Carol Rose GoldenEagle

Carol Rose GoldenEagle is a writer and broadcaster, from Saskatchewan.[2]

Carol Rose GoldenEagle
Born1963 (age 59–60)
Saskatchewan
Other names
  • Carol Morin[1]
  • Carol Adams[1]
  • Carol Daniels[1]
  • Osawa Mikisew Iskwew[1]
Occupation(s)writer, broadcaster

Early life and education

Carol Rose GoldenEagle was born in 1963, in a religious hospital, to a First Nations woman who was unmarried. Hospital authorities stripped her from her mother.[3] Her adoption, without the agreement of her mother, was part of a now discredited program known as the Sixties Scoop.[2] The purpose of the program was to break Native culture by adopting children into white families. Hospital authorities intervened to take GoldenEagle from her mother even though she was a nurse. GoldenEagle never met her mother, only being able to trace her roots as an adult, and learning her mother had died in a car accident.[2]

GoldenEagle describes growing up without knowing anyone else of First Nations' background, hearing disparaging comments about Natives, even from some members of her adopted family, singling out her adopted father as an exception, who did support her, and didn't allow those comments in his hearing.[3] Nevertheless, she described feeling second class as a child.[4]

GoldenEagle began volunteering at a local radio station CKCK when she was in grade eleven, and edited her high school newspaper in grade twelve.[3] She studied journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).

Career

Journalism

After two years at SAIT GoldenEagle began working at radio station CKRM, before moving on to CKTV, where she was a weekend anchor.[3]

She joined CBC Newsworld, the CBC's newly launched all news cable channel, in 1989.[3] While there, when she hosted This Country she was the first Indigenous woman to anchor a national broadcast. She also spent 8 years as the anchor at CBC North, in Yellowknife.

Connecting with her First Nations heritage

GoldenEagle described how she first got to know other First Nations people, as a journalist.[3] She singled out First Nations artist Allen Sapp as a mentor. When they were introduced he started speaking to her in the Cree language, assuming she too could speak it. She describes him as a wise and gentle man who encouraged her to find her heritage, learn to speak Cree, and encouraged her to paint.

She did connect with her birth family, did learn Cree, and now helps lead cultural workshops.[3] She has worked to help re-introduce traditional First Nations drumming back to Saskatchewan - an activity the Government suppressed after the North-West Rebellion.

In 2016 GoldenEagle published an op-ed in Quill & Quire about the murder and disappearance of Native women, and the impact it had on her.[5] She wrote first becoming aware that First Nations women were being targeted, and their murders and disappearances were not being properly investigated, after learning about the kidnapping, rape and murder of Helen Betty Osborne, from The Pas, Manitoba, whose brutal murder went practically uninvestigated for decades. She wrote about her responsibility to speak up, to protect young women, like her daughter.

In 2019 the CBC published an op-ed GoldenEagle wrote about the effect of names on the feelings of identity for First Nations people, like herself.[1] GoldenEagle had recently gone through a traditional naming ceremony, taking the name Osawa Mikisew Iskwew, and she described what that meant, for her.

Writer

The protagonist of her first novel, Bearskin Diary, published in 2015, like GoldenEagle is a First Nations journalist trying to recover her Native roots.[2]

GoldenEagle published a volume of poetry, entitled Hiraeth, in 2019.[6] It was shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Book Award.

Her second novel, Bone Black, features a First Nations hero who seeks revenge against individuals who have murdered First Nations women, after her sister is murdered.[7] According to the Regina Leader-Post GoldenEagle was so overcome by emotion when she heard about the 2014 murder of teenage First Nations woman Tina Fontaine, on her car's radio, that she had to pull over. A comment from another First Nations parent, about how the loss of their child triggered a desire for personal vengeance, was a trigger for the novel.

References
  1. Carol Rose GoldenEagle (2019-03-12). "I've had 4 surnames; now I feel I finally have one that matches my identity". CBC News. Retrieved 2020-02-13. Osawa Mikisew Iskwew. That's my name. Translated from the Cree language, it means Golden Eagle Woman and carries with it a deep spiritual significance, a reverence for my Indigenous heritage and a connection to my ancestors.
  2. Anna Dimoff (2016-08-15). "Author Carol Daniels blends fiction with Canada's Indigenous history in Bearskin Diary". CBC News. Retrieved 2020-02-13. Daniels was one of thousands of babies fostered or adopted out to mostly white families across Canada, the United States and Europe under the program.
  3. Chris Harbron (2018-06-07). "Carol Daniels reflects on Sixties Scoop, moves beyond it". Regina Leader Post. Retrieved 2020-02-13. Daniels was born in the Grey Nuns Hospital (now the Pasqua) in Regina in 1963. She was immediately taken from her unwed Cree mother, who was a registered nurse from Sandy Bay, for adoption by a family in a farming town southeast of the city.
  4. Francois Biber (2016-10-19). "Regalia as a costume is insulting, Sask. Indigenous author says". CBC News. Retrieved 2020-02-13. 'All these comments were made about, "Oh look at the savage and the ugly little squaw" and everyone was laughing and pointing fingers. I was five and I was mortified,' she said. 'Being dressed up like a little Indian was a horrible, horrible thing … It planted the seed for this terrible source of shame for being brown which I carried all the way up until my 20s.'
  5. Carol Rose GoldenEagle (2016-01-06). "Personal essay: Carol Daniels on including a strong indigenous heroine in response to the pain of history". Quill & Quire. Retrieved 2020-02-13. The thought that we live in a country where the disappearence [sic] of my precious daughter could be ignored – condoned, even – is almost more painful than I can bear. But that pain is nothing compared to that experienced by the families and friends of the more than 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. They live in a dreaded and forlorn place where it seems no one cares.
  6. "Being Fearless with Carol Rose Goldeneagle". Saskatchewan Culture. Retrieved 2020-02-13. Her first book of poetry – entitled Hiraeth was shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Book Award in 2019.
  7. Ashley Martin (2019-10-03). "GoldenEagle's new novel a vengeful twist on Missing and Murdered issue". Regina Leader-Post. Retrieved 2020-02-13. The protagonist Wren Strongeagle turns to serial killing after her twin sister Raven disappears. Having experienced and witnessed so much violence as an Indigenous woman, Wren hits her breaking point: In search of justice, she begins to prey on men who prey on Indigenous women. Wren is a deep character, and GoldenEagle's prose is vivid with a hint of poetry.
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