Christina E. Marchand & Eric Mitchell
npʔpʔaxʷikәn
ELDERS
Life partners, Christina and Eric are syilx from nk’maplqs. In 2020, they each received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from UBC-O for co-founding and delivering cultural safety education in the School of Nursing and extended to the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. In their work they provided safe environments for Indigenous students, staff, and faculty to share their stories and experiences, exposing the truth about the past and ongoing harm of colonialism.
For Chris, as a sixties scoop survivor, focusing on family, reconnecting, and learning more about her relatives across syilx territory has always been near and dear to her heart. Additionally, she has always had a desire to learn the language and was guided to head to Penticton, BC, and both she and her life partner, Eric moved from their home in Vernon, BC to attend the En’owkin Centre. More recently, a language opportunity emerged once more, and Chris jumped at the opportunity to attend the Mentor Apprenticeship Program in her community with her family.
For Eric, an important year for him was 1996 because that was when he heard a Lakota Elder talking about a horse ceremony called the Unity Ride. After much thought, two weeks later he and his life partner, Christina, decided to go on what they have come to refer to as their journey of a lifetime. For the next ten years, they followed that horse ceremony because the spiritual pull was strong enough to return every year. As a residential school survivor who was not raised in ceremony, the spiritual teachings gained on this journey over the land and on horseback were of great importance and held deep meaning to his spiritual growth. As a syilx man in his healing journey, he came to realize both of his grandfathers were not only speakers of their languages, but they knew many from the interior region of BC, and that is when he felt the deep loss of language. From the age of seventeen years of age until today he has become a lifetime student of the language and has had mentors from throughout the Nation who helped him enrich his language learning. Currently, he has been blessed to learn the language with his life partner, daughter, and grandchildren in his home community.
Through his commitment to language, he has had many mentors, including fluent language speakers from the En’owkin Centre and from family, and as an avid researcher, he has accumulated a vast collection of Okanagan language materials, including stories and songs, in both written and audio format.