Uploaded September 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
BUY/STREAM: nehiyawak.lnk.to/nipiy
nipiy is a collection of songs strongly inspired by the idle no more movement. Many of the songs here began around 2012, after attending talks, information sessions and other events organized during idle no more. Many of the discussions that I engaged within that time were ones that I had come to feel comfortable in since childhood. And playing music over the years across different musical categories, I was very much aware of the disparaging gap between perspectives presented and those perspectives I had come to know and share.
The deluge of arts that flowed out of Constantinian perspectives have been overwhelming many peoples psyche since the dawn of photography and recorded music. Much like many others who paved the way for a band like us to exist, we are adding to the ‘others’ body of work. There are many important ideas and teachings that we were raised within our lives, but few more important that water. Its a modern conversation with complex meanings and understandings. This collection of songs also represents our own interests when it comes to music, instrumentation, and lyrics. Our goal is not to build up a group of individuals, but rather keep kicking at the door built in front of many. nipiy is for those who don’t seem to fit in for myriad reasons. To inspire others to use their voice and to send messages to future generations.
mwestas
BUY/STREAM: nehiyawak.lnk.to/nipiy
nipiy is a collection of songs strongly inspired by the idle no more movement. Many of the songs here began around 2012, after attending talks, information sessions and other events organized during idle no more. Many of the discussions that I engaged within that time were ones that I had come to feel comfortable in since childhood. And playing music over the years across different musical categories, I was very much aware of the disparaging gap between perspectives presented and those perspectives I had come to know and share.
The deluge of arts that flowed out of Constantinian perspectives have been overwhelming many peoples psyche since the dawn of photography and recorded music. Much like many others who paved the way for a band like us to exist, we are adding to the ‘others’ body of work. There are many important ideas and teachings that we were raised within our lives, but few more important that water. Its a modern conversation with complex meanings and understandings. This collection of songs also represents our own interests when it comes to music, instrumentation, and lyrics. Our goal is not to build up a group of individuals, but rather keep kicking at the door built in front of many. nipiy is for those who don’t seem to fit in for myriad reasons. To inspire others to use their voice and to send messages to future generations.
mwestas
![Gord Downie - The Secret Path [Official Film Trailer]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZGYnQx2R4nE/mqdefault.jpg "Gord Downie - The Secret Path [Official Film Trailer]
STATEMENT BY GORD DOWNIE
Ogoki Post, Ontario
September 9, 2016
Mike Downie introduced me to Chanie Wenjack; he gave me the story from Ian Adams’ Maclean’s magazine story dating back to February 6, 1967, “The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack.”
Chanie, misnamed Charlie by his teachers, was a young boy who died on October 22, 1966, walking the railroad tracks, trying to escape from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School to walk home. Chanie’s home was 400 miles away. He didn’t know that. He didn’t know where it was, nor how to find it, but, like so many kids - more than anyone will be able to imagine - he tried. I never knew Chanie, but I will always love him.
Chanie haunts me. His story is Canada’s story. This is about Canada. We are not the country we thought we were. History will be re-written. We are all accountable, but this begins in the late 1800s and goes to 1996. “White” Canada knew – on somebody’s purpose – nothing about this. We weren’t taught it in school; it was hardly ever mentioned.
All of those Governments, and all of those Churches, for all of those years, misused themselves. They hurt many children. They broke up many families. They erased entire communities. It will take seven generations to fix this. Seven. Seven is not arbitrary. This is far from over. Things up north have never been harder. Canada is not Canada. We are not the country we think we are.
I am trying in this small way to help spread what Murray Sinclair said, “This is not an aboriginal problem. This is a Canadian problem. Because at the same time that aboriginal people were being demeaned in the schools and their culture and language were being taken away from them and they were being told that they were inferior, they were pagans, that they were heathens and savages and that they were unworthy of being respected – that very same message was being given to the non-aboriginal children in the public schools as well… They need to know that history includes them.” (Murray Sinclair, Ottawa Citizen, May 24, 2015)
I have always wondered why, even as a kid, I never thought of Canada as a country – It’s not a popular thought; you keep it to yourself – I never wrote of it as so. The next hundred years are going to be painful as we come to know Chanie Wenjack and thousands like him – as we find out about ourselves, about all of us – but only when we do can we truly call ourselves, “Canada.”
http://secretpath.ca/")
