Inmates using culture to rehabilitate themselves

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It took being locked up in prison for Ben McIvor to learn some of his Aboriginal culture.

"This is where I learned everything," said McIvor, who is currently serving nine years for manslaughter at the medium-security Saskatchewan Penitentiary, about one kilometer west of Prince Albert.

The inmate, who has four years left on his sentence, has been participating in the programs run through the federal prison's Aboriginal cultural centre, where he has discovered his First Nations identity that was lost as a child.

McIvor grew up on the Sandy Bay Reserve near Lake Manitoba, where he remembers spending a lot of time with his grandparents in the small community.

When he was around 12 years old his mom decided that the family had to move to the big city of Winnipeg.

"I had no choice but to go," he said, adding if he had stayed on the reserve with his grandparents he might not be doing time near Prince Albert.

But that didn't happen and Winnipeg changed his life, as McIvor got mixed up in drugs, alcohol and at first petty crimes that lead to major crimes such as selling narcotics on the street.

"It was downhill from there," said McIvor, adding he graduated from doing time as a teen at juvenile hall, to as an adult, doing time at super max - the nation's highest security prisons.

Now, through the cultural centre, McIvor is learning Aboriginal dances, prayers and how to build traditional drums and dream catchers.

"To me it brings happiness. To have fun, you learn you don't need drugs and alcohol," said McIvor.

Many of these activities are conducted daily in the cultural centre's offices, located in the prison yard's former horse stables, where the inmates can build traditional crafts with the centre's tools and use the sweat lodge just outside the building for meditation.

The program also gathers inmates, their families, and Elders about three times a year either in the prison gym or yard for community events such as powwows and round dances.

Larry Smytaniuk, an Aboriginal liaison officer for the prison's cultural centre who has a Metis background, said the annual events are important for the prison's population of 450 of which 75 per cent are Aboriginal and have stories similar to McIvor's.

During some round dance ceremonies, inmates meet the local members of the Royal Canadian Legion and Army, Navy, and Airforce Veterans.

John Duquette, who served during the Second World War and the Korean War, said he understands what some of the inmates are going through, since he too lost part of his Aboriginal culture attending a residential school near Duck Lake, 56 kilometres southwest of Prince Albert.

"Most of our culture is lost along the way. So you have someone teaching you these things," said the 73-year-old, who lives in Mistawasis, 65 kilometres west of Prince Albert.

Duquette credits his late uncle for teaching him about his heritage.

But the program also tries to reach young Aboriginal people before its too late.