New podcast One Dish, Many Stories is a 'powerful' look at Indigenous history in Hamilton

After hearing about the potentially 215 unmarked children's burial sites near a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., and having discussions with non-Indigenous people in Hamilton, Jordan Carrier said she came to a realization.

"It was quite apparent how much the lack of knowledge of Indigenous history and stories folks had," Carrier, a Plains Cree woman, told CBC Hamilton.

Her three-episode podcast One Dish, Many Stories aims to change that.

"I wanted to start with the land and Indigenous nations that historically and currently live on these lands we know as Hamilton," Carrier said.

The podcast debuted on June 3, days into National Indigenous History Month.

The name of the podcast is a play on words from the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

The land Hamilton sits on is included in that.

Carrier said she had been considering making a podcast for some time, but her recent community research project course through McMaster University's Indigenous studies program helped her fulfil her vision.

She worked with her course instructor, Vanessa Watts, to develop it.

Watts, an assistant professor and the Paul R. MacPherson chair in Indigenous studies, said the "powerful" podcast challenges reconciliation.

"It goes beyond the sort of normative landscape around land acknowledgments, reconciliation, treaties," said Watts, who lives in Six Nations of the Grand River.

"She's thinking through both living histories and living sociopolitical moments that are happening and exploring them in a really critical way."

She also said there's an interesting nuance in Carrier's podcast.

Being a Plains Cree woman, Carrier is Indigenous and has lived in Hamilton for some 20 years. The area isn't her traditional territory. It's a place that's her home, but she's also a visitor to the territories.

It's a topic Carrier discusses in one episode. Her episodes also focus on language, stone carving and healing.

She said non-Indigenous people will leave with a deeper understanding of local history that they can't get from a settler-colonial perspective.

Watts said the podcast includes youth voices and knowledge keepers.

Carrier said she hopes the next two episodes of the podcast — which can be found on Podbean, Spotify and YouTube — will be available this month.

She aims to eventually make more episodes.

"Rather than taking a more national approach, Hamilton is my home and my roots are pretty deep here now … how I can contribute to my local community, that's really important and special to me."