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RADILIH KOE'/FORT GOOD HOPE
Melinda Laboucan says when she interviewed elders for a project about healing, one told her the story of how she had beaten cancer - literally.

Fort Good Hope's Melinda Laboucan travelled throughout Alberta researching traditional ways to cope with grief and loss as part of the Indigenous Women in Community Leadership certificate program through the Coady International Institute this summer. From left, her husband, Greg Laboucan, daughter Arianna Laboucan, son Lake Laboucan and Melinda Laboucan. Missing from photo is daughter Mary Laboucan. - photo courtesy of Melinda Laboucan

"When I was sitting with her, she said she imagined she made her cancer a person and she named her cancer," Laboucan said. "So every day she would beat up cancer with her sessions. She was physically throwing punches and screaming."

Laboucan interviewed Esther Supernault, a Cree elder and author of the book Blue Diamond Journey: The Healing of a Reluctant Seer.

Laboucan said the interview was part of her participation in the Indigenous Women in Community Leadership certificate program through the Coady International Institute, a branch of St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. The Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil foundations sponsor the program.

The program included in-class instruction at the university and a community leadership project.

Laboucan said she chose moving forward from grief and loss as the theme for her project, in memory of her mother, Janet Grandjambe, who died from cancer in 2011.

Laboucan travelled throughout Alberta, interviewing Cree elders, cancer survivors and community members about traditional healing. She received a stipend from the institute, as well as funding from the territorial department of Education, Culture and Employment, which allowed her to take her husband, two daughters and a son with her during her three-month community placements.

She said the people she interviewed told her about how holding onto negative emotions can lead to sickness.

"She said get rid of all the emotions you have hung onto for years, get rid of whatever is eating you," Laboucan said. "Whatever has been done to you in the past, let it go. Write it in a journal or on a piece of paper and burn it in a prayer."

She said Supernault told her even simple exercises, such as imagining stress being washed away in the shower, can help the mind let go of negative thoughts.

"She taught me how to mentally envision letting all the stress go, she said water was very healing," Laboucan said. "When you take a shower, allow the water to take your stresses away, because stress causes illness."

Laboucan also interviewed a grieving workshop facilitator, who travels to Africa to work with genocide survivors, and a traditional Cree dancer in addition to cancer survivors and elders.

She, her husband and their two young daughters went to powwows and ceremonies, taking notes and speaking to people on how to heal.

"My two daughters, I also interviewed them because they learned so much and got to see what I was going through all summer," she said.

She said the next step is to share what she learned with her community. She is planning on reading excerpts from her interviews on the local radio station, as well as trying to get funding to bring some of her interviewees to Fort Good Hope.

Laboucan said her goal is to help community members to heal from memories of residential school, as well as drug and alcohol abuse.

"I really believe that before the residential school came, we were so connected to Mother Earth, we were so connected to each other," she said. "We still do that, but there is so much hurt and pain that stemmed from residential school."

In a follow up e-mail to News/North, Laboucan said she wanted to share what she had learned with all communities in the North.

"My goal is to empower the North that we have the power within to heal, by listening to our illness with patience, acceptance, acknowledge, sharing, self care, forgiveness, and most of all love, only then our illness can be healed," she said.

Laboucan said she also asked those she interviewed how a person knows when they have been healed.

"When you're able to talk about the experience with love," she said. "If you still talk about the experience with anger, revenge and hurt, it tells you that you still have more healing to do."

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