Grandmother from Sagkeeng earns education degree

Earning her bachelor of education degree is a childhood dream come true for Victoria McIntosh.

It was as a Kindergarten student, she first thought of becoming a teacher. “The teacher walked in, and I thought, she’s got beautiful shoes. That’s it. I am going to be a teacher,” says the Anishinaabe grandmother from Sagkeeng First Nation, with a smile.

Recently, McIntosh offered the toast to her fellow Access grads with confidence.

“Keep on learning, in every moment,” she said. “My grandmother was my greatest teacher. She always said watch what’s around you, be kind to people, and pay attention.”

In 2017, McIntosh completed her Bachelor of Arts. Now she has earned her Bachelor of Education degree, and plans to become a high school teacher and pursue a graduate degree.

Victoria McIntosh, Access student and artist

Overcoming stereotypes
Although she knew she was smart, McIntosh always remembered how many people had labelled her with a negative stereotype. “They told me I was never going to amount to anything, and that I would die young with lots of kids. I had to get away from that, to cut the toxic out of my life and get healthy. It’s important to have Indigenous teachers, so kids can connect with someone who is like them and can understand them. When I share my story, students often tell me their relative tells the same stories. If you don’t know who you are, where are you going?” she asks.

“Young people are going to hear my story. I am going to talk about it, how I remember seeing my grandmother on the other side of the river and knowing I could not go home. I am open to share, to the sharing circle, to feeling safe.

“I have a story to tell. I will go for my masters. I said to myself, why not?”

A rough start
McIntosh was the child of a single parent, and spent her early years with her grandmother. There was much poverty in her community. She remembers her grandmother building a porch and Indian Affairs taking it way. “It was the only time I ever really saw her looking defeated. I asked why? It was like we were always being punished.”

From the fall of 1963, she clearly remembers her first day of residential school and, the moment President Kennedy was shot. “I remember looking at the car on our black and white TV and knowing it was a big thing.”

She spent eight years in residential school, where they burned her things and gave her a new name and a new identity. There, she learned English. “I thought what a lot of hard work, and little academics.”

Then she went to public school in Red Lake. “Public school was a culture shock. I had never seen so many white kids in one place. It was so different. They were so loud and talkative.”

She left high school and an abusive situation at home to get away, and became a street kid in Thunder Bay. She married at 18 and had four daughters by the time she divorced at 22.

“One day, I ran into a friend from high school and that was the person I married over 30 years ago. There was something about him.”

The couple lived in Calgary, and Red Lake, and finally came to Winnipeg. One day, she decided to turn her life around. She was going to be a teacher. Her husband encouraged her to do what she needed to do.

Victoria E. McIntosh is an Anishinaabe art educator, with a focus on “healing through the arts.”

What she needed to do
“I had abusive job situations. There was too much stress. It was very overwhelming. I was empty inside. I knew there had to be more than this. I thought that’s it. I am going to do something about it.”

At the University of Manitoba, with the Access Program, McIntosh found her supportive community. “The people at Access were so good and supportive. They allowed me to have confidence in myself, to know that I can do this.”

She was born an artist, she says. “I remember when I started drawing. I had an old board and a carpenter’s pencil. I started drawing. I drew my family. I have been drawing since then, working in various mediums. I do pencil, pen and ink, storyboards, illustrations, fire painting. Anything new, I’ll try.”

Selling her artwork across Canada, she’s also a crafter, sewing and knitting socks, making things. She comes from a family of storytellers, and remembers the best times listening to her granny while making quilts.

“I could see patterns when I heard noises. I would get in the zone. So I started painting.”

Painting our story
McIntosh was commissioned to paint the glass panels on the balcony overlooking the main floor meeting space in Migizii Agamik (Bald Eagle Lodge), home to the Access Program. The project is called Painting Our Stories: Enhancing the Work and Study Environment of Migizii Agamik, and it’s funded by the U of M’s Office of Indigenous Engagement. Her concept is based on the creation story, the idea that we all start as a simple dot and then there are more and more dots.

“We hear lots of stories. The little manitous, the oracles, the little people come and help our imaginations. We go from dots to a cluster of energy with what we are learning.”

What people come into our lives to teach us no one can ever take away, she says. “What’s your story? It’s a universal journey. It starts when we are not born yet, and continues as we go along.”

At its 2019 Spring Convocation, the University of Manitoba will confer degrees, diplomas and certificates on 2,848 graduates. Victoria McIntosh will graduate with 185 of her classmates from the Faculty of Education at the 140^th Spring Convocation session on June 4, 2019.

Learn more about Spring Convocation 2019 here.
Each session of Convocation will be streamed online.
Follow convocation ceremonies and events on #umanitoba2019 on Twitter and Instagram to see more.

Liz Katynski