����ֱ��

Paul Chaput (PhD’15) likes to live his life in such a way that he rarely knows what’s coming next. It’s a philosophy that has allowed him many paths, many stops and starts, and many welcome opportunities.

“When I’m at Four Directions, sitting and chatting with other students, we’ll be talking about something, such as making a documentary or a film, and I’ll say, ‘Oh, I’ve done that,’” says Dr. Chaput, who is Métis from St. Adolphe, Man. “The students will look at each other, rolling their eyes a little, and say, ‘Paul has done everything!’”

It’s not far from the truth.

Dr. Chaput – who earned his PhD in human geography with Professor George Lovell as his supervisor – has many credentials. He’s a musician, a composer, an actor, a writer, a film director and producer, and a radio and TV host. He’s worked as a graphic designer. He’s a yoga instructor. And he’s a researcher, writer and mediator for First Nations communities across Ontario and Canada.

“I’ve always been a freelancer, and I enjoy doing lots of different things, especially in the arts,” says Dr. Chaput, who moved to Kingston in 2008 to be with his partner. Shortly thereafter, with some encouragement, he applied to do a master’s in geography with Professor and Department Head Anne Godlewska.

He landed at Queen’s at an opportune time. Along with friend and fellow Métis student Mimi Gellman, Dr. Chaput became involved with Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre (FDASC), which at the time had no director, no elder-in-residence to guide students, and few students engaged in the centre’s activities. 

A chance meeting outside Stauffer Library with Ms. Gellman and Jeff Welsh, then-SGPS president, led to more discussions. Within a short time, Dr. Chaput and a group of students worked with the Aboriginal Council of Queen’s University (ACQU) to spur change regarding FDASC and other Indigenous priorities on campus.

“I landed in the middle of that. And the work we did over the ensuing years catalyzed a lot of different actions to improve the situation. Things have turned out very positively,” he says, noting that Janice Hill, a Mohawk from Tyendinaga, was hired as director at Four Directions, and Caroline Davis, Vice-Principal (Finance) – who spent many years with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada – joined the ACQU as co-chair representing the university community, along with Marlene Brant Castellano as co-chair representing the Aboriginal community.

Dr. Chaput has also had a strong hand in sustaining and promoting the program known as SAGE – Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement – an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional peer-mentoring program designed to support Aboriginal graduate students with the successful transition into and completion of graduate programs. 

“Through the sponsorship of Indigenous cultural events on campus, SAGE members strive to raise the awareness of non-Indigenous students regarding Indigenous cultures,” says Dr. Chaput, who, as the head of SAGE, sat as its representative on ACQU for the past four years. “The program also establishes and encourages mentorship pods and cohorts across the province in post-secondary institutions.”

A childhood on two continents

Dr. Chaput spent the first eight years of his life in the village of St. Adolphe, Man. His family – he has three brothers and a sister – had several acres of land on the banks of the Red River in the village, half an hour south of St. Boniface. (St. Boniface is now a ward of the city of Winnipeg and has a population over 50,000.) He attended the village school – a French Catholic residential school run by the Filles de la Croix for girls from distant communities, but local boys and girls attended during the day. 

“I was full of curiosity – I talked to everyone in the village. I knew everyone,” says Dr. Chaput, who grew up speaking French and Michif French.

His village life came to an abrupt end when Dr. Chaput’s father announced that the family was moving to Petawawa, Ont., where he’d been posted with the military. 

“I did not want to go. I had lots of friends. I loved my grandparents in St. Adolphe. I was brokenhearted,” he says.

But, the move turned out to be one of those unplanned steps that Dr. Chaput has taken throughout his life and that have led him to great things. In Petawawa, he committed himself to learning English. Soon after the move, Dr. Chaput’s father was posted to Germany, and the family moved overseas, where he says he became friends with many Francophone and Anglophone students and adapted to living in a modern state-of-the-art four-bedroom apartment, compared to the modest living quarters of the past. After two years in Europe, the family moved back to Ontario, to CFB Borden in 1957, and later back to Petawawa in 1965.

All of the moving around satisfied Dr. Chaput’s inquisitive nature and got him engaged with the world. When he left home in his late teens, he went to British Columbia and worked as a bankteller while, in the off-hours, writing music and singing in rock bands. In 1967, he went back to Ontario, and enrolled in Ryerson’s Radio and Television Arts program.

“These were the days of rebellion – of sit-ins and union movements,” he says. “It was all new to me. In high school, and growing up, I was a super-jock – playing junior A hockey and basketball. It was only later that I moved to the arts.”

A focus on Native Studies in education

Dr. Chaput says the process of doing his PhD was “extraordinarily challenging.” The intense work done over many years “changes you and your relationships. I’m a different person now,” he says.

In large part, the shift for Dr. Chaput relates to his subject matter. Having worked for many years with First Nations communities, acting as a mediator during consultations with federal and provincial governments regarding land claims and residential schools, he’s always been immersed in the issues affecting Aboriginal Peoples.

He says his role as Aboriginal consultant in the development and implementation of the curriculum for the training of mediators for the Alternative Dispute Resolution Process (ADR) was particularly gruelling. The ADR process was designed by the Department of Justice as an alternative to the arduous and costly litigation faced by residential school survivors seeking compensation for past abuses. As the Aboriginal consultant, Dr. Chaput facilitated the training sessions, during which former residential school survivors spoke of the abuses they had endured. 

Their stories were wrenching for him, as they were for the trainees – more than 60 former judges and lawyers. While he didn’t acknowledge it at the time, he developed many symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including the inability to focus, inappropriate emotional reactions, and an overwhelming and unshakeable sense of powerlessness to rectify past injustices. 

“I have held a lot of anger at the injustices directed towards Aboriginal Peoples. Many projects I have been involved with over the years were capable of breaking one’s spirit,” he says.

For his MA and PhD, Dr. Chaput delved into education – he wanted to study the impacts of bringing Native Studies courses into the public curriculum in Ontario high schools, a process which was initiated within the Ministry of Education in the early ’70s. He used his contacts to do community-based research and then used film to convey the stories and knowledge to communities that would otherwise never have had access to his findings. 

The master’s research and dissertation formed the backbone for his PhD – a 45-minute documentary film (and written thesis) that features the stories of three Six Nations educators who were highly instrumental in the development of Native Studies and Native Language courses in Ontario. His film, called Planting Stories, Feeding Communities: Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples, and Film, was released to the Six Nations Community in January and will be released to the general public by June 2016.

“I’m a better storyteller now, since doing this project. I am better at separating myself from the polarities – I’m not so black and white. I can go into the grey zone,” he says. “I think I’m also less emotional in my reactions to Indigenous issues and problems. There is less pulpit-preaching and soapboxing coming from me.”

Dr. Chaput talks of a spectrum of forgiveness – what does it take to deal with the reality of past and present events? And is it possible to look into a person’s eyes and reserve judgement? 

“The only way we can move ahead, is to deal with the past in a balanced way. But this doesn’t happen all at once,” he says.