I’m listening with great pride, and a little tear in my eye, as Solomon Ratt is interviewed today on CBC’s biggest national radio show, As It Happens. In his own words – in English and in Cree – Sol carries his personal stories of language preservation and cultural reclamation to Canadians from coast to coast to coast in honour of Canada’s National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. What a treasure to hear him read in Cree – to Canadians everywhere – his childhood memory of Flying Up Moon, an extract from his memoir kâ-pî-isi-kiskisiyân / The Way I Remember that had its beginnings right here on the Cree Literacy Network.
Listen to CBC Radio One this evening (beginning at 6:30 local time in each region), or: Find the link to play the complete interview within Sheena Goodyear’s written summary here. Special thanks to Nil Köksal for inviting Sol to address his own ideas about reconciliation – for which he (naturally) provided his own choice of words in Cree:
wâhkôwîcihiwîwin -helping each other (th-dialect)
mîno-wâhkôhtahisowin – repairing relationships (y- or th-dialect)
(You can hear each of these words in the interview; maybe Sol will give us audio for these in particular tomorrow. His speaking engagements for the day may be over by then, but the real work of reconciliation will just keep rolling along.)
