Mi'kmaw poet Rita Joe honoured on Heritage Day in Nova Scotia

A Mi'kmaw poet is being remembered for her writings that shone a spotlight on the lasting effects of Canada's residential school system.

This year's Heritage Day in Nova Scotia pays tribute to Rita Joe.

The late Cape Breton woman was born in Whycocomagh, N.S., in 1932, and later moved to Eskasoni First Nation.

Throughout her life, Joe wrote powerful stories about the history of residential schools and the identity of the Mi'kmaq.

Friends, family and scholars say Joe was a trailblazer who spoke about the loss of Indigenous languages and traditions. 

"She first started writing a column for the Micmac News and then she started writing poetry and she started doing recordings," said Ann Joe, Rita Joe's youngest daughter. "She would go to the elders and record legends and stories and it was like she was trying to spotlight our culture and uplift our culture.

"When she first started back in the 70s, there wasn't much positive representation of us out there. We were getting killed on TV, on the westerns, and they were still dealing with the fallout of residential schools, too. It was kind of a sad time."

Rita Joe endured a difficult childhood, including the loss of both parents. She spent time in foster care.

Like many Indigenous children, Joe was forbidden to speak her native language at the Shubenacadie residential school that she was forced to attend. When she completed her schooling, she had to relearn her language by talking to people who spoke Mi'kmaw.

She published her first collection of poetry in 1978, and she went on to write six more books and earn many honours, including recognition as the poet laureate of the Mi'kmaq.

Her rise to fame spiked in the late 1980s with the publication of I Lost My Talk, a poem that reflects on her Shubenacadie residential school experience and the loss of her mother tongue.

"One of the things my mother used to say was … 'I wanted to lift up the sad eyes of my people, and I wanted to show them that their culture is beautiful, that they are worthy of celebration, all those things.'

"Even if you look at the poem, I Lost My Talk. There's a lot of diplomacy in there. And it was like she was trying to figure out a way to … approach the majority but she was doing it in a very conciliatory way. She wasn't angry. She wasn't militant, she wasn't confrontational."

Gordon E. Smith, a professor of ethnomusicology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., worked with Rita Joe for 15 years beginning in the early 1990s when he was asked to create song sheets for her poems.