Indigenous author encourages self-love and care

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY—Indigenous author and speaker Sandi Boucher encouraged participants to consider themselves as priceless during her Dec. 17 Changing the Things You Can seminar at the Fort William First Nation Community Centre.

“How much is your child worth? No amount—they’re priceless,” says Boucher, a Seine River First Nation citizen who has written three books, including Honorary Indian in 2010, and was named Thunder Bay Business Person of the Year for 2016. “Second question: At what age does that stop? Never. Question: why did it for you?”

Boucher adds that she hopes every single participant in the seminar treats themselves like they are priceless.

“And when you talk to yourself, you are talking to yourself like you would that precious little child,” Boucher says. “That you’re being as kind to yourself, as caring to yourself, because as my mom used to say: ‘You teach people how to treat you.’ If you want them to respect you, they have to see you respecting you.”

Boucher also shared how an Elder’s story changed her life.

“She said one sentence I will never forget — all she said was: ‘You’re the one you’ve been waiting for’,” Boucher says. “I was like, ‘what?’. And she repeated it — you are looking for that person to tell you you have value, you are looking for that person to tell you you are worth something. You’re the one you’ve been waiting for. As crazy as it sounds, when I got home that night I raced over and looked in the mirror and I told myself that I was awesome.”

Boucher says she is now the projector of her own value.

“I don’t give anyone else that power anymore,” Boucher says. “That’s what we need to teach our kids, in a world and near a city that wants to tell them that they are less than.”

Boucher says there was an “amazing” response to her seminar.

“I always base it on the comments after the fact,” Boucher says. “When they come up to me and tell me how it resonated or that one sentence they needed to hear, that’s why I do what I do.”

Tannis Kastern, one of the participants from Fort William, says Boucher’s seminar was “definitely what you need to hear” with the recent events in Thunder Bay after the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission released their reports on the Thunder Bay Police Service and Thunder Bay Police Service Board.

“Just to get a little bit of that encouragement back to stand resilient, stay together and just keep doing what we are doing,” Kastern says. “It’s nice to see her get out in Fort William territory and come speak to our youth and encourage them to not listen to the oppressive voices out there and do what we are here to do, and that is to heal our path for our future generations so they can move into these institutions and be accepted and treated as equals in the city.”

Kastern says she is looking forward to reading Boucher’s first book, Honorary Indian, which she chose from Boucher’s three books that were handed out to the seminar participants: Honorary Indian, Her Mother’s Daughter and The Path: Communication Strategies for the Reconciliation Era.

“It looks to be something of an interesting read and not the typical academia print you see every day,” Kastern says. “The Indigenous perspective is what we need to hear more of and not all of this privilege all the time.”