Twin Flames found a common musical language despite polar opposite backgrounds

Twin Flames is an Ottawa duo who grew up with very different cultural experiences. Jaaji is Inuk and Mohawk while his partner Chelsey June is Métis.

Chelsey June's grandmother comes from family of 24 children. But her great grandfather was not allowed to work because he was Indigenous. But when the church in their community that housed all the records burnt down, he hid his Indigenous identity in order to get work in the logging industry by claiming to be a French man.

  

"My grandmother shares stories with me where she said they were called savages. And it was known in the community that they did have Indigenous heritage, but it wasn't something they were taught to be proud of," she said. 

"Growing up in Ottawa, [it was a] very white world, white communities, went to school always felt a little different.  I would tell people I was Indigenous, and I was really proud of that as a child."

Her journey to reconnect with her culture began when she was working for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and a co-worker invited her to meet some elders in a sharing circle at a local centre.

"It was like coming home for me. [It was] the first time I got to experience smudging and our teachings. And that had been missing my whole life."

Jaaji, which is pronounced yaah-yee, was raised in Nunavik, Que., by his grandparents and spent his summers in Kahnawake, Que., with his dad.

 

Jaaji's grandparents, who he calls his parents, took him out on the land, sometimes for six months at a time regardless of the school year.

"It's how they continued to do the traditional teachings. Hunting, fishing, surviving pretty much," he said.   

"You've seen movies today, The Revenant being one example. These are everyday lives of even the Inuit going into today. I have a cousin who played tug of war with a sleeping bag with their child in it with a polar bear through a tent," he said matter-of-factly.

Jaaji spent 12 years working as a police officer and he has been chased by a polar bear himself. He was 20 years old and had to try and lead a bear and her cubs out of the town on an ATV.

After living on the land and moving to an urban centre, Jaaji said he didn't have trouble adjusting.

"I think being of the element, being the tundra, going hunting and stuff like that, you have no choice but to be adaptable. That was the nomadic way of Inuit," he explained. 

"Obviously sometimes it doesn't seem like that when you see the negativity in front of you … but that's if you take it in a negative sense. And I was taught to take something in the positive sense. You use it to your advantage. And I think that's what has been easier for me to do as an Inuit or Indigenous person."