Original subtitles

Are you dreaming?

Are you dreaming?

Have you got your mommy's face?

Yeah, holding him, like,

just so he feels all,

feels something all around.

If you leave him lying on the bed, to um...

You know how grandmas wrap them really tight?

That helps him to feel secure, hey?

And he still wants to curl his little feet up

like he's inside you. See?

Do you hear your mama's voice?

Hmm? Is she here?

How many people have we lost to this crisis?

I would say we've lost hundreds.

These people are children.

These are brothers and sisters, and these are aunts and uncles,

and even grandparents and parents,

so we've lost a good part of a generation of people,

because most of the people we've lost

are in their 20s and 30s,

and so many children now are growing up without parents,

and some are completely orphaned

and now are being raised in foster-care systems

which are very much like residential school

in some places,

so we've lost a lot of power in our community

because of what those people could have contributed

to the health of our community.

Instead, they've contributed to grief,

and left a big hole in our community.

This is home, Kainai,

otherwise known as Kainai or the Blood Reserve.

It's one of four nations within the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains

in what is now known as the Province of Alberta,

Kainai spans over 1,400 square kilometres,

and is the largest reserve in Canada.

This land has nourished and sustained us

as a people, as Niitsitapi,

since time immemorial.

Beginning in 2014,

fentanyl, a synthetic opioid

50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine,

flooded the illicit drug trade on the reserve.

There isn't a single member of our tribe

who has not lost a loved one to this crisis.

This new reality has forced our community

to approach addiction in radically different ways.

As one of the few medical doctors working on the reserve,

my mother, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers,

has been a frontline witness to the crisis.

I've listened many times

as she's shared her grief, sorrow, and frustrations.

She, like so many others from our community,

is motivated to fight for solutions.

There are three main communities on the reserve,

Standoff, Moses Lake, and Levern.

30 kilometres of highway

stretches between each of these communities.

Okay, so you wanted stats.

That's when we first started

taking the stats for the overdoses,

June 2014, all the way up to November 2016.

This is the one that's really, um, really bothersome to me,

and this is the prenatal substance abuse.

That means that the mothers are taking these drugs,

and their babies are being born in withdrawal from these drugs.

Is it... is it permanent, or can effects be reversed?

It's a new phenomenon.

We're not really sure of what the brain,

um, what happens to the, to the infant's brain.

We do know that their risk for, um,

their risk for addiction later in life

is really high,

'cause they were already born addicted, eh?

The worst thing is that they have to go through

what they call neonatal abstinence syndrome,

so once they're born,

then they start them on, um, morphine, morphine tapering,

so the kid doesn't go through withdrawal

and die from the withdrawals.

Uh, what happens to the children?

As soon as they're born like this,

Children's Services takes over,

and the best-case scenario

is that the mother be still in the environment

and be able to bond with the child,

and that's so important for our children

to be able to stay with their families, eh?

'Kay, next one, Máijá.

This is the, um, Insite.

That's the safe-injection site and detox.

During my research for this film,

I spent time learning from harm-reduction advocates

on Vancouver's Downtown East Side.

I wanted to share what I had learned with my community,

so my mother and I arranged

for a group of healthcare workers from Kainai

to visit the Downtown East Side.

We visited numerous services

offered by the Portland Hotel Society,

such as Insite, the world's first

governmentally sanctioned supervised injection site.

What the basis, I think, of harm reduction is

is essentially by no means is it celebrating addiction,

but what it does

is it celebrates the lives of people

without judgment.

Clients at the Crosstown Clinic

shared their life-changing experiences

through the prescription heroin program.

I'm not looking over my shoulder.

I don't have to be out there being cold or whatever.

I can just concentrate on me getting better.

The Brewer's Co-op

with the PHS Managed Alcohol Program

shared some of their stories.

I started from nothing.

Now I've got a one-bedroom on the tenth floor

in the Portland.

I'm pretty stoked about it.

You pour it in,

then we add it... Top it up to 23 litres,

and then we'll put in our yeast on top of that.

Redwood ale.

Mm.

- Just smell. - I know.

And then the other way to get alcohol

is to do the illicit exchange,

so if you have a bottle of rubbing alcohol or Listerine,

um, instead of consuming it,

if you bring it in, then we will trade it for you.

Those are the things that cause the GI bleeds.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

That's what causes people's guts to start bleeding.

So you guys are saving a lot of people a lot of pain.

Yeah, it's great to see how well it really works.

When it comes to treatment

for substance-use disorders,

there are two main schools of thought

in the addictions field,

abstinence or harm reduction.

Abstinence is defined

as the complete cessation of drug or alcohol use,

meaning abstaining from using

or engaging in any addictive substances or behaviours.

Alcoholics Anonymous, founded in 1935,

developed a 12-step program.

12-step programs

such as AA, NA, and the Red Road to Wellbriety

require abstinence,

and have become the most widely accepted model

for treating addiction.

Many detoxes and residential treatment centres

are also abstinence-based.

Harm reduction recognizes

that abstinence does not work for everyone,

or that abstinence is not a realistic expectation

for many drug and alcohol users.

"Harm reduction" is a widely used umbrella term

that includes policies, strategies, and procedures

that aim to reduce

the harmful effects of substance use.

These strategies can include distributing clean needles

to prevent the spread of disease,

providing naloxone or Narcan to reverse an overdose,

providing a medically regulated supply of drugs or alcohol,

supervised consumption services,

and medically assisted detox or recovery,

including opioid agonist therapy,

such as Suboxone or methadone.

Our community has had to be forced into,

you know, action and learning along the way,

so it's trial by error,

so we've done the Narcan, we've gone into the Suboxone,

and our group here is looking at expanding

what we have to do to help our community heal.

Yeah.

I'm so lucky here at the Portland,

because all of my programming is embedded

inside harm reduction or housing,

so this is one of our housing facilities.

We house 80 people here

who have come from street homelessness, usually,

most of whom have severe mental illness and addiction,

and then inside this building,

there's a doctor and a nurse

assigned to take care of those people.

Our community has really been struggling

with this whole... This whole, um, word "enabling."

-Mm-hmm.

But we have a Blackfoot word

that's called "Kímmapiiyipitssini,"

which means giving kindness to each other...

-Aw.

And, um, I have so many mothers and grandmothers

and, um, and relatives of users

that come, and they're like, "What do we do?"

you know, "Like, we've tried tough love,"

and a lot of times, they feel really bad

because they're using that Kímmapiiyipitssini,

or that motherliness

where you just can't let your child go,

and you just can't cut those ties

and let them fall,

and so our community struggles with that,

but we... now I just got this epiphany

that we don't struggle with it anymore.

We embrace it and say, "This is...

this is our harm reduction, kímmapiiyipitssini."

Finally, we met with Spikes on Bikes,

a mobile peer-led overdose-response initiative.

So we have four components.

One is we pick up used and dirty rigs,

and sometimes the wrappers,

and the used cookers,

and the little water containers,

things like that.

This kit is the overdose naloxone kit,

and we work off of a phone that we carry with us,

and we hand out these cards, and the phone number's on it.

Yeah? Yeah, okay.

-All right. You guys have to go.

All right.

I got it.

Got it. There we go.

There. Take a deep breath.

You need more breaths like that, okay, buddy?

Stay there.

You had a big overdose. We're here to help you.

- And you're okay? - Yeah, I'm okay.

It's just like, my heart's pounding, like...

- Yeah. - You know?

It's...

To us, we're not... It's not normal yet to us,

but that's what I'm scared of,

when we go back home,

that's going to be our normal.

That's what really scared us.

Well, we certainly have a new normal,

but we also can be really looking at prevention,

but also, you know, sharing...

sharing this work with everybody

so that we can make, you know, make it better.

Baby's just staring.

I think it was May,

May I got the two older ones, Trisha and Giselle,

Trisha's in school right now,

and I got the baby in June,

so, yeah, like, next month will be a year

since I've had all three of them.

Um...

their dad is my brother.

Uh, my sister-in-law got really sick.

Um, she passed away in January.

You know, with me being clean for a couple months already,

and, you know, having all this space in my house,

I decided to take them because...

well, because they had nowhere to go,

and I had a lot of room,

and, you know, I just felt so empty,

and it felt so much better

once they came and stayed with us.

So, yeah, we slowly started getting furniture,

but that TV,

when, um, when I first got off taking drugs,

um, some family members, you know,

would come and check up on me and try and keep me busy,

you know, just 'cause I was really feeling down and stuff

'cause I felt so guilty

because of what I put

my daughter and my nephew through.

So they'd come because I would, you know,

tell them how "I feel so depressed,

I feel so bad, I...

it just kind of makes me want to start using again."

I don't know why I was thinking that.

So they would come and check up on me,

and one of them actually brought me to bingo,

those community bingos...

and I got lucky, and I won that TV.

I tell her that I'm scared to lose her,

and that she was only, like,

she was the only one that's there for me.

Well, yeah, practically she is, and...

and ever since she got off, it's like our...

our relationship just connected again,

and we just started talking more,

and, like, we're happy... Happy again.

-Broken.

And I want to get out of here.

Yeah. I don't like it down here.

- Get out of where? - Standoff.

How come?

I don't know. It's just...

it's... I don't know.

I just don't like it

because there's all those drugs around here,

and I've been wanting to go to Chinook High School,

that new high school in Lethbridge on the west side.

Yeah.

I guess that's a good school.

I want to go there, since last year, yeah.

I already called in to see if I can get into the school,

but they said all the grade 11s are taken up,

so I already lost my chance to...

so I'm going to keep trying.

The next step was opiate-replacement therapy,

and we faced a lot of opposition

because a lot of people were saying,

"Aren't you substituting one drug for another?"

but we recognized

that we really had to help people get off of fentanyl,

which is unmeasured doses and basically Russian roulette.

People knew that they could die,

but they still used it.

With opiate-replacement therapy,

and initially, Suboxone,

we started patients on that,

and started to see some remarkable recovery.

Hello.

So one and a half...

There you go, hon.

Okay, I'll get you to sign in.

Great. Thank you.

With Suboxone, they don't receive the same euphoria.

They're able to function.

They're able to be out in the workplace

on a... on a daily basis.

So that's how it works.

It just, it replaces the...

the opiates that they've been taking,

and they're able to function normally

out in society. Yeah.

- See you tomorrow. - See you tomorrow.

I hid, you know, Suboxone, on my par...

Like, I hid it from them again,

and I had to come out and tell them,

"Well, I've been... I've been clean.

I'm on Suboxone. This is what I'm...

That's why I've been going with medical every other day.

You've been picking me up."

Because that's what they thought,

I was using again.

They don't understand, like, that it does help.

Like, my cousin, she's really against it.

She's really against it.

She thinks... she thinks it's just another drug

that you're going to be addicted to

for the rest of your life.

-But it's helping.

But it does help. That's the thing.

She doesn't understand that, you know,

trying to get off these Oxy80s by yourself,

it's... it's hard. - Yeah.

Like, how many times did we try on our own?

It's hard. It's... it's... I think it's impossible.

I don't know. I could be wrong.

Depending on how bad you were into it.

Like, we were really bad into it.

We couldn't get off on our own.

The difficulty was in convincing people

that harm reduction is the route that we have to take,

because many of our people in the community

are abstinence-based thinkers

because of our experience with alcoholism

and people needing to be abstinent from alcohol.

Our people were very much against all of that,

and it's still tough to convince people

who think that it's easy to quit an addiction cold turkey

when it's not.

Alcohol is not legally available for purchase

on the reserve,

meaning some people with an addiction to alcohol

and without the financial means to purchase it off the reserve

resort to the illicit drinking

of hand sanitizer, mouthwash, or hair spray.

Some people also inhale solvent fumes.

When one has a severe dependence on alcohol,

it can actually be life-threatening

to completely quit drinking without medical assistance.

Sometimes our friends come and visit us.

Sometimes it gets cold in...

- We'll just take our blanket... - Yeah.

Tomorrow...

Our clothes.

Hmm.

Almost finished this.

Where'd you learn to bead?

In jail.

My friends taught me.

Remember that time you got charged for trespassing?

Yeah. I was going to come for my interview.

I almost went to jail.

I was coming for my interview

because I was going to begin a job here.

Then I came down.

I was looking at that guy, so he followed me.

"Put your hands behind your back!"

and I said, "Why?"

I said, "I just came for my interview,"

and they said, "No, it's trespassing."

I said, "Okay, no,"

I say, "I'm just waiting for an interview."

Handcuffed me, brought me...

But they gave me a break.

They didn't charge me, but...

That cop, she was nice.

She didn't want to charge me.

Across the highway from Moses Lake

is the town of Cardston.

The majority of residents in Cardston belong to

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,

otherwise known as the Mormon Church.

When polygamy was made illegal in the United States,

Mormons fled to Canada

and settled in Blackfoot territory.

The Mormon religion prohibits the consumption of alcohol,

so it's not legally available for purchase in Cardston.

And we can see them from morning

coming from the reserve sober,

and by 3:00 or 4:00 sometime, laying down on the street

and absolutely passed out,

and in a state of health

that is very sad for us to see as a community,

but the way it affects us

is that to be able to get those types of substance,

you need some sort of revenue.

The problem is when you have people who need to raise funds,

the panhandling becomes a true issue

for people who try to be on Main Street

shopping in the shops,

because those panhandlers are becoming aggressive.

In other words, they are really in your space,

and they don't take "no" for an answer.

It is a very complex problem

that stems from, possibly,

the sequels of residential schools,

intergenerational disconnect,

lack of proper parenting, lack of proper education,

lack of job training,

lack of hope,

and honestly, lack of basic training

with things as simple as banking,

learning to deal with your finances,

and your personal hygiene.

When I woke up last night, it was raining.

I know where I was going to go.

I was going to go sleep in one of the banks downtown.

But then I found out it was open,

so I just came here.

Uh, holy white man.

I said, "Who... who wants to go out with me?"

and then she said, "George.

He really likes you,"

and I was like, first time,

I said, "No, I don't want to,"

and then after that, she said,

"No, because he really likes you,"

and then I went back,

and I didn't want to make him feel cheap,

so I just said, "Yeah."

Yeah, we started dating,

and it's been about five years now.

In July, it will be six years.

But he's a good person to me.

He's not, like, mean or anything.

My daughter just turned seven yesterday,

and my son, he's going to be 14 in July.

He's 13.

So he'll be 14 on July 25th.

Mm-hmm.

I never used to really be like this, like, to drink,

but it's just... it's too hard,

like, I start getting lonely, and I just want to drink,

so I start drinking,

and I just love that solvents.

That's our thing.

That's a real hard addiction.

I was the same age

as Leah's younger brother, Cameron.

I knew him as a gifted long-distance runner.

Despite numerous barriers,

he was always at the front of the pack.

Cameron was killed by a drunk driver

in his last year of high school.

Ever since, like, that time, I just...

I don't know, I just...

Like, I still feel, like, lonely for my brother.

Like, all the people left me.

Mostly, I was in jail all my life.

35 years in and out.

I just got used to it.

How come you kept going to jail?

To support my addiction problem.

I had robbery charges.

That's why sometimes I can't work.

No one will hire me because of those robbery charges.

There's a big... There's a big difference

between people's lives in Cardston,

like, the white people's lives there,

and what's here in Moses Lake and on the reserve.

How do you guys feel about that,

because you're in Cardston almost every day, hey?

I don't like going to stores anymore

because sometimes when I go to stores...

they block me and they start searching...

Searching my bags,

so I get pissed off and embarrassed.

Last time, I went to this one store down here.

I paid for everything.

I was just about at the door,

and they stopped us and they searched,

and everybody was looking at me,

so I don't go into it.

How many times have you been to treatment?

Uh, let me see.

Twice in the '70s.

2013, I went in March, one...

Since 2000...

1977, that's when I started taking AA program.

I want to go to treatment.

Like, we've both got to do something,

like, clean up our act and everything.

What happened after you went last time?

Well, we came back home...

came back home.

We didn't... I don't know.

There was, like, somebody passed away that time,

and that's the thing, um,

so then we just end up start drinking and using again,

and, yeah, that's about it.

When you go to treatment this time,

and you get out, what's going to happen?

I don't know.

We'll probably just come back onto the streets.

This program is called

the Managed Alcohol Program.

It's safe, regulated wine and beer,

and they drink it within a safe space,

and it's run in the Downtown East Side

in Vancouver, like, close to Hastings and Main,

so, yeah, I was just curious

to see what you guys would think of having a program like this

here in Moses Lake, get your feedback on it.

Our community, prior to our fentanyl crisis,

- was alcohol... - Yeah.

Like, alcohol and prescription drugs,

and our whole community is affected by alcoholism.

Every one of us

has a family member who's an alcoholic.

It's a way for people to invest

in, um, being part of a community

and having a safe stock of alcohol.

Then we'll put in our yeast on top of that.

We'll leave that for a week, a week and a half,

and then we'll clarify it,

which is why we're doing this.

- Just smell. - I know.

I don't know.

What do you guys think of that program

and the idea of bringing something like that here?

I encourage it.

I'd rather see them drinking beer

instead of drinking that stuff that's bleeding their stomach.

We definitely need that here.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

And I think that we could really utilize it.

-Yeah.

It will work, and we won't hurt ourselves.

'Cause with my friends all night drinking that bad stuff,

this morning, my cousin was throwing up blood

because he was drinking bad stuff.

And, you know, with the solvent abuse, you know,

it's only, like, $3 to get something.

You know, it's more cheaper than the alcohol, you know.

It's, like, 15 bucks to get an antiseptic.

It's only, like, $3 to get some...

Some of that solvent thinner.

That would be good, though,

if we could just get a program, though.

-Yeah.

I wouldn't mind a program, like, something like that

to be around here.

It would be nice.

The Kainai Healing Lodge

is one of over 50

NNADAP residential treatment centres in Canada.

Residential treatment centres are also commonly known

as drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres.

NNADAP, or the National Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program,

is funded by Health Canada.

NNADAP Treatment Centres

receive significantly less funding

than other publicly funded residential treatment centres.

Part of the program that they take part in

has the cultural pieces

where we incorporate smudging every morning and every night.

Additionally, what they'll do in here each morning

is do a reading from the AA Big Book,

and also a reading from the Wellbriety book.

And this one is going to be the Daily Reflections.

Um, this is going to be the AA,

um, and it's really the same format.

"In sobriety, my life gets better each day.

I must always remember not to drink, to trust God,

and to stay active in AA."

When was that, um, written?

Um, these have been around for so long.

Like I said, AA is quite a well-established program.

The way I believe is that

we need to move away from the old way of doing treatment.

That's gone, right?

Because today, we're going into an era of new things

that sometimes we have a hard time understanding.

The old way was easy.

I mean, the 12 steps is still going to be there.

I firmly believe in those.

But... but we need to...

We need to, uh, shift from that

to a new way of how addictions are today.

There's more addictions out there,

like opioids, other stuff, so we need to move from that.

When I say "old,"

meaning something that worked back then,

it's not working today.

You know, just take it one day at a time,

and we all have faith in my grandfather.

Katoosi Iikaakimaat.

"Try hard."

That's what he always told us.

Everybody is different, and, you know, Iikaakimaat.

That's all we can say.

We're going to have a sharing circle, okay?

I know it's hard...

and I know it's tough,

but I've been telling all of you

to speak from here, to speak from your heart.

I struggled with alcohol since I was a teenager.

Ooh...

It's because I was brought up in the system.

I thought no one cared or did anything for me,

or no one was there.

I ain't going to get into a lot of detail,

because there's so many things that I could tell,

you know, traumatic things,

and sad things, and things like that, but...

I heard the stories of my mother,

and residential school,

and the molesting she had to go through,

the beatings, and...

-Growing up, I had a lot of trauma.

My parents battled with alcohol.

I was always handed off to, uh, family members...

and my grandmother raised me.

I'm real glad she raised me the way she did.

My parents tried their best to raise me,

but I guess it didn't work out.

-I grew up with addiction my whole life,

ever since I was a kid.

I was raised by my grandparents,

so thinking that was okay,

to be in that kind of world with alcohol.

You know, it was acceptable.

I was sexually abused.

So right from then, I've had issues, right?

We all have issues.

God...

grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Hai.

Have a good day, everyone.

When I think about

how dramatically and how rapidly things changed for our people,

it takes my breath away.

My great-great-grandparents were born at a time

when the first Prime Minister of Canada,

John A. Macdonald,

weaponized hunger

as a means to violently dominate thousands of Indigenous people

across this country.

His motivation was our land and resources.

After Canada sanctioned the slaughter of the buffalo

to near extinction,

our people witnessed a total collapse

of our way of life,

followed by unprecedented starvation and death.

Our leaders were misled into believing that treaties

represented a peaceful resolution

to the state's brutal warfare tactics.

Throughout the treaty negotiation process,

the power imbalance was unquestionable.

The state held the upper hand,

and at no time did our leaders agree to surrender our land.

The year after Treaty 7 was ratified,

some of our people were forced to eat grass to survive.

Some of our people then died

from consuming tainted flour and rotten meat

included in our rations.

A few years later, the Canadian Pacific Railway

began its westward expansion through our territory,

uniting Canada's east and west.

Our wild prairie grasslands were then rapidly transformed

into farm and ranch land by settlers.

The state continued to enact violent policies

designed to subjugate us as a people.

The Pass System

prohibited our people from leaving the reserve

without a pass from an Indian agent.

The Indian Act controlled every aspect of our lives

and prohibited us

from practicing our culture and spirituality,

opening a bank account, hiring a lawyer, voting,

and mandated that our children attend residential schools.

This all happened in less than 20 years,

and that was really just the start.

I've been wanting to do this

since I was, like, five...

and now that I'm doing this,

and to be honest, to me, it feels like a dream.

It feels like I can...

I feel like just walking up to somebody

and telling them to pinch me. See if I'm...

see if I'll wake up.

That's how... that's how glad

and how much pride I have

that I actually made it to where I wanted to go.

I'm proud.

I'm proud of being from Kainai.

I'm proud to be a Blood Indian.

How we would do it, like, in,

like, say, like, we're at a ceremony or something,

I'd say my Indian name,

so I would say,

"Oki Nitaaniko Iikainakoiyoh

nita'aapapaiiyii astsistoomiiksii."

That's how you'd say it.

Did you see that?

In case you missed it,

let's go back and have a closer look.

Where Apple Three once was is now a black, empty space.

If you're watching...

What movie are you guys watching?

We're watching Bigfoot.

-Oh.

The one we were watching last week.

-I still haven't finished it yet.

I started watching it on my computer.

I was having nightmares from it, eh?

Because I left it up...

I left it on up there while I was sleeping.

I grew up on the Blood Tribe.

Alcohol has always been a problem here.

It's always... you always get calls for alcoholism,

but, uh... but it wasn't till...

When do you think it was when the fentanyl started?

I think it got, like, really bad

two and a half years ago or something.

You get people dropped off at the front of the firehall,

and there are, like, three people at a time,

and we're all trying...

There's only four of us here at a time, right?

So every one of us is on a different patient,

trying to bag the patient, trying to get 'em back.

It was kind of hectic at that time,

but now it's...

Now it's settled down way a lot more

than what it used to be.

Friends have gone into that, and it's just...

I don't know.

It's just a bad place for them right now,

but I just wish it was gone.

I wish, like, my friends

wouldn't be doing that kind of stuff, you know?

Blood Tribe Fire Department.

All right. Have a good day.

-Pizza 73.

We get a lot of that.

We get a lot of pizza calls.

We literally do.

And they're like, "Is this Pizza 73?"

"No, this is..."

- Like, 2:00 in the morning. - "...Blood Tribe Firehall."

It's very important

that our non-First Nations employees

understand what has happened to our people,

and yeah, a lot of them drink.

A lot of them are addicted.

There's a lot of uneducated people out here,

but there's reasons for that.

We didn't just one day decide to be what we've become.

You know, and we were strong, like, you know...

like, history marks, like, the Bloods

as some of the fiercest, strongest people

there ever was, right?

We... we held our women on a pedestal,

we respected everybody, we helped each other out,

and I want us to get to that point again.

It truly breaks my heart,

because a lot of the people I see, you know,

in Moses Lake walking around,

you know, here in Standoff,

they were some of my closest friends

in elementary school. Right?

They came to my birthday parties.

You know, I know I'm not going to heal them,

and I'm not going to, you know, make them better,

because they're suffering in their own way.

Like, that's why they've become addicted,

because they've experienced that intergenerational trauma

every day of their lives,

and I'm not going to heal them,

but if I can at least give them

a little bit of empathy and... And care when I'm with them,

I think that's kind of my way of...

of, I don't know, like,

just doing the best I can, I guess.

It's hard.

Like, it's not easy.

It's well known

that many of our people will not go to certain hospitals

because of the treatment that they get,

and myself, it's been really difficult.

It's something that is called moral injury,

when you work with others,

or you are in a situation

where you see your people being hurt,

but you have to work

and continue to maintain where you're at,

and not make a fuss every day,

so it's really difficult to see this on a daily basis

and to continue working

when you know your people are hurt,

when you know they're complaining,

and when there's only you to deal with your patients,

your patient situation,

and to have to educate your colleagues and co-workers

on how they are treating our people,

and for me, it's been really difficult,

and I think a lot of Indigenous physicians and nurses

face the same thing,

and I know a lot of our people refuse to go for care

because of the way that they're treated

within the health-care system.

Now, I want to qualify that with saying that there's

a lot of good non-Indigenous physicians and nurses

that are very compassionate,

but it often takes one or two experiences

by a racist or biased health professional

to hurt a person and to gain their non-trust.

- Morning. - Morning.

- How are you? - I'm okay.

How was your weekend?

It was all right.

I enjoyed the weather.

Yeah, till last night, eh?

-Yeah.

Okay.

So you're doing pretty good, hey?

Yeah.

I was thinking, I've been on... I think, is it 14?

- 14, yeah. - For a while now.

-Okay.

-Try to think of going down a bit?

-How do you feel?

Do you feel pretty stable on the 14?

- Yeah, I do. - Okay.

Mel had some concerns thinking that...

Did she drop down? Did we drop her down?

Yeah. She's down to four.

- How is she doing? - She's doing really good.

-Good. Okay, good.

So... She handles it better than me, going down.

You know, everybody's different.

Don't judge yourself on anybody else, eh?

The bottom line is we don't want you to relapse.

- No. - Okay?

So that's our biggest goal is we don't want you to relapse.

The side goal is we want to get you down,

so I'm not going to force you or push you to come down,

so we want to make sure that you're stable,

and that we don't destabilize your life, hey?

Because in no time, if you relapse,

things could just really fall apart,

so the main thing that we have to think about

is how you feel emotionally,

and we need to know that you're strong enough,

you're feeling strong enough.

We have to keep you really, um, healthy, hey,

because those kids need you.

-Yeah.

Um, so we have to keep you in good shape.

If you burn yourself out... - Mm-hmm.

Then the kids won't have anybody, hey?

Right now, you're helping yourself.

You're helping Mel.

You're helping your sister's children,

your own children,

and then you have Mel's child to think about too sometimes,

and, you know, that's way too much stress for you.

-Mm-hmm.

You're doing really good.

-Yes.

Yeah, so...

Okay. Thank you so much.

All right. Well, keep it up,

and, yeah, you're doing a really good job.

They're going to be giving our...

Our opening prayer and song this morning,

so if you could come down and take your seats,

we are ready to begin.

Friends, relatives,

those of you who have come to visit,

I welcome you all.

I really want to thank all of you

who have been involved

in trying to eradicate this new drug

that has been causing us problems for the last few years.

And we're finding that

with drugs as strong as fentanyl,

that it's really difficult

for addicts to have complete abstinence.

For some, they feel it's impossible.

So the older population is saying,

"Well, why don't you guys just quit?"

you know, "Why don't you just, you know,

go cold turkey and quit?"

but a lot of people have tried that,

but they have not been successful,

and in the meantime, we've lost a lot of lives.

The next thing we want to do

is we want to address a detox facility on reserve,

'cause we're finding that the relapse rates

from people going into detox and waiting for treatment

allows them to relapse and relapse,

and they feel like they're failures,

so if we can get them directly from detox into treatment,

then we might have more success,

and we might be able to help them a little more.

- Mom! - Huh?

How much do I give baby again?

Don't give baby too much.

You know he'll just throw it on the ground.

-Okay.

I'm going to get my medicine.

What's that?

Yeah, of course I can handle them.

You on lunch or something, Shae?

- Huh? - How long are you here?

An hour.

Okay, so you can help Mariah, okay?

-Yeah.

Okay, well, let me do this while he's here,

so it won't be that long.

Yeah, I'll phone that school and I'll talk to that Margie

and I'll find out what's going to happen.

-Okay.

They should have phoned back already.

I know.

Be good. Listen to your sister, okay?

Okay, I'll see you in a bit, my girl.

Yeah. Shae, there's juice.

- Is there? - Yeah.

Okay.

-He's getting tired of us.

I'm just going to life management right now.

I need to get my English.

Lethbridge, they told me if I can average at least an 80,

and then they'll take me in

to get my wind turbine certificate,

and that's something.

Because that's, like, my biggest goal

is to get into wind turbine technician, eh?

And yeah, that's pretty good.

I've been addicted to fentanyl for two years now.

I'm not living my life anymore.

I'm living the life, like,

of a drug addict, like, the beans.

I'm living life just to do a bean,

and it's sad...

and my grandma just cries all the time.

She's... I hate to see her when she's crying, you know?

Because she knows that I'm into this stuff now.

Everyone's starting to know that I'm into this stuff now.

It's just not who I used to be.

It's... it's kind of sad.

Have you thought about going on Suboxone?

Yeah, they said, like,

because, like, I went up there before

and I tried to see Esther, but they were just booked,

so I've got to go to Cardston and see my own doctor,

which I haven't seen in quite some months now.

- Esther is in today. - Yeah?

She doesn't have patients booked.

-Yeah?

If you went today, you would get in to see her.

Really? Yeah?

I don't know. I don't know what to believe.

It's just another addiction for me, another burden, so...

So this is, um, Lori and Sonjae and some others

talking about...

Just from other stories I heard that it was another drug,

another drug to get high.

Like, this thing is, like, the Suboxone has really helped

with the cravings, the withdrawals,

mostly with the craving.

If I didn't have them, it was... it was rough.

It was sick.

Well, they're right about everything they said.

They are right about everything they said.

You know, I've got a lot to live for.

You know, I've got a lot of people

that I don't want to hurt.

Like, that's the last thing I want to do is hurt someone.

Yeah. Like, I can't think right.

Yeah, but I have a really weak stomach.

Will it be better if I just come in and talk to you?

Yeah. Yeah, I-I'll make it.

Okay, let's do that.

-Awesome.

Okay.

So, uh, you're, uh, so you're in today for some help?

-Yeah.

Let me just get your, uh, your chart open here.

So is this kind of, uh, on the spot,

you realized you wanted to do this, hey?

-Yeah.

Okay. I'm just going to get

a little bit of history from you,

if you don't mind.

So can you tell me how long you've been using?

Two years. Two years now.

And it's just gotten daily now.

It's just getting daily.

-So you wait till your, um,

till your withdrawal's really bad, eh?

Yeah, which is when I go to sleep,

and that's when it really...

That's when it's really hard, eh?

Yeah.

What are your symptoms today?

- Right now... - Yeah.

I'm just like... I'm just not really functioning.

Like, I'm getting really emotional.

-Okay.

-Not functioning right.

So you're about ready to start crying, eh?

-Yeah.

-You got a headache?

Yeah, I get those, like, towards nighttime,

I start getting really rank headaches.

Okay. How about body aches?

No, not really body aches,

just my feet get restless,

and that's what prevents me from sleeping.

Okay, so, um, and how did you get started?

Was it a friend that told you?

Um...

practically everyone around me, all of my friends.

-All right, so let's get you started.

Eventually, what we're going to do

when you're, you know, when you're on your feet

and back in school

and your life feels like it's pretty stable,

then we're going to start reducing your Suboxone.

So the aim would be that some time in the future,

you'll be off of it. - Yeah.

Okay? I'm so glad you came in.

-Yeah.

You're going to have money in your pocket too, now.

Yeah.

Okay, so I've got the two medications here.

That's just for nausea, and this is the Suboxone.

It goes under your tongue, and it melts pretty fast.

-Yeah.

And the reason why it goes under your tongue

is because the blood behind your tongue

almost goes straight to your brain.

And that's the fastest way to feel better, hey?

Initially, the pharmacist will watch you

until it is completely dissolved,

but we're going to watch you, and then I'll talk to you

and ask you how you're feeling, okay?

- Yeah. - Okay, here we go.

Tongue back.

All right.

All right, so usually, it takes about maybe five...

Up to five minutes to dissolve.

Do you have kids?

-No.

Do you want to take another drink?

Yeah.

I would have had a kid.

Well, maybe right now it's a good thing you don't, hey?

Because you've got you to take care of, hey?

- Mm-hmm. - Okay, so is it almost gone?

Let's see. Yeah, it's almost gone.

And is it starting to feel like you had a line?

Uh, yeah.

Like, it's like my brain is kind of, like, breathing now.

It's like... Yeah.

-Yeah. Feeling a little bit better?

- It's like... - What about your legs?

Are you feeling less restless?

Mm... yeah.

It kind of feels, like, okay, comfortable now.

So the long-term goals are,

like, you said you want to get back into school, hey?

I want you to continue

the life management work that you're doing, um,

and then have a goal in mind.

Like, maybe by January,

you might want to start going back to Red Crow

for picking up your high school.

From now until you come see me again,

I want you to avoid fighting. - Mm-hmm.

If somebody tries to pick a fight with you, walk away.

Okay? Because fights usually are what trigger relapses.

- Really? - Okay? Yeah.

Um, and if somebody is judging you

or making you feel bad,

walk away from them.

Don't even talk to them, okay?

Because it's your life. It's not theirs, okay?

And one of the things

is that you need to appreciate your partner

and the people that are supporting you.

Say "thank you" to them,

because they're the ones

that are going to help you get through this too.

- Yeah. - Okay?

And I want to see you next week,

and we'll, um, we'll, um, start increasing if we need to,

or we'll keep it where it's at.

You can go every morning now.

Your prescription's over there.

You can go every morning now to get your Suboxone.

I'm happy for you.

Yay!

I've got to go back down there,

because Birdie's expecting me.

I'm happy for him.

That he's on that...

so I don't have to worry about me losing him.

I don't like walking around Standoff,

especially with all this drug-dealing thing.

I don't like it.

I don't even like coming outside, to be honest,

so I just tell my mom I can watch the kids,

and she says, "Yeah. Are you sure?"

I'm like, "Well, yeah.

Didn't I tell you?"

She's like, "Yeah."

So, yeah.

That's what I usually do every day.

I don't mind, eh?

It's keeping me out of trouble,

and that's what I like,

and plus I want to go back to school.

Hopefully my mom can watch them.

Shae's on Suboxone now.

- Is he? - Yeah.

That's awesome.

Really good. I'm happy.

I know, that's what I'm saying too.

It's good, eh, baby?

When did he get up?

-Oh, he's been up for a while.

Tsaa kiistaakii naa...

Paahksikaakiit.

Ah'aiyaah.

Hey, Marlo.

How you doing?

-Thank you.

So I just turned 22 in November,

November 6th.

I was raised here in Moses Lake,

uh, from a foster home.

It was pretty cool you guys came.

-How come?

Um, it's my first time actually on camera, you know...

besides... besides jail.

- Jail? - Yeah, besides going to jail.

Mm.

You know, I never thought of that.

Um...

I never thought of that.

Going out for a cigarette.

So when we talked, last time in the summer,

you were trying to get into treatment?

Yeah. We're still waiting.

That's the only way we can get a place.

We've got a counsellor in Standoff, AA counsellor.

He helps out everybody.

That's who we go see once in a while.

When it gets warm, we hike out and go see him.

He sign papers, how many visits we had,

gives us our medical report.

This time, they're saying this one's our next one.

The path to getting into a treatment centre

is complicated.

Before going to treatment,

George and Leah need to visit

their addictions counsellor in Standoff four times.

They generally have to hitchhike the 30 kilometres

to get there.

They then need to get medical forms

from their family doctor,

and then they need to go to a detox.

Most detoxes in Alberta have a waitlist.

After completing these steps,

they can finally apply for a bed in a NNADAP treatment centre.

However, most treatment centres in Alberta have a waitlist.

Many people from Kainai

live in the nearby city of Lethbridge.

Those who live with addictions

have access to different services in the city

than those who live on reserve.

Arches is a non-profit organization in Lethbridge

that offers over 20 wraparound services

rooted in harm-reduction practices.

The Indigenous Recovery Coach Program

supports Indigenous people who are in recovery

and specifically on opioid agonist therapy,

such as Suboxone or methadone.

The program recognizes

that participants face numerous barriers

in their daily lives,

so coaches offer one-on-one support

for everything from getting to appointments,

to finding housing, to getting into treatment.

The program also offers cultural support,

guidance from elders,

and access to ceremony.

I'm leaving tomorrow.

I'm going to treatment up north.

I'll be gone for 56 days, so...

I'm a little scared, but...

it's something I have to do.

When you're on drugs, it's a routine.

You get up, you start looking, right, for your drug of choice,

and... and then it's just, like, all day,

it seems like you're on that drug, right?

Whereas methadone, I take it once a day,

and I'm fine. I can function.

And I tried Suboxone,

but I had a really bad allergic reaction to it, eh?

I kept getting sick, and, um...

uh, it just wasn't working for me.

How did your life change after you...

- With methadone? - -started methadone treatment?

I started living normal, right?

Like, living that normal life again,

whereas before,

well, it wasn't a normal, healthy life, right?

I'm living healthy.

Um, I just function throughout the whole day,

normally, like a normal person, right?

She deserves the credit.

She did everything.

She's just a very, very resourceful lady,

and very, um, smart,

and for the most part,

she's done all of this planning just on her own,

and it's just that we're there to help her

with the recovery,

and just any kind of, like, long-term or short-term goals.

All right. See you guys.

- Okay. We'll see you. - All right. Yeah.

Have a safe, good journey.

-Yes, I will.

I always dreamed of having this kind of life.

After I had my daughter,

I relapsed for a couple of months,

and just one morning,

I woke up and I couldn't do it anymore.

I was struggling.

I had nothing, like, literally nothing.

And my brother told me,

"You should write down your goals,

and then, you know, just write them down,

and then maybe in the future, it will happen,

but it won't happen right away,"

but just to keep that paper,

and then I did do it,

but I don't have that paper anymore,

and then my goals kind of came true

because now I got my own place, my daughter.

I'm going to school.

Ken is working.

I feel a lot better.

Confident.

This is for the people out there

that I want to say to them.

I just...

"Oki. My name's Rady Goodrider.

I'm from the Blood Tribe Reserve.

Today marks 11 months...

and it hasn't been all good,

but I handled life without it.

I know I'm better off.

I just had enough

looking over my shoulder waiting for the next fix.

16 years old when I start using,

and now I'm 20 years old and finally sober.

As long as I can keep myself healthy,

I can still accomplish

all the things I dreamed of doing.

Never think less of yourself, because you're somebody.

My personal story."

This is her.

She's in daycare.

Aw. She's one year old now?

- Mm-hmm. - Wow.

-She's really cute.

I love being a mom.

I love taking care of my daughter.

She means everything to me.

I'm so glad I got her.

In response to the opioid crisis,

Arches opened a supervised consumption site,

which became one of the busiest in Canada.

The majority of the clients who use the site are Indigenous,

and many are from Kainai.

So inside this facility,

we have about eight different programs that operate.

Our largest program is Supervised Consumption Services,

so that's where you're standing right now.

Can you buzz me in?

Yeah.

Thank you.

And this is the consumption room.

So nursing stations,

there are two because the room's so large,

so in this room, there are 13 booths.

In the second room,

there are four more booths for when we get busy.

So we have four modes of consumption here,

so people can inject,

they can inhale, they can snort,

or they can ingest orally.

So when they come in, they generally wash their hands,

and then they would let us know what supplies they want.

Sterile water so that they're using a good water source.

Ties, no different

than when you go to get your blood taken,

so that they can tie off,

and then cookers and filters,

and for those that are smoking fentanyl

or other fentanyl analogues or heroin,

we provide foil for them.

So they get monitored while they're in here

and they're using.

If there's any issues or medical emergencies,

then we have staff on hand to respond,

and we have all the medical equipment

that would be required

to be able to revive somebody from an overdose.

So all of the booths are the same size,

except for one that's a little bit bigger,

to support either people in wheelchairs

or people who are participating

in our peer-assisted injection pilot project.

Do you feel...

Do you feel safe using the smoke room here?

-Yeah...

just in case something does go wrong.

The staff's here to help.

I've seen them firsthand help other people.

It's good.

Because I think all it takes is one person to care,

because everyone out here is a person.

We're all people.

We breathe the same air.

We bleed the same blood.

-Do you find value in the services that Arches offers?

Yes, I do because...

there's a lot of people that I see here

that OD a lot, and they OD a lot in here,

and if they go out there and do the same thing,

they OD out there, you know, they won't have anything,

or they don't take anything with them,

they could, you know...

They won't come out of their situation.

If it happens out there in an alley or somewhere else,

without their OD kits...

So there's talks

about cutting budgets for places like Arches.

If you didn't have Arches, where would you be?

There'd probably be a lot more deaths and ODs, you know.

That's all that's going to happen.

The Supervised Consumption Site

and other harm-reduction services

offered through Arches

received pushback from some residents of Lethbridge.

Vocal opponents to the SCS organized numerous protests,

petitions, and community gatherings.

Various Facebook groups opposed to the SCS

were created in an effort to shame drug users.

Photos and footage of clients of the SCS

were frequently posted in these social media forums

without their consent,

along with racist and derogatory comments.

A nearby business had a 24-hour YouTube stream

directed at the SCS entrance.

Violence toward SCS clients and staff

was also documented.

A Lethbridge man was charged with assault with a weapon

after firing a paintball gun from a moving truck

at clients and staff.

Yes, actually, I was in one,

just back here by these steps into the alley.

I was talking to these two girls,

and, um, I didn't see it, I didn't care,

but somebody told me, "Look, Lloyd, you're on..."

I think she said Facebook.

Um, we went through her phone.

I was looking at it to the picture of me.

I had my back to the camera.

It was coming from behind me, this building back here.

I was standing there with the two girls on each side,

it looked like we were making a deal,

but we were just talking.

Do you... do you feel safe

here in Lethbridge?

-No.

-How come?

Like, two days ago,

some white guys pulled a shotgun on me

when I was walking down the street.

It was, like, 2:00 in the morning.

This truck just pulled up, and I just heard them...

I heard them load that shotgun, and like...

they called me a fucking savage or whatever.

Um, I've been hearing a lot,

and I see a lot of white people beating on the Indian,

on the street, the alleys,

or just calling them bad names and everything.

It's kind of dangerous

for a Native to walk around alone at night,

or even during the day sometimes, eh?

In 2008, two Blackfoot men were targeted

in an unprovoked assault

by Lethbridge resident Bradley Gray.

Gray chased George Many Shots and Percy Panther Bone

into an alley near his northside home,

and beat George Many Shots to death.

Percy Panther Bone was also badly injured in the assault.

Gray was heard saying earlier that day,

"We do nothing but fucking put up with drunken Indians."

He also told a friend

that he was going to "clean up the neighbourhood."

Bradley Gray was sentenced to life in prison

under a manslaughter conviction

for the murder of George Many Shots.

George Many Shots' death was listed as a hate homicide,

one of only two hate homicides in Canadian history at the time.

Aahpistto iihksitsspoiyoah'pa, kyiaah.

Let's get going.

Aiyooh'kiinaan, aiyooh'sinaapisspoh'pii,

Aiyooh'aahpinaohka

Aanikiaapoohtaomohpiihksipinaan

anii ikihtaantsapoohpinaan.

Aiyooh'kimmaatokinaan

naa anii kiaa'iihtohtahksstsaaksitsiniip

inaan aanii kiahiihkiintsipootaiyaa

aniiksii iitaisskaamannaan.

You guys want to go down?

This way.

The SAGE Clan Patrol

is a volunteer-run organization founded by Mark Brave Rock.

Mark was inspired by Winnipeg's Bear Clan.

The SAGE Clan patrols the streets of Lethbridge

three times a week

and offers support to vulnerable people.

They also safely dispose of used needles

and other drug paraphernalia.

Napí.

Napí.

Napí, Kiyaooi.

Aw, Fred, why don't you try and get to the shelter?

It's too cold here.

Are you sure you're going to be okay?

Why don't I come back and check on you, all right?

Okay?

- Sounds good. Okay. - How long?

- How long? - Bye.

- Right away. - Right away?

Um, Sly, you and Adele, do you want to wait?

- Yeah. - For... wait for Dot.

- We'll come back through here. - Sure.

They're going to come and pick him up, all right?

Okay. All right.

That's exactly what we don't like to see

is somebody hiding in a secluded spot to sleep.

That's when they get beaten up.

They get found by...

by guys who beat them up just for...

just to beat them up.

You know, how do you explain it, eh,

why they would do it to somebody?

Like I said, Eric's pretty thorough.

Did you find anything there?

What did you find?

That would be good, to have those rubber gloves.

Rinse off your gloves when you get home.

-I know.

- Watch your step. - All right.

- Watch what you're stepping in. - Okay.

In case there's any needles or stuff like that.

You have really thin shoes.

I lost my mom... About two months,

it will be a year that I lost her through addictions.

This time, I couldn't save her.

And I also feel my mom's presence

because all the routes that we went through,

I always found my mom.

-Yeah.

So it kind of feels like I'm with her.

Yeah.

Oh, uh, my English name is Sylvester James Daniels.

Well, I'm known as Sly around here, Sly Daniels.

My Indian name is Aipiiskao.

That means "traveller" in Blackfoot.

I left addiction when I was in Vancouver.

I was on the streets there for a few years,

and, uh, so I used to shoot up a lot of dope

or stuff like that, so I know...

I know what it's like, hands down, you know.

I think that's actually probably one of the good things

that makes me want to do this,

because when I was in the darkness

of doing all that dope and stuff like that,

all that, you know, of hurting myself,

there were people like us,

and, you know, they'd come up to me

and always ask me if I'm okay.

You know, and just being able to see people ask that question,

"Are you okay?" you know, when they come up to you,

that brings... That gives you a light, eh?

So it just, you know, when people do that,

when they did that to me,

that makes me want to do this too, eh?

Okay.

Well, do you want to... Do you want to sing a song?

- Sly! - Yes?

You want to join us?

-Hello, Christine.

-Hi, Elton. How are you doing?

- I'm okay. - Good. Nice to see you.

-Yeah. This is a good day.

- It's the crew. - Cool.

-The crew.

Okay. Well, wish me luck.

Yeah. Good luck.

-That I'm going to pass and ace my test.

Aiyooh Iihtaapaitaapiiyaoh'pa

Kitsiksimaatsimmohpinaan

Isspommokinnaan Anohk Ksistiko Kimmokinaan

Ais'stamattsookinnaan.

So, uh, make sure that you, uh, put your name and today's date.

Have your calculators handy, times table sheet, use that...

and if you get stuck, let us know.

We'll help you out.

And you have... You've got an hour.

You've got an hour to do it, so good luck.

I was kind of at a bad...

how do I say it, place

that I was going downhill and all that.

I had no one to talk to or anything,

and plus me and Shae, like,

were fighting around the time, too,

so that just kind of...

That's where I just kind of went...

I don't know why.

So I kind of put myself

in a bad place right there, so...

and I regret it, though.

I really do. I'm not even lying.

Yeah.

I just hope that I...

That I actually accomplish my goals,

and that I do get my life clean and healthy.

I'm really hoping to be a nurse still.

It's what I want.

Okay, I'll check my laundry.

Yeah, it feels really good to be working, doing something,

getting out of the house.

I started noticing her being different,

and then, you know, I... I confronted her.

She was scared at first,

but, you know, I just told her,

you know, that I wasn't mad at her.

I was more, you know, worried about her.

We had a really good long talk,

and I told her I would help her get off.

I didn't want her to be on it.

So she cried. We cried.

We had a really, you know, a moment,

and I just, um, told her, you know, "I'll help you."

So I was the one who made the appointment

for them to go get on Suboxone.

So, yeah, I'm...

So I was just...

kind of hurt, though, to see her, you know, on it.

I never thought my daughter would be, you know, into that.

But I guess I'm partly to blame for it,

because she witnessed me, you know.

I still remember the day I brought her

and when she first went to school, you know,

and her reaction when I...

I literally got kicked out of there.

They wanted, you know, to try and break that bond,

so I literally stood outside the door,

and I hear her crying,

and I'm, like, standing outside,

and I'm, like, bawling my eyes out.

And then there's this teacher that walks by,

and she comes, and she's like,

"Aw, is it your daughter's...

Or your child's first day of class?"

I was like, "Yeah."

I said, "I didn't let her go to Head Start,

so this is my first time, you know,

letting her go to school and be on her own."

She said, "Yeah, we've seen that,

but, you know, she'll be okay."

So she literally walked me out of the school.

I'm still working EMS casually,

but I also work now

in a part-time permanent position

with the Mobile Medical Unit.

-Morning.

Marcia and I, we're actually sisters,

so she got involved in this first,

and then I of course followed, because I'm the little sister.

Good morning.

Along with providing

primary health-care services,

the Mobile Medical Unit

dispenses harm-reduction supplies

and delivers Suboxone to patients

who do not have transportation to the pharmacy every day.

Like, I was one of those people who thought,

"Oh, you're just replacing one addiction with the other."

It was just more of my own personal journey

from, you know, being one of those,

"Oh, my God, harm reduction,

that's, you know, that's not doing anything for anybody.

What good is it?"

to kind of really understanding, you know,

what harm reduction is,

and why it's needed within the community.

Your last visit was good?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

You're still really involved with your baby, hey?

Yeah. I still go over and visit.

-Yeah.

They wanted me to go for a treatment,

then they wanted me to go for parenting classes.

Um, then when I have visits here,

then if those are going good,

like, everything's going perfect,

then she'll be able to have sleepovers.

-Oh, okay.

And then when those sleepovers are good,

where she is happy, like, she is...

there's nothing wrong with her sleeping here...

-Mm-hmm.

And then they'll... then I'll get her back.

Are you done?

- Yeah. - Let's see.

Okay. All right.

So tomorrow, bring your lock box out with you,

because you'll have the weekend carries.

- Okay. - Okay?

Okay, see you. Have a good day.

- Yeah, you too. - Okay.

With every wave of the opioid crisis,

community leaders and frontline workers at Kainai

become more adept at responding to emergencies.

In response to yet another spike in overdoses,

community leaders are gathering to coordinate their efforts.

- Hello. - How are you?

- How are you? - Good.

I'm glad.

That-that's 13, right, in the last...

Yeah. Since yesterday morning, 8:00.

Yeah.

So... and that's 22 in 48 hours.

- Okay. So you'll report on this. - Yeah.

So just to give everything context,

I'm going to ask Jacen to give a report,

because Jacen and his crew have been extremely busy.

In the last 24 hours, we've done 13 overdoses.

In the last 48 hours, we've done 22 overdoses.

So over and above that, we've also done

all the other calls that are in there.

So keeping in mind there's only three ambulances

that are on shift

at any given time on the Blood Reserve,

we're working hard on the detox centre.

We've got support from Chief and Council

and from our board to move forward with this.

Kevin's working hard

with the federal and provincial government

trying to secure more funding,

and other than that,

we don't have a whole lot more to report.

Thank you. Let's move to Esther.

Could you give a little bit of an update?

-Okay. So I stopped in the emergency room this morning

to get an update.

They've had 20 overdoses in since Tuesday morning,

and last night, they had three overdoses.

They're taking up to six...

Between six to eight vials of naloxone to revive them,

and, um, we did have one death yesterday morning,

which is suspected overdose.

So, um, there's a couple of things

that we're... We're stepping up on,

and one is we really need to step up

on the naloxone distribution at every site.

We have a walk-in Suboxone clinic today,

and we'll have a walk-in Suboxone clinic

on Saturday and Sunday.

For anybody that's going through withdrawal,

they can come directly to the clinic

Saturday and Sunday,

and we'll assess them for starting them on Suboxone,

and hopefully, they're not going to seek more of this stuff

to get, you know...

Because most of the people are dope sick,

and what they're doing

is they're just wanting to feel better.

How are our naloxone kits?

Do we have lots?

I placed an order yesterday,

so they should be coming in, hopefully by the end of...

-How many did you order?

About 250.

- 250? - Yeah.

2-3-3-5, do you want Charmaine and myself to respond?

She had a pulse the whole time, right?

It came in as a cardiac arrest,

and when the crews got on scene,

they determined it was another overdose,

which makes it our seventh for the day.

Witnessing the calls, it's very heart-wrenching

when you go on a call and people are breathless,

they've got very weak pulses, and you do the best you can.

We're just restocking our naloxone

from the three overdoses we just had.

The one gentleman in townsite

took eight mils to bring him back

till he was breathing on his own,

so it's definitely a carfentanil that's back in our community.

Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid

a hundred times more potent than fentanyl,

and 10,000 times more potent than morphine.

Okay, everyone, glad you're here.

Um, I don't know if you guys are aware,

we're having a crisis situation with the opioids again.

We're going to just do the naloxone training today

and show you guys what to do if you come upon an overdose.

So the naloxone kit contains three vials of naloxone.

In each... in each one of those little brown bottles,

there is 1.4 milligrams,

or one milligram of the naloxone.

There you go.

Yeah, you better learn.

Come on.

Pull it back to where it's in the liquid,

and take it and pull back.

You see the fluid's going in?

And then you draw back a bit,

and then make sure it goes to the 1.

That's the dose, okay?

So you're going to take your... Your muscle...

and you go straight in, okay?

You're in.

You're going to go straight down.

There you go.

Now you could save a life, okay?

- Thank you. - Thanks.

When we get a... We call it a bad batch.

When a bad batch happens,

the guys are going call to call because there's...

Sometimes there's multiple people in a house

that'll drop,

and then we're starting a...

I thought we were going to run out of our Narcan.

So everybody's...

Every officer is issued three of these Narcan.

With a bad batch,

it takes seven of these to revive that person,

where before, it only used to take three.

See, the box is almost empty now.

We call them fentanyl shifts, or fentanyl patrol, it's called.

They'll start their shift, they'll grab a bunch of Narcan,

and they'll just drive around,

and then they'll listen to the radio,

and then whenever they hear an overdose come in,

they'll go to that call,

and that's all they do.

So then that will free up the existing officers

that are working that regular night shift

to actually attend what they're supposed to be attending.

What had happened is that person showed up at house 205,

wanted water, turned blue,

and then just dropped into an overdose,

and, um, EMS got there first, revived her,

and then she took off on foot,

avoiding us,

and we haven't found her since,

so that's what the officers are tied up doing right now,

checking different family member houses

all over the reserve

and trying to figure out...

As long as we know that she's alive and breathing,

then we'll lay off,

but until then, we'll have to keep looking for her.

There's an abandoned vehicle over by '09.

I don't know.

I'd like to be a time traveller

and travel back to pre-colonization

to see how things were dealt with back then.

That would be really interesting.

Because obviously,

I think it started right from colonization.

But that's just my opinion, though.

In response to the increase in overdoses,

the Kainai Healing Lodge

has transitioned into a temporary detox

over the holiday season.

Okay, yeah, so I'm really glad you're here,

and you've, um... let's see.

Seven days, or five days?

- Seven days. - Seven days.

Tell me how you feel physically.

I'm starting to feel a little better now,

since when I came.

-Mm-hmm.

But I'm still kind of...

- A little shaky? - Yeah.

Any headache?

- No. - No headache.

No cold sweats?

Yes...

- A little bit? - Yeah.

Okay, well, we'll still have to deal with that.

What about your emotional part?

How do you feel?

-Uh...

I still feel kind of...

- Sad? - Yeah.

Yeah. That's a hard one, eh?

Have you been able to get through

some of the stuff that's happened at residential school?

Uh...

that's why I drink.

-Yeah?

Lots of stuff that happened there.

But do you know, George, I know it's hard.

- Yeah. - I know it's hard,

but I don't want to open that up right now,

but I know that that's probably

one of the hardest parts in your life,

and if we can start working with it in treatment...

like, I know it hurts you every day,

but I don't want to open it up right now.

You need to be in a safe place

where we can start talking about that,

because it's one hurt that leads to another hurt

that leads to another hurt,

and at some point, you just have so much

that you have to put back together, eh?

And... and none of it's your fault.

Like many Blackfoot children,

George was close with his grandparents.

His grandfather, Calling Last,

was one of our great spiritual leaders

in our sacred Sundance societies.

When George was six years old,

he was taken from his family

and placed in residential school.

At a time when he should have been learning

about our sacred traditional ways

and forming his identity as a Blackfoot person,

he was placed in a violent institution

designed to assimilate.

As a young person,

I've lost many close relatives to alcohol.

Um, many of my uncles on both sides of my family

have, um, died secondary to alcohol use.

We lost a niece a few years ago to opioid overdose,

and we just weren't watching or paying attention,

and didn't realize that in our...

In our family periphery,

there was somebody who was at risk.

Yeah. He's got the gift of gab.

Look where it got me.

One time, I had to go to court.

I was standing in court,

and I was thinking,

"I'm just going to plead guilty.

I don't want to be talking."

Next thing, he came and stood behind me

and started talking.

I got out of it.

Was it for a speeding ticket or something?

U-turn on a street.

Oh, yeah.

- Yeah. - Cardston, right?

My grandparents say that their greatest achievement

is their children and grandchildren,

and they really mean that.

None of us saw it coming when my cousin passed away,

because we didn't know that she was using again.

The loss of my granddaughter...

was very difficult.

Every day...

we think of my granddaughter.

I had cancer about 17 years ago,

and when I got home,

she was there,

and we'd sit up.

I couldn't sleep.

I'd sit up most of the night,

and she'd sit up with me,

and we'd tell stories.

I'd tell her stories.

Sometimes, I hope they sunk in.

She and I got very close.

She called me several times

to go and pick her up in Calgary.

There's no reason I... I...

I didn't go.

I had no reason, I just didn't go...

and the next thing, we get the call.

My grandparents treasure

that last thing she mailed them.

It was a Valentine's Day card she made with her daughter.

The envelope was filled with silver heart-shaped confetti.

She really loved that daughter of hers,

and she was a good mom.

After she passed,

my grandpa sealed that heart-shaped confetti

right into the woodwork of the dining-room counter.

I held my grandparents when we laid her to rest.

I've never witnessed sorrow like theirs that day,

and every day since then.

The regret and "what ifs" and "if onlys" are always there,

but I don't want this film

to serve as a memory of the way she passed,

because she was so much more than that.

She was never afraid to say "I love you,"

and she wasn't afraid of taking chances.

She was so damn funny,

and she got away with saying just about anything.

She had bright eyes and a beautiful crooked smile.

I miss her laugh and her way of teasing.

I miss telling her my secrets

and knowing she'd keep them safe.

I miss her so much.

I wish we knew then what we know now,

because she'd still be here to say "I love you."

It's a long way up there.

-Yeah.

But it's really lucky that we now have that space.

When is it going to be finished?

Um, they're looking at the end of December,

and starting January the 10th is our start...

is our aim for our start day.

After years of work,

a safe withdrawal site, or detox,

is opening at Kainai.

For those who are ready to go into recovery,

the detox will fill a much-needed gap

in the treatment pathway.

So as you can see, it's all under construction now.

-Yeah.

So we're going to start with four rooms,

and, uh...

here, I'll show you what we're doing here.

We'll try to keep them

until we've got them stable medically,

and help them through their withdrawals,

and then we assess whether or not

we're going to start them on Suboxone or methadone,

or if they're going to look at abstinence,

so it's not actually like a hospital or a subacute care.

It's actually like a home that people are in,

and the paramedics are coming in,

and we will have staff here,

but it's a different kind of model

than what other people have ever seen.

You know, we need to put this one building block

into our treatment pathway,

and that was what we decided

would be most helpful in this crisis,

is to move one more step further

than just, um, harm reduction and saving lives,

and that's to start getting people

into, um, stabilized care

and the actual treatment

that they need to turn their lives around.

It's really, um, exciting

that we're moving into something

that nobody has ever done before,

but we have to.

It's out of necessity

that we have to do the things that need to be done,

and we can't sit back and expect things to change

without doing the work,

and without really doing all of the community,

um, activity that we're doing.

The Bringing the Spirit Home detox

opened in February 2019 in Standoff.

Bringing the Spirit Home offers support

through a harm-reduction model with opioid agonist therapy,

as well as support

in a more conventional abstinence-based

detox model.

Clients are invited to stay as long as they need,

and support is offered

to those who wish to get into a residential treatment centre.

Hi, guys. How are you?

- Good. - Yeah.

It looks like you got two more patients.

We did, yeah.

He came in at about 3:00, 3:30.

-Okay.

Um, he was okay,

and then he did his shower and everything,

and he started getting super agitated,

so he's already had one milligram of Ativan,

just because I wanted to slow him down a little.

All right.

Do you have, like, the, um, progress notes?

So I'll go in with the progress note sheet

and one of these,

and then it works out really just...

Yeah, there we go.

- Oh, these ones. - Yeah.

So I am in the process right now

of seeking treatment for two of our clients.

So what is your process now?

Once I get everything sent up to you,

how long of a wait do I have to...

what am I looking at?

Two months for male.

Yeah, I told them everything on our end is covered

as far as application, medical, and funding,

and there is still a wait list.

Which is interesting because, you know,

when we talked to the federal government,

they said that we wouldn't have...

With that new list, we wouldn't have that wait time.

Okay. All right.

It's something we'll work on next week.

-Okay.

I'll call them back on Monday.

-Okay. Thanks.

Kara Eagle Bear is a member of the Kainai Nation,

and is one of the paramedics working at the detox.

Her father, Warren, has been a client there for 45 days.

He was an EMT on the Blood Reserve

for 13 years

before developing PTSD

due to the trauma he witnessed on the job.

Rylan was telling you that you put on weight?

Yeah.

I put on lots of weight since I got here.

He said when he got here, he was 147.

Now he's 193.

It must be the food.

All the carbs.

Yeah.

It's a big stress relief on us,

knowing that you're here and you're okay.

Now that I'm here, you know, I don't want to leave.

You'll just move in.

I just hope that people would understand

where all this hurt is coming from.

I want people to know that they're not bad people.

They're... they're really, really kind, um...

and I don't... I just don't want them to be judged.

There's 22, but seven are leaving this morning.

Some have done their, you know, 30 days here,

and some, they're in here for seven days,

and we tried to talk them into staying,

but they want to leave, and we can't force them to stay.

The reason, like, for us to be leaving,

it's not to go out and about

and start doing this stuff we're doing.

We just want to get, like, all our stuff ready and...

'cause we're going to be heading to treatment,

so we can be ready when we go to treatment.

All right.

-'Kay. See you.

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

-Yeah.

All right.

Take care, George.

You guys know where we're at if you guys want to come back.

It's your choice. You guys don't have to leave.

This is you guys choosing to leave.

So best of luck and everything,

and get those assessments done,

and hopefully you guys can get into treatment on the first.

-This release form here.

-Okay.

This is our incident report from this afternoon,

if you'd like to just check.

My name is Leonard Chief Moon.

I'm the supervisor here

at the Bringing the Spirit Home detox centre.

With the clients that we have here,

when I do talk with them,

I tell them that I'm proud of them,

because it takes a lot of courage for them to...

come off the streets and come here and talk to us.

We admit them,

and it takes a lot of courage

for them to take that first step,

and they know it's hard,

especially when they start detoxing,

and we work with them.

After a week or so, they're a totally different person.

My mom stayed in Vegas for about...

Until I was about maybe about eight.

She was into heroin really bad,

and she ODed when I was about maybe 12.

I started maybe smoking weed

when I was about, maybe about eight or nine.

I started drinking when I was about 10.

So from there, that's where it kind of escalated

to when I was maybe about 13, 14,

I started abusing heroin and, uh, meth.

I mixed it with meth.

I mixed that bean with meth,

and I just remember, I just... coming to.

I was in the hospital, like...

and I couldn't move my leg.

Still, right now, I'm still trying to walk.

It was really tough the first day I got in here.

The withdrawal was really bad, like, really bad.

What I kept doing was I kept praying, you know,

praying to our Creator to help me.

I'm feeling good about myself.

I'm clean.

I'm getting healthy.

I'm starting to gain weight again.

I lost quite a bit of weight during my drug abuse.

This is a really good place.

It's an awesome place.

It's an amazing thing that they've done,

and in my eyes, they're heroes, Jacen and Leonard, you know.

I look up to them as, you know, superheroes.

I just felt like

I was going in circles when I was out there.

Since I came here, it...

opened up my spirit, this detox, you know.

There's workers here.

There's Jacen, you know.

There's all these other workers here, you know.

They're here to help us, you know,

and they've been here to help us.

They helped me get back on track.

Grab my sheet.

-The whole reason you came.

All right, you guys. You guys have a good life, hey?

-Yeah. Thank you. You too.

Hide that.

I tried to get some of the original guys out.

Uh... probably everybody except, of course, Sly.

Sly won't be with us tonight.

Well, Sly, he was a really caring person.

He was a great person,

a great person who helped any way he could.

Then the last time I saw him, he was at my place,

and he said good night,

and that's when he went to my bathroom and he ODed.

This is a song I...

I made when I was walking with my friend, Sly.

He was always asking me to sing it to him.

He was always asking, "What's that song again?"

So I'd sing it to him while we walked.

So I thought it was appropriate to use it for...

To honour him,

so I named the song after him, Sly,

because I haven't put a name on it,

and I named it after him, to honour him, so...

Kímmapiiyipitssini means compassion, caring.

It means feeling for others

who do not have the same health and happiness that you have,

and it's... It's also basically sharing

and trying to take care of your fellow man or woman

because in our way of believing,

if you help people out,

then you are blessed to continue to do that,

and so our people

are supposed to give what they have

or what they can to help others,

and that means also compassion for those who are suffering.

- See ya. - Yeah.

- See you, Kobe. - Yeah.

- See you, Kelly. - Yeah. See you.

This is my nephew there.

Okay.

He's a long-distance runner, too.

-Really?

But they can't beat me.

Did your tent get wet on Saturday?

Uh, no.

-So you stayed warm and dry?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Like, I do, like, I want to go to treatment,

and George wants to go.

Because we've been at it for a real long time,

and it seems like every time when we...

When we try to, like, sober up,

then something like this happens.

Leah's cousin Shawna,

who she took as a sister, passed away suddenly last week.

-George, and sorry, your name was?

- Leah. - Leah? All right.

How are you feeling?

-Mm.

- Pretty good? - Yeah.

38 now?

37.

37, okay.

What substance do you use?

Solvents and alcohol.

-Okay.

How often?

- Every day. - Every day?

For how long have you been using?

Mm...

let's see.

About 22 years.

-22 years.

And what makes you want to stop?

Mm...

-Anything you're working towards?

I'm just going through grievance now

'cause I just lost my sister.

-I'm really sorry about that.

Gary?

Okay. We'll just get you to come back here.

-Yep.

-We'll get you in the shower

and get your laundry started going for you.

I think what's happened with you, George,

is that after treatment,

like you said before, "Where do I go?"

You don't have a house to go to.

If we can... if we could have got you into your own place,

but a place where people don't come in

and they start drinking with you, hey?

And that's usually what makes you fall off the wagon

is that all your friends come,

then pretty soon, you fall off the wagon.

So, um, we'll have... That's what we have to work on.

I don't... I mean,

I think the counselling and that is good for you,

but I don't think treatment's going to do much,

make much difference right now, hey?

I think the big thing is getting a home.

-Yeah.

A place to live for until we can get...

You know, work on getting you into your own place.

- Yeah. Yeah. - That's the big goal, eh?

I think that's a good start. Okay.

Jeez, those knees look really sore.

Looks like you've been riding a horse for a while.

Yeah, that's what all my friends are saying.

-Yeah.

We've had over 300 clients

come through the centre

since it's opened.

We've had several go on to treatment.

Some are now into transition housing.

As of today, we have 17.

We've got one more

that's being treated in the hospital for pneumonia,

and we've got one more coming back today

who delivered a baby July 9th,

and so mom and baby are both coming back today,

so it that will get us to 19 plus a baby.

She spent the last three and a half months

of her pregnancy

with us in the detox centre,

so we were able to cut her back on her Suboxone

to help with the baby's withdrawal once baby was born.

Child Services asked

if we could bring baby and mom back here

just to monitor

and make sure that they're coming into a safe environment,

again to help cut back on the Suboxone for mom,

and make sure baby is not suffering at all,

so we agreed to it, and we'll see where that goes.

Again, not something we planned for

when we opened up the safe withdrawal site,

but we're not going to turn anybody away.

He just looks all...

You miss Mommy?

His face is just the same shape as yours.

I know.

I kept calling him my older son's name,

'cause they look the same.

Aw...

Is he waking up a lot now?

-No, he's actually good.

He sleeps a lot, eh?

We better put something on those little feet, eh?

You just want to be back in there, hey?

Wow.

Are you dreaming?

Are you dreaming?

You got your mommy's face.

They said even that helps him.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, holding him, like,

just so he feels all, feels something all around.

If you leave him lying on the bed to, um...

You know how grandmas wrap them really tight?

That helps him to feel secure, hey?

He still wants to curl his little feet up

like he's inside you. See?

Do you hear your mama's voice?

Hmm? Is she here?

That's so good that worked out that way, hey? Yeah.

Children's Services didn't interfere at all?

No. Like, they did call,

but the hospital told them they had no concerns,

and same with Leslie, so they just...

Because we're coming back here, they let us go.

That's wonderful, hey?

So no worries about Children's Services coming

and taking him away.

Look at that.

Look at those lips.

Oh, he's going to open his eyes.

Come on.

Oh, are you waking up?

Oh, look at you.

Look at that stretch.

His eyes are like yours, eh?

Okay.

I think I have to get to work here.