nervous to take on the responsibility.

“Anytime an Elder gifted something to you like that; a responsibility or a duty or a teaching like that, there is always that nervousness that you want to do it right,” he said, adding he wanted to honour the responsibility because the stories have been handed down from generation to generation.

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“Even to this day, I still get butterflies in my stomach because you’re wanting to make sure the stories are being told the way they were told to you and ensuring the message you’re trying to pass across gets through,” McDonald added.

When he’s not telling stories or creating art, he works as an educational associate at an elementary school. Much of his artwork is displayed in museums across the country, some nominated for awards, and he has numerous published books.

He explained it’s important as Indigenous people to have cultural teachings passed on because at one time, he explained it was against the law for their people to do cultural practices.

“When you were in residential school, they were literally beaten out of you,” he said.

It’s vital the storytellers, who have been given the honour to tell and share the stories, ensure the stories are never forgotten and inspire the next generation.

“It’s important in today’s day and age when you’re dealing with a very technological society where for a lot of people the attention span is the length of a TikTok video. So, we’re fighting that,” he said.

As storytellers they must adapt and change overtime while making sure they stay true to the stories.

“As a storyteller, what I do is I tell my stories in English. I’ve lost conversational Cree…so I can no longer share the stories fully in Cree and the odds are the audience, the people I’m sharing these stories with, aren’t going to understand Cree,” McDonald explained.

Within Indigenous culture he said, there’s been a sense of resiliency as they survive and continue to give the best with what they’ve got no matter what’s been thrown their way.

“As storytellers, as artists, as musicians, as actors, the craft we’ve been given, the medicine we’ve been given, the responsibility we’ve been given to tell a story, we honour that the best we can and we make sure we’re telling it so the next generation is inspired to continue on the storytelling tradition,” he said.

When referencing the recent killing of a family in London, Ont., he hopes as the world moves forward with notions of reconciliation and healing, the most important thing is to handle hatred in a better way. He explained there’s a lot of anger and negativity and until that is handled, we’re a long way from reconciliation.

“We have to treat the wounds before we can treat the symptoms. We have to stop the bleeding before we can start the healing.”

For more local stories celebrating National Indigenous History Month and Peoples Day click here.

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Ian.gustafson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @IanGustafson12