Cree journalist Connie Walker honoured at Assembly of First Nations gathering

Cree journalist Connie Walker was recognized for her investigative work by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Tuesday at its annual general assembly in Halifax.

Walker, who is from Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, is a former CBC journalist now working for New York-based Gimlet Media, a podcast division inside of Spotify, since early 2020.

Walker and her team at Gimlet won a Peabody Award and a Pulitzer Prize in May for their podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's.

Saskatchewan Regional Chief Bobby Cameron said the AFN was honoured to present Walker with a starblanket "as a sign of our respect and gratitude for her work."

"Storytelling is medicine for us as First Nations people, and Connie has dedicated many years to telling our stories in a good way," he said.

"She honours the painful past we share as First Nations and celebrates our strength, resilience, and hope."

'A personal story'

Over eight episodes, Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's takes the listener through Walker's experience of learning about her late father and the abuse he endured during his time at St. Michael's residential school.

"It was a personal story to try [and] better understand what my dad went through at that Indian residential school, and also to understand how me and my family have been shaped by all of our parents' experiences at those schools," she said in her speech at the AFN assembly.

Walker said without the help of elders and other survivors of the residential school, the podcast would have been impossible.

"I'm thinking of the survivors of St. Michael's who bravely shared their truth, their stories so powerfully with us," she said.

"I'm just eternally grateful for the trust that they put in us to help share their stories."

She thanked her family from Beardy's and Okemasis' Cree Nation, where her father was from, where she said she spent most of her time listening and learning.

"In those conversations, even though they were sometimes difficult, I felt like they gave me such a gift to know my father, and to understand him and I'm so grateful to them," she said.

She said she felt like the recognition was for all of the survivors of residential schools and the intergenerational survivors.

"I feel so incredibly grateful and honoured to do this work, to help bring our stories forward in a good way, and to help tell our truths because our voices matter," she said.

"Survivors' voices are so important and critical."