It is an early morning in May, before the sun is fully awake in the sky, when I pull my car into a space in the employee parking lot. I park toward the back of the lot to give myself room to breathe. The lot sits mostly empty: me and three other cars that, I suspect, belong to the staff in the front office.

A little abalone shell rests in my cup holder, containing ash from past prayers. I take a pinch of medicine and light it, taking it in as a slight waft of smoke lifts and twirls around my face and in the space of the car’s interior.

I enter the newsroom. It is still early, and no other journalists are there just yet, so I have time by myself before the others trickle in. In one hand I hold my iced coffee, and I throw my workbag onto my desk with the other.

I am just settling into my office chair, slugging from my cup, when my phone begins vibrating. Again, and again, and again, incessantly, comes a barrage of notifications. I pull up my phone and scan the messages. Friends are texting me to ask if I have heard what is happening. Some of the messages have links to news sources.

One by one, I begin to open them.

This morning, I begin reading the breaking news on my phone, one article after another. Stories have emerged from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc community in British Columbia’s southern interior. A press release by the office of the chief has revealed that, with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist, the remains of 215 children have been found on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

I have barely finished reading the first of dozens of articles that people have sent me when my social media notifications become engorged. People in my community are posting their grief. Their words are wailing through my screen. They post their grievances, their anger, and their outcries for the children who never made it home.

215 bodies. 215 bodies. As I read the headlines, 215 bodies keeps ringing in my ears. All those parents. Families. Communities. They never received any closure or answers to what happened to their children. I am the mother of two young boys. I think of my own sons and my friends’ children, and I imagine the enduring pain that parents of these children must have felt for the rest of their lives.

215 bodies. 215 bodies. I suddenly realize that I am standing up, although I don’t remember when I got to my feet, nor why. I sit down, unsure, tears welling in my eyes. It’s like someone has punched me in the gut, when all the air escapes your lungs. Scrolling through article after article in the breaking news, I ache. It’s like I can’t catch my breath.

The office begins to fill in with the editors and a few journalists, the ones who are not out on assignment or working from home. I swallow the last of my iced coffee and put on my game face.

The newsroom holds two daily meetings to plan which articles will appear on which of the newspaper’s spreads. The editors, page editors, and publisher ultimately decide what stories will be “breaking” on the front page, with bold titles and photography to grasp attention. We meet once in the morning and once before the deadline to go over this. Because of COVID-19 precautions, many staff are working from home and joining the meetings via Zoom. Still, I usually choose the office.

In the morning meeting, the editors decide that I will cover this breaking news. I have to localize it, which means I will spend my day calling around through my contacts and talking to local people who want to discuss the issue. The newspaper always pushes us reporters to make sure that the tribal council gives us a quote, but I always make it a point not to go that route. The true voices of our community are of the people, not necessarily the politicians.

As the day unfolds, I find non-Natives are shocked when they hear of the most recent revelation of graves discovered at Indian boarding schools. They can’t imagine that Indigenous children were taken from their parents against their will. They’re shocked to learn about the way that the US and Canadian governments sent children away to schools where they were often abused, contracted diseases, and sometimes died.

But I hear no surprise in the voices of the elders and community members I talk to about the discovery of bodies at Kamloops. The leaders, elders, and community members I speak with all tell me that they have always known. This is something they have been talking about for generations. Survivors of Indian boarding schools have their own stories of these institutions. But they were never believed, or their stories were covered up to be forgotten, or they were never given the space to speak their truths. And so many stories of what happened behind the walls of those boarding schools are lost. Those stories have died with those who endured those institutions and then passed away.

So many stories are gone, stolen.

When the morning meeting ends, I catch up with my editor on his way to his office. “I need to continue reporting on this issue after the Kamloops Indian Residential School story is done,” I tell him. “Our news coverage shouldn’t go away after this one story.”

He nods in agreement and tells me that I should take time every week to comb through documents, old news stories, and reports, as I see fit. I can begin my investigation into the system of Indian boarding schools and learn how its legacy interlaces with every Indigenous family.

At first I don’t know what I don’t know. I am oblivious about my own naivete, unaware of the extent to which I’m trying to write for non-Native readers. Early on, faced with the daunting task of reporting on a profoundly traumatic matter to my community and Indigenous communities across the continent, I am consumed by the challenge of making these stories resonate with non-Native readers. I’m telling Native stories, but I’m telling them primarily for non-Native readers.

These days, I ask myself why. Was I on a mission to educate non-Natives? Perhaps it was the pain I saw in those who came before me: the Native activists, researchers, and those who challenged the system we are in but not fitted for.

I am not a genealogist, historian, or archivist, and much of my work relies heavily on the guidance and opinions of others. I didn’t realize early on that I must take advice seriously as it comes and spend much time running into dead ends. For every step ahead I take in my research, I feel that I have been pushed back two more. Where do I go from here? What do I do with this information? I learn that many of our records are inaccessible; if they are available to the public, they are behind paywalls or long-distance trips. I have the means but many do not, and this wave of guilt has washed over me many times.

I want to create a small change in the small town where I report, and I aim to amplify the voices of the Anishinaabek to ensure their narratives are acknowledged and valued. At that time, however, I am unaware of all the weight that this will carry. I hope to use my platform as a reporter with the audience I have to tell the history of Indian boarding schools from an Indigenous perspective. But I am uncertain if this is possible.

One evening I talk to my friend Nikki on the phone. “You need to remember those who came before you and those who stand next to you,” she tells me. “You need to remember why you’re doing this, and who you’re doing this for.”

She’s right. I need to remember why I chose this path. I need to listen to and learn from the elders and the aunties. I need to learn how to shoulder the responsibility of being a storyteller for a newspaper that houses only one Indigenous reporter: me. This role has been deeply embedded in our communities since time immemorial. I agree with her when she tells me I must help lay the path for younger generations.

You need to remember those who came before you and those who stand next to you, why you’re doing this, and who you’re doing this for: Nikki’s comment is the gentle push that reminds me of where I come from, the blood of generational love that courses through me. I need to take back that space that had been denied to my community and my family, to “rekindle the flames of the sacred fire,” as Kimmerer writes. I need to smudge and pray. Because the more I walk with my ancestors, the more I’m able to listen to what they have to say.

So, I will walk, and I will listen.

This is an excerpt from What the Ancestors Say, chapter 1: A New Path.