Many of us don’t know these painful stories and it is time we did. That is the idea behind a new book and upcoming talk in Squamish by award-winning scholar, author and poet Gary Geddes.
Geddes will be speaking at Quest University about his latest non-fiction work Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
The book is made up of Geddes’ interviews with First Nation elders.
The survivors tell of their harrowing treatment in “Indian hospitals.”
Geddes was inspired by the stories he heard through the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation hearings, which wrapped up in 2014, he told The Chief.
At the hearings in Victoria, Geddes met a Songhees Nation elder named Joan Morris.
“She told me about her mother being taken to the Nanaimo Indian Hospital at age 18 in apparent good health and not being released until she was 35, a physical and emotional wreck,” Geddes said.
“That is what sparked my interest – what in the world could be going on for 17 years at a segregated hospital?”
The hospital operated from 1946 to 1967. “I was determined to find out about it,” Geddes said.
The process of completing the book took four years as he earned the trust of First Nations people to the point they wanted to tell him their stories – he did the research and writing.
“What began as a book about the segregated Indian hospitals turned out to be a larger book about the whole impact of displacement, humiliation, reserves and residential schools and Indian hospitals – what was the impact on indigenous health?”
Geddes acknowledges some may question the ethics of a non-Indigenous academic writing about this topic, but he worked hard to earn his sources’ trust and the feedback from those involved has been very positive, he said.
For each story included in the book, the source vetted what Geddes wrote and had the option of pulling his or her story out. Only one woman did, he said, because she couldn’t bear to see her painful story in print.
Though the topic is heavy, Geddes said, many of the Indigenous elders brought levity to their interviews, and he will do the same in his talk.
Geddes public event at Quest University on Sept. 13 gets underway at 7 p.m. in the multi-purpose room.
For more information, go to questu.ca/events-calendar.
