b'BERRY MOON Honouring kiskihitinBy Bryan HansenDr. Gladys Rowe walks a path of love, story and resurgenceD r. Gladys Rowe begins with love. In Cree, the word is kiskihitin, a teaching that is less senti-ment and more instruction. It guides how she shows up for herself, her family, her community and the work she carries into the world. She explains the meaning: kiskihitin showing up unapologetically loving myself, my family, my community and this world that were living in, and how am I demonstrating that love through my actions? she says. Rowe left university and moved to Mount Royal College for a two-year program, wanting to get into the field quickly, but front-line Rowe is a Swampy Cree woman and member of Fox Lake Creework exposed her to another layer of systemic harm. In one role, Nation in Treaty 5 territory in northern Manitoba, where theshe was handed a stack of 10 bus tickets each daywhich people Nelson River flows into the Hudson Bay. She is an Indigenousneeded for transportation to job interviews, health appointments scholar-practitioner, a consultant, an artist and the host ofand essential servicesand was told to decide which clients would Indigenous Insights, a podcast about Indigenous evaluation and thereceive them. All of these people should have everything that power of story. they need in order to thrive, Rowe says. Why are there so few resources when theres so much need?Rowe is named after both of her grandmothers: her great-grandmother, Gladys Moose, and her maternal grandmother,At that point, Rowe didnt yet have the language for colonization, Rita Lorene Hyckaway. As a child, she didnt like her nameitstructural inequities or systems transformation; she just knew sounded old fashioned, and kids teased her for it. Only later didwhat she was seeing was wrong. The turning point came when she she come to understand that the names mark both lineage andreturned to school through the University of Victorias Indigenous responsibility. My grandmother, Gladys Moose, was this beautifulspecialization in social work. The program delivery was online, beader, she says. People would come to northern Manitoba fromwhich allowed her to study while raising three young children all across the country to purchase her beadwork and leatherwork.and working.Rowe still has a box of that work tucked away in her closet. When she opens it, the smell of smoked leather fills the room. HerIndigenous professors, all women, began giving her names for grandmothers floral beadwork carries detailed stories of land,what she had been witnessing her whole life. Colonization, animals and relationships stitched into every piece. oppression, structural inequities. It gave me this systems-level analysis I hadnt had previously, Rowe says. Those professors Rowes other grandmother was a storyteller of a different kind. Shebecame models for what is possible, and Rowe began to see listened deeply, even to teenagers, with all their energy and rest- herself differently.lessness. She noticed each grandchilds unique gifts and reflected them back with love. She taught me a lot about listening andA SUMMER OF LISTENINGabout showing up to witness peoples stories, Rowe says. I bring that with me into my work. In the mid-2000s, Rowe took a summer research assistant job at the University of Manitobas First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research in the Faculty of Medicine. The projectDEFINING WHAT YOU SEE Strengthening Families: Maternal Child Healthinvolved Rowe knew early on that she wanted to help. She moved to Calgaryadapting a home-visiting program for First Nations communities straight out of high school to pursue a Bachelor of Social Work,in Manitoba. Rowe spent that summer on the road, travelling but it didnt go as planned, and she failed out of her first year. Ito 13 First Nations. I sat with families, aunties, grandmothers, didnt have that experience in my realm, she recalls. I didnteducators and health-care providers, she says. I saw a process of know how to show up in that way. gathering stories and experiences, and those stories actually being 30 Fall/Winter 2025'