Upon completion of the summer school (July 7, 2011), the youth returned to their communities with J. Tobias and I to begin their paid summer internships. I traveled to BFN to assist two youth with their internships; J. Tobias traveled to PRFN to assist three youth. The first week of the internship involved planning and recruitment of Elders. The first step was for youth to make a list of community Elders; we proceeded with this list by calling Elders or visiting them at their homes, or both. The decision to call or visit an Elder involved several factors. For example, the youth felt that some Elders were busy and would prefer and phone call first, with the potential to set up a pre-interview visit at the Elder’s convenience. In other cases, youth felt that Elders would prefer a home visit to
a phone call (i.e. they were hard of hearing, did not like talking on the phone, or wanted to see who was requesting they participate in an interview). During calls and visits, we provided Elders with a brief overview of the research project, and asked them if they would be interested in participating in an interview. If the Elder agreed, we presented
them with an offering of semaa (a traditional medicine) as a thank you for agreeing to participate and a display of our respect. If the Elder was able, we scheduled interviews during the initial conversation. In some cases we were required to call or visit Elders a second time in order to set up an interview time. The pre-interview Elder visits were found to be very beneficial in developing relationships with the Elders. The youth already knew many of the Elders involved, but the visits served as a reminder to the Elders as to who was requesting they participate, as well as an introduction to myself before the interview. This helped with rapport, as the Elders had the opportunity to get to know the youth and I before discussing sensitive topics. This also points to the importance of relationships, as the youths’ existing relationships with Elders meant they knew which
Elders preferred home visits to phone calls.
The youth conducted the Elder interviews, and took turns taking the role of interviewer and note taker. Elder interviews included questions regarding community health and environment issues, as well as general questions about their family and background. I instructed the youth to take note of the surroundings (i.e. where the interview took place, the weather), who was present during the interview (i.e. if a spouse, family member or friend was also there), the general mood of the interviewee (i.e. were they enthusiastic, stressed), as well as their reflections of the interview process (i.e. how individual questions were answered, if there were interruptions). I encouraged them to also take note of anything else they deemed significant, as I wanted the youth to maintain a high level of agency over the interview process. I was present during all of the interviews as a way of maintaining quality control, as well as to provide the youth with assistance. For example, if a question needed to be reworded or a prompt added, I would interject. This helped maintain the quality of the interview as the youth were novice
interviewers. As well, I made sure that informed consent was clearly explained to all interview participants, as well as that the Elders were properly thanked for their participation. Fortunately, the youth were extremely respectful of their Elders and I did not have any issues with properly thanking the Elders.
For the first few interviews, the youth relied heavily on the interview guide; during later interviews this was not necessary as the youth remembered the interview questions without the guide. Elder interviews took place in a location of the Elder’s choice; popular locations included the Elders’ homes, outdoors on the land and at the
band office. Informed consent was completed orally at the beginning of each interview. At the end of the interview, Elders were thanked for their participation, and provided with an honorarium. The Elders were also provided the flexibility to talk about any topics they wished to discuss that we did not bring up in our interview guide. Some interviews took an unstructured approach; for example, several Elders had topics in mind that they wished to discuss. This added to the richness of Elder data and IK learned by the youth, as significant topics were introduced that had not been brought up by researchers through the interview guide. The unstructured interview approach “help[ed] to ensure that the narrative [community environment and health] is from the participant’s perspective and not influenced by the interviewer” (Moyle, 2002, 267). For example, one Elder had
prepared a list of topics he wished to discuss, as well as traditional locations on the land to visit. Another Elder wanted to discuss her views of the residential school system with her daughters and granddaughters present, which gave the interview an intergenerational element. In addition to providing the Elders with the flexibility to alter the interview topics, the youth were also able to add any questions they deemed relevant, or ask Elders anything they were interested in beyond the scope of the research project. For example,
one of the youth was very interested in language, and thus asked many of the Elders about their views on language and culture. The interviews ended either upon reaching the end of the interview guide, or whenever the Elder requested to end the interview (i.e. some Elders became tired part of the way through the interview guide). The Elder interviews are not a part of my own thesis data, but constitute data for another element of the larger CIHR project (Elder data analyzed by J. Tobias). Elder interviews ranged in length from 40 minutes to three hours; all were audio recorded and some were filmed.
The Elder interviews are an integral part of the documentary film component (to be explained in chapter 4), providing examples of the valuable IK Elders transmitted to youth throughout the summer. Not all of the Elder interviews were filmed; Elders were asked if they would like to take part in the film component, and if so, an interview was scheduled for a date when the film crew was present in the community. The film studies students made two trips to each community (one in July 2011, another in August 2011), consisting of several days each. The Elders involved in the film component chose the locations for their interviews, though lighting and sound conditions also had to be considered. The mobility of Elders was also taken into account; for example, one Elder was driven to several traditional areas to be discussed during the interview. In the case of BFN, a lot of travel between the three reserve locations took place, as interviews occurred in all three locations. Though the youth and I attempted to schedule only one or two interviews per day, and in the case of two, schedule interviews in the same reserve location, it was sometimes necessary to travel between reserves in the same day. This was an issue particularly during the film days, as several Elders wanted to participate and the film crew was limited as to how long they could spend in each community. Rankin is located in Sault Ste. Marie; Goulais Bay is located approximately 45 minutes away, with
a large portion of the drive taking place on an unpaved road. The furthest community was Obadjiwan, located one hour outside of Sault Ste. Marie along the Trans Canada highway in Batchawana Bay. As PRFN consists of one reserve, the travel to interview locations was not as extensive as that in BFN; however, interviews outside of the reserve land of PRFN did occur and required travel.
Elder recruitment took place throughout the summer, as well as the scheduling of interviews. Once interviews began, youth asked Elders if they knew other Elders who would be interested in participating, and contacted those interested. Most of the interviews ran smoothly and as scheduled. Several interviews were cancelled, often last minute and on multiple occasions. In cases of cancellations, we attempted to reschedule the interview. If the interview was cancelled a second time, no further attempt was made to reschedule. As well, most of the Elders recruited were receptive to participating in an interview; there were only a few outright refusals to participate.