The following interview is with Trevor Gould in the Paqtnkek (Afton) First Nation Band Office in Nova Scotia on June 28, 2001. The interview was conducted by Trudy Sable following Trevor’s graduation from Antigonish East High School in Monastery, Nova Scotia where Dr. Sable awarded him with the Karen Lavin Award for Compassionate Activity, sponsored by the Shambhala Friendship Society, an organization that operated from approximately 2000-2005.

The digitization and archiving of this interview was sponsored through the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, Halifax Nova Scotia, with funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Languages Initiatives Program, 2018-2021.

TS:        So, Trevor, what I, the first thing I really wanted to ask you is what did you think about the idea of this award aside from getting money.

TG:       Well, it surprised me, but you know once I heard the qualifications of the award you know, I had, I don’t want to sound modest or anything, but I just had a feeling that the award was going to me eh?  Because even that like, through the whole bursaries you know, I was kind of feeling like I worked really hard through this whole year and you know, I didn’t receive anything. I thought somebody would recognize it and I was really surprised…it was cool. It was a really good feeling you know. The whole, besides the whole money thing.

TS:        Yeah, that always helps.

TG:       But I’m happy that I got it. Everyone thinks it’s so cool. First time I heard of the award but…

TS:        That’s because it’s new. I just made it up about a year ago. But do you think it’s a good idea, this type of award?

TG:       I think it’s a wonderful idea. I feel, I just feel good about it eh?

TS:        Oh good. So, what type of things have you been involved in, what’s your…?

TG:       In this year? This year alone or…?

TS:        Yeah well, I mean basically I’d love to hear just sort of your whole feeling about the work. I know you’ve done some work in the multi-cultural, is that correct?

TG:       Yeah.

TS:        Just your sort of inspiration on what you’ve been involved with.

TG:       God, I don’t know where to start. Just like, there’s so many things like, I started off, like when I first started getting involved in things was my drum group eh? The drum group like our drum group here is what started getting me involved eh? You know, started getting involved in traditions and culture and all that, and you know, I don’t know if the drum looks at me as a leader but I feel as a leader. You know, I’m getting better and better and that’s, that’s why I attain my skills, right? And then, a few years ago, we had a youth group and I was elected Youth Chief at the reserve. And we built the straw bale while I was chief at the Youth Centre right over here. We built that, but that, that kind of faded away because the neglect, and there’s a lot of things neglected from there and it’s, it wasn’t finished so I, the whole youth group thing kind of just faded away. But people still like, still see me as a Youth Chief down here because the way, just the way I am.

So,  all last year the only thing I got involved in school was, I was the Chair of the Multi-cultural Committee and the only thing the Multi-cultural Committee did last year was Mi’kmaw Heritage Day in October, that was the only big thing that the Multi-cultural Committee did, and that was the only thing I did in school. So, last year at the end of school, I ran for student body president and you see that was… out of all the things I did you know, no matter all the awards I’ve won, that was my biggest accomplishment come up to date to that. Because I didn’t think I was going to make it, you know, I was just doing it to prove to people that Natives, Natives you know like, the stereotype in our school was that…stereotyping in our school is that no Natives, Natives you know, are not smart like everybody else, so I just wanted to prove to the people in the school that we could do exactly what they can do.

So, I ran for student body president and I came in by a landslide and that feeling is just overwhelming and you know, I didn’t, it’s still hard to believe for me now. But, when I came home here, the reserve seen it as an accomplishment as a community because through the whole history of our school, I was the first ever. So, when I got into school all the things I’d done (for?) the whole school…Oh God, I started getting involved in everything. I was on just about every committee in the school and multi-cultural… the president is the one who gets to choose everything. And, on the Multi-cultural Committee I placed myself as co-chair because I wanted to help out the chair, this year’s chair, so when I’m gone next year, the Multi-cultural Committee will still be perfect. So, this year with the Multi-cultural Committee, you know, we did Black History Month too as well, we did a day in Black history month, we took the Remembrance Day thing, and we did the Mi’kmaw Heritage Day, and we had a Multi-cultural day. So, that committee kind of evolved while I was president.

And just the whole student council thing is you know, after a while I didn’t see myself as the first Native, I just seen myself as student body president. But it was hard to get the community to realize it right? because they didn’t see me; they saw me as in there for the Natives, eh? but I was in there for the student/body.  It’s not the Native body president you know, even though I did make a difference when I got voted in but I didn’t want to…I was in there to bring the groups together right? That was my whole part, my whole reasons on why, becoming president to bring both like… instead of separating them because every… all the time we’ve been in school you know, all the Native’s been over here, and the whites been over and there’s a small group of Blacks here but this year we’re all you know. I made sure that everything that we did put us together.

So, through the year… I guess, my public speaking is what got me going because of my speech that I gave for my elections is what got me in, I think anyway. So, through this whole year I’ve been, gotten involved in a lot of public speaking contests and I got involved with the Lion Kings, and I won the region, the zone in Antigonish, and then the regional around here, and then I went to Yarmouth for Provincials, but I didn’t make it.

TS:        What is that? What is a Lion’s King?

TG:       Lion’s Club Speak Out. And then, I got involved with the Multi-cultural Speak Out and I won the regionals as well and I went to provincials in Halifax, and I placed 3rd there. But they were just things I wanted to do on my own. But they didn’t, they were just you know, just other things I wanted to prove to people…that we can, that people in our school, the Natives in our school can do it just as good as they can, eh? And I think I got my point across. I’m hoping I did anyway. Again, I was on the Recreation Committee on the reserve but that didn’t go too far. They wanted a youth on the committee. I was also on the Crime Prevention Committee, but I was too busy for that. So, we formed a committee on the reserve, crime prevention but we only met once, but we got a lot out of it. God, you know…So many other things and I can’t think of them all.

I’m with the Boy’s and Girl’s Club, and I’m a peer helper on the reserve, but the presidency is what takes it because you have to work so hard, and you don’t realize it, you know?  Like when you’re on the other side as a student, you see us as just a bunch of people just doing it, and you don’t want to work. And then when you’re finally working, working for the students you know, it kind of gets you mad because the students expect you to do it and they don’t you know, give thanks for you for doing it for them because you’re working, you’re making money for them, and it’s not important to them. But yet at the…you work harder and harder and harder and you know, try to be friendly to everybody. I don’t know, it’s just really, it’s hard to explain you know.

TS:        Well that leads into it, another question I’m curious about, which is a whole notion of compassion and compassionate activity, and where do you…well kind of two things, what do you think that is and where do you think it comes from in people?

TG:       Compassionate activity?

TS:        Yeah and compassion, where does that come from do you think?

TG:       Well, for me, you know, it comes from, it comes from the way you were brought up, that’s how I see it, eh?  See, growing up for me, my parents you know, they taught me believe in what you want to believe in, right?  They didn’t force me to go to church or they didn’t force me to like go to traditional Wednesday, they provided my own path for myself.  They just told me do what you want to do and believe what you want to believe in. *creaking* that’s the door. So, I started going to sweats and I started getting into the traditional ways, and I got into them when I was real little and I’ve been doing that, you know I still do it now. And in ways, they just teach you to be humble and accept things how the way they are, and to be a good person to everybody else, you know. And the way my mom, my parents brought me up, they told me to speak your mind, speak from your heart, and you know, the way my dad is, he’s a happy person, gets along with everybody.

TS:        You talking about Joey?

TG:       Yeah. Yeah. Gets along with everybody and both of my parents are great public speakers, eh? So maybe that’s how I pick it up. I’m not, I don’t really care what people think about me right? because you know…well I do but, the things I do, I don’t do for accomplishments for myself you know. Everything I do I want to do for my reserve, my community because that’s where my passion is, it’s here. Even though it’s a hard place to live in.

TS:        And when you say that everything you want to do is for your community, what do you envision?

TG:       What do you mean?

TS:        What do you envision you want to do for your community when you say that? What do you feel it needs?

TG:       Well right now we got a good leader, but you know, not everyone leads forever, and everyone expects me to come back here and do something to this reserve some day. So, I will you know, but I’ve got to go out and I got to get educated and that’s my plan. Everything I take in from the world, all the public speaking, all the experiences of being president, and then I’m going to university. All that I’m taking in, I’m going to come back in years and I’m going to give it all back to the community because the community here, they gave you know, they provided me with everything. They provided me with the education, they provided me with all the opportunities, so I’m going to come back you know, maybe when I’m fifty, maybe when I’m  sixty, when I’m  done all the things I want to do in life, I’m going to come back and give it all back because they have given me so much you know?

TS:        What are you going to go into in, is it Dalhousie?

TG:       I’m going, going to Dalhousie and I’m hopefully, hopefully get into…that’s what I want to get into now, but you know, four years is a long time.

TG:       Anything else?

TS:        No, I think you’ve, I’m just sort of, I’m…my whole, my whole interest is looking at what, what it is to have a good human society and what people are doing to foster that and that, so everything you’ve said is, you know… especially coming out of a Mi’kmaw community, how you see your vision of the world in general. You’ve been talking about that.

TG:       Well, you know, I don’t, I try to see it as you know, this place ain’t a perfect place, eh? It’s not the best community in the world, you know, and some stereotypes are true.  There’s a lot of Native things come from this place but still this is home, and this is where I grew up. You know, even if I’m going to be gone for half of my life after this, I got to come back sometime because this is what the people want. That’s what they, everyone tells me you know, that’s what they want…Trev, come back and, you know, maybe I will be chief someday, maybe I won’t, you know?

TS:        Do you feel as though, just out of curiousity, this is my own question you know, because I (am working) in education in the Mi’kmaw community up in New Brunswick. Do you, how do you feel about how much, is there a lot of racism or discrimination in this school? Just from your own experience?

TG:       From my own experience, from my school, no. You know, this year, I feel totally proud to be in our school. I felt it was an honor to be president of that school because I felt that I finally felt that I made a difference in that school because that school, at least 60% is White, at least 60% is White and I got 75% of the schools’ votes, to be president. So, you know, there may be like a few, maybe one or two or three people in the school that got things against Native’s but that’s, that’s individual problems, eh? There’s no discrimination, there’s no racism in our school. That’s why I felt, you know, our school is a special school; it’s a beautiful school; it’s a wonderful school because we’ve come so far and you know, it’s a new building and it’s a new school and it was a wonderful start at the beginning of the year you know, and now hopefully it continues on. I hope what I created there keeps on going like this year, everything can happen all over again in the next year, and so on and so on that it doesn’t fade away.

That was my whole purpose you know. But in other schools, I can’t go to the regional and  be who I was at our school. If I go to the regional, I’m just another student there because they don’t know me, they don’t know where I’m from. But, see in our school, we grew up together. You know, I went to school with all them guys, all the people I graduated (with), all my life, from elementary and they’re just used to us. You know, and if we, all of a sudden, we move to the regional or to Guysborough, then it would’ve been a totally different thing.

TS:        But you said for a while, the Black students hung together, and the Mi’kmaw students hung together and…

TG:       That was, that was like a few years ago when, a few, you know, in a few years that, that went by and then we slowly came together eh.

TS:        Was that because of work you did or was that just something that happened?

TG:       It was just something that happens because…

TS:        That’s wonderful

TG:       It just happens eh, you know but I’m not saying that we were like, you know, we stayed away from all the Whites, right? I’m just saying that when you walked through the school you could tell who hanged out where you know. And in our school, there may be like two or three Black people and they don’t just hang, they hang out with everybody. And the Natives aren’t…the Natives just have their certain hang out spot but everyone’s friends with them, everyone knows each other.

TS:        That happens in a lot of schools, I was just curious.

TG:       Like the Natives are right there and everyone knows it.

TS:        Yeah, that just you know, people sort of hang with who they know, or hang with the group they’re most…

TG:       You know it happens in our school but it’s just a thing that everyone you know, is friends with them; no one’s you know…you know what I mean.

TS:        Yeah, it’s sensitive, yeah. Well, so, I won’t hang you up too much longer. For this particular award we we’re hoping to see it grow and foster this kind of thinking. But would you, just personally, if it did work out the way I’m envisioning it, would you be interested in, you know, a leadership type program that you had a scholarship or something to it? We are thinking of starting a youth leadership thing. We’re not sure yet. So that is what I am asking you, is that something….one of my ideas was to take all the recipients of this award over the next couple years and possibly, if they were interested, offer them, you know, that kind of training, actual leadership training, authentic leadership. Is that something that would interest you?

TG:       Well, yeah, sure. You know, it’d be nice but I don’t feel like I want to do…I don’t want to sound like I’m being mean here or nothing but, I just want to do this on my own. But I mean, I’m totally down for it, I mean, I’ll do it.

TS:        Yeah, I don’t mean that you have to copy to somebody else’s way, I mean it’s to network people who are all doing really good stuff, so we can cross… It’s crossing traditions, it’s finding sort of the best in everyone, more you know, bringing people together. It’s not that you are supposed to become someone else. It’s more that you bring your strength and everyone brings their strength.

TG:       I understand now.

TS:        But we do tie in spirituality, or we call it contemplative, we do tie in artistic…other ways of looking at other non-verbal (inaudible).  So, are there any final words you’d like to have since I’ve just spent 5 mins talking!

TS:        You know, there are, there’s just so many things that happened in the last year that went by so fast, you know, and there’s, I don’t really…after this meeting is over I’ll probably go ‘gosh, I should’ve said this, or I should’ve said that’ but really, experiences like this, you know I feel, feel privileged that it happened to me, and I feel it’s not only an accomplishment for myself you know. I felt really proud that that was me that it happened to, and I don’t know like, you know I, I try to see it like through the whole province of Nova Scotia you know. Out of all the other schools where Natives attend you know, was there ever a Native there, you know?  And I even tried to do, I tried to do my homework on it too eh?  Looked, asked all the schools but no one knew, and if I… maybe that would have been, maybe that’s a bigger accomplishment for me eh, maybe to be the first in the whole province. But the first in the school was, it’s just a privilege you know, too overwhelming.

Coming to the end of the years it’s still, it’s still hard to believe. You know I even, other than this award, I was up for the Terry Fox Humanitarian Award and there was a scholarship, and I didn’t tell them this, but I didn’t want the money, I just wanted the award, and the reason I didn’t get the award was because they were low on money. You know, I went to Halifax for the meeting and you know, I even tried to call them and tell them you know. They sent me a certificate and gave me an honourable mention. That’s still good but it’s kind of sad that they didn’t, I didn’t get the award because they were low on funds because only a few people in the country get it, you know.  All I wanted was the award.

TS:        Because you’re Native, is that why you’re saying you wanted the award or just for you?

TG:       Yeah, I want, an accomplishment for myself. It’s like, the qualifications for it were the same as this one, all the humanitarian things you’ve accomplished and you had to overcome obstacles to achieve these things, eh? And in the past years, getting seen as being on top you know?  I’ve climbed over a lot of things eh, you know.

TS:        Like what? What would you say —

TG:       Oh God just, growing up here you know, expectations, living in, living in the environment I grew up in, and turning the way out I came compared to like, my brothers because you know, their lives wasn’t as perfect as mine. You know, I can’t say mine was perfect either but when you meet me, when people meet me, they assume a person like I am you know, has a happy life. But, the obstacles I’m still talking about is like, overcoming them kind of feelings you have at home, and to be a leader, you have to, you have to make sure that your people don’t see that kind of stuff; that they, that you go over all your problems and all your issues and you become a totally different person because you have to be. Because how can you be a good leader when you have all these negative things in the way? So, you know, there’s just so many things, so many obstacles, and you know, that’s not over yet.

TS:        How do you feel, you get through your obstacles would you say?   

TG:       God, you know, I don’t know really. I have my ways, you know, there’s drumming, there’s sweats and there’s just, I deal with it in my own ways but you know, strong heart, strong mind is the big thing because if you’re being a leader, you can’t, you can’t be a bad person, but really; it’s just the way I was taught I guess…speak your mind and speak your heart you know.

TS:        The big, one of the hardest things in writing up what this award is about is about the fearless quality of just like what you’re saying, even though that you actually. To be compassionate is, really takes a lot of courage.

TG:       It does, it takes a lot to be you know, a good, a good, compassionate person because people don’t realize, you know. They know when you’re being in an environment as in a school you know, there was some days I was at school and I wasn’t, I wasn’t always compassionate you know, I wasn’t, you know, everyone could tell when I was mad, and when, when a person like yourself, like if you’re student body president you know, everybody knows, because you stick out because everybody knows you, you know?

[Break in tape]

TS:        You stick out you said.

TG:      Oh yeah, but it’s just hard, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just hard to be but you still do it eh, you still just go in and be…it’s being humble I think, accepting things the way they are, and just going with the flow. You know, not that everybody could do that but that’s just the way I was taught especially with these ways, is to be humble and just go with the flow. That’s how I do it I guess. And just having good people around you know, good friends, a girlfriend that listens and understands and top that off, my girlfriend’s White, Ha. That was pretty big too.

TS:        Well that sounds wonderful, I hope it continues.

TG:       I hope so too.

TS:        So, if something comes, I will call you if I can get through your parents notes —

TG:       You can probably call anybody on this reserve and get to me.

TS:        Yeah?

TG:       Yeah