Episode 36: Nicole Bringsli; When People Stop Hiding Their Pain Change Starts

The hardest part about trauma is not always the moment itself. It is what happens after, when we go quiet, try to “be fine,” and carry the story alone. We sit down with Nicole Bringsli, owner of Creative Works Psych Services, to get honest about trauma therapy, forensic psychology, and what it takes to keep people functioning when life includes violence, disaster, and loss.  

Nicole walks us through her work with youth offenders, crisis situations, and court-related forensic assessments, then connects that experience to a straightforward clinical truth: secrecy and shame keep trauma alive. We talk about what actually meets the DSM-5-TR definition of trauma, why “cumulative trauma” can hit years into a first responder career, and how a well-run debriefing can help a team process an incident without turning it into a spectacle. If you care about first responder mental health, PTSD support, or trauma-informed care in rural communities, this conversation is packed with real-world insight.  

We also zoom out to intergenerational trauma and the challenge of healing not just individuals, but families and whole towns after community-wide events. Nicole explains why belonging and early attachment matter so much, what burnout can look like before it becomes a crisis, and the surprisingly powerful basics that help people reset, including quiet, walking, and lowering the constant input of phones. If something here hits close to home, share this with someone you trust, subscribe for more conversations like this, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Nicole

Speaker 3 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Doug Has Questions. Today my guest is Nicole Bringsli, the owner of Creative Works Psych Services. Did I get that right? Yeah. Welcome, Nicole. Okay. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for joining us. We've known each other for a long time. I knew your husband, Kurt, well before I knew you, and then you started joining him down here fishing. And I was telling I think I was telling Sam or somebody else earlier today. I think it was only like 10 years ago that I found out what you did for a living.

Speaker 2 0:29

Yeah.

Speaker 3 0:30

You just came down and were fishing, and I had no idea, and I don't remember how the conversation got that you were in the mental health field.

Speaker 0:37

I'm not sure either, but this was always my place to come just to relax.

Speaker 3 0:42

Relax. Well, I I appreciate you taking some of your relaxation time to to discuss some more difficult topics. No problem.

From Ontario To The Yukon

Speaker 3 0:50

But uh first off, where where'd life start for Nicole?

Speaker 0:55

Um so I was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, mostly like London, Ottawa area. And then I started coming up to the Yukon um after my first year university. My sister was doing a practicum up in the Yukon. So then I started coming up each summer. And then when I graduated with my undergrad, I moved up here to work to the Yukon.

Speaker 3 1:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1:23

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:23

And so is that when you met Kurt? Is what did it was it before you moved up here or was it?

Speaker 1:27

Nope. I met my husband when I got up here. I was about a year into my master's degree, and so I did my last year of my master's degree while I was dating him. Okay. And then when I finished that, he went off to our or I went down to do um, like when you're training to be a psychologist, you have to do um practicum hours, like you have to train under somebody. So I went and worked at a youth uh jail facility in Saskatchewan, and I was the clinical lead of a sex offender unit in um in Virginia, and then my husband went and did his RCMP training, and then we moved out to Alberta after. So I did my licensing, and uh there's different like competencies in um psychology, so I did mine in forensic psychology and started with youth.

Speaker 3 2:21

Okay.

Speaker 2:21

So even I uh even though I did the clinical work in the sex offender unit, we also did the all the crisis work for the facility. So when people were uh suicidal or they were engaging in higher risk behaviors, then we would um talk to and intervene with them as well. Back then there was a lot of gang activity in Saskatchewan, so there was a lot of um interesting cases that came through the facility and lots of um difficulties of dealing with like youth rival gangs back then. So that would have been like 2001, long time ago.

Speaker 3 2:57

So, what is what is your role in that? So you're these are youth offenders, gang offenders, they're in the criminal justice system. Yeah, they bring you in. Are you trying to help them heal them? Are you trying to do evaluations for criminal proceedings?

Speaker 3:17

All of the above? So, in that role at that time, it wasn't for criminal proceedings, but um when a youth entered into um custody, they had to be convicted of a sexual offense. And then the program was a rehabilitation program. So it would be like individual work, group work, um yeah, so it was it it was to rehabilitate. And then the rest of the work in the center would have been more like keeping people stable. So, like I said, if somebody was um violent or suicidal, or there might have been some adjustment issues for people coming in, like some people had some higher profile cases, so they needed a little bit of evaluation when they came in just for for placement and to make sure that they were in the right units and that they had the right supports in place coming in. So that was my role there. It's very interesting.

Speaker 3 4:14

So, grow growing up, what was your childhood like?

Speaker 4:18

Um, well, I growing up in Ontario, I had two sisters. I still have two sisters, and my dad's an engineer, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and when I turned 18, they moved to Dallas, Texas.

Speaker 3 4:38

Okay.

Speaker 4:38

So we all kind of dispersed. So they moved to Dallas, Texas for my dad's work. My oldest sister went down there. She married a Texan who I think has come into the store a few times. Yes. And and uh, and um she stayed there, and then my other sister still lives in the in the Yukon. Yeah. So um yeah, pretty normal kind of child until we all kind of went into our separate areas.

A Crime Case That Sparked Forensics

Speaker 5:04

But one of the things um that inspired me to get into forensics was um, and I don't know if people in the states know of this person, but there was a guy named uh Paul Bernardo, and he was married to a lady named Carla Hamolka, and they were um later found and convicted of um um assaulting and and um murdering girls that were my in my age group when around uh age 15. And so there's a lot of fear in the that area in Ontario when I was growing up, and I was what I kept reading all the news articles because back then we read news articles, not on our phone. And um, and I thought, why would somebody do that? And like just thinking about the level of fear that um that it caused um the communities uh in on in Ontario, and so I followed that case till they were apprehended through their court case, and then that's kind of what inspired me to go into forensics.

Speaker 3 6:05

What were your parents thinking while you're following this story? Was it were they thinking why is she so focused on this?

Speaker 6:12

I don't know how much they knew I was. Or was that kind of just on your own that I think it was more on my own, but I know when I applied to universities, my dad wanted me to go to Queens because that's Queen's University, that's where my dad and my sister went, and I was like, I'm going to University of Ottawa because that's I wanted to do crime criminology and psychology. So they weren't they weren't very happy with me about that, and I was like, I gotta go where the program is. So I don't know if I told them that much about it.

Speaker 3 6:39

Were were other others in your friend group? Were were you having conversations with them at that time about the amount of fear there was in the area with these people out there before they were caught?

Speaker 6:50

A little bit because a little bit because there there were these big posters, billboards. If this feels so old as I say this day. Um there um on billboards, and there was like um a car, and it said of you seen this car. So the car was part of the part of the case, right? That had been so it was the car was associated with the abductions of these girls, so it was all on billboards, and I remember talking to friends about that because that really scared people because they didn't know where this person where they this person was. Yeah. And it was a strange case because it was a married couple, attractive. They called them sort of like the Ken and Barbie couple, so they were not what people sort of typically typically thought. So I think like when the billboards were out and the fear was there was yes, talk amongst um girls my age, but I I think it just surprised everybody. I think it was one of those things where people are like, oh, it's not like the creepy guy in the back alley. It could be somebody that it doesn't look like that. Sort of blue, I think, people's stereotypes.

Speaker 3 7:53

Kind of look like the neighbor next door almost.

Speaker 7:55

Which I think is even scarier for people, right?

Speaker 3 7:58

Yeah.

Speaker 7:58

Yeah. So I know that's a bit of a strange um curiosity, but it's kind of has left me with my career, I guess.

Speaker 3 8:07

Yeah. So as you got to university and you started studying this, was there a time that you were thinking, eh, maybe this isn't for me, or was it pretty much the whole time you're studying this, you're like, I've found my calling. This is what I want to do.

Speaker 8:21

Yeah, I loved it. I I I loved it all. Yeah I've it just the kind of conversations you would have. I'm like, and the the university I went to was really different. Like it was it was very abolitionist. So it was very about like like breaking down laws and being way more open about offenders, which is sort of like not how I was brought up. So I was like, hey, this is way too loose, some of this thinking, like then some of the some of the beliefs. So I just remember it kind of blowing my mind that people were having these conversations out loud. But I was like, it made you think, right? What kind of conversations? Um, well, there was a group in um there was a group in university that used to take a bus to um Kingston. Kingston, Ontario has a lot of prisons in it, and it's it's just outside of Ottawa, like I think maybe an hour and a half or two hours. So you take the they they had a group where they would take the bus and um go and meet with offenders, and they had this journal that they had written. It's was called the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons. So they had like um inmates writing about their experience. It was like really like hearing their voice and people going down and working with them. I d I don't rem I don't I didn't volunteer to do that, but it was more like less about sort of punishment and more about like understanding the prisoners' experiences, which I hadn't ever read about or thought ever thought about until I went to school. So it was a bit different. They were yeah, they were not like traditional conservative thinkers.

Speaker 3 9:53

I would imagine not. No, not at all.

Speaker 9:55

So it made you think, right? Which is I guess the whole point of school, right?

Speaker 3 9:59

Yeah.

Speaker 10:00

So it was uh it was a great program.

Working With Youth Offenders

Speaker 3 10:04

And so you're so you you finish university, you come up to the Yukon, correct? So what were you doing that first time with those the summers when you're coming up to the Yukon? Was that just getting your hours before you went because then you went to get your master's?

Speaker 10:19

Yeah, so you can't get your hours until you're finished your master's. So I had to come up and I worked two jobs while I um I worked at the Young Offender Center. So just doing like day and night shifts, just monitoring the the kids, teenagers, and um, and then I also worked in the group homes. So the group homes is where I met my husband Kurt.

Speaker 3 10:42

Okay.

Speaker 10:42

So he took um I left one group home to work in another and he went into the spot I was in. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then I heard this really good looking guy took my spot, and I was like, I gotta go see what that's about. Gotta go see what that's about. I pretended I had to drop something off so I could go and see what that was about. And then I was like, I like that. So there you go. Then I asked him out.

Speaker 3 11:05

You asked him out. I did. Good job.

Speaker 11:08

Yep, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 11:09

Lucky guy.

unknown 11:11

Yeah.

Speaker 11:11

So when he's giving our boys advice, I'm like, really?

Speaker 3 11:16

Didn't they be coming to mom for advice? I made the first move. Yeah. Oh, that's rich. That's good information to know about Kurt. Uh I might have to use that sometime to give him a bad time.

Speaker 2 11:29

Yeah.

Speaker 3 11:30

So what what was it that attracted you for from for the Yukon? Was it just because those jobs were available? You wanted to go on an adventure?

Speaker 11:36

Well, my parents were in Texas, so I couldn't go live there.

Speaker 2 11:39

Yep.

Speaker 11:40

And so, and my sister was up in the She was in the Yukon already. Yeah, so I went and stayed. And then that's when I got into um the group homes and then working at the Young Offender Center, and I was still finishing my master's. And then when I was finishing my master's, I realized that I had to go probably. Well, I had somebody that said that they would supervise me because you need a psychologist to supervise you while you do hours. Um, but I wanted to leave and be the underdog somewhere.

Speaker 3 12:10

Okay.

Speaker 12:10

I just uh at like at that time in the north. Um, I think people thought if you had your master's that you were smart and you knew what you were doing, but I don't really think that's the way it works. I think you have to actually get a lot of hours with people. And so I wanted to go, I looked more for like mentors. And I remember saying to Kurt, I'm like, I just I don't care about how much money I make in that first 10 years, I just want to learn from really good people so that I can be good at what I'm doing, right? So I kind of sought my people that were mentors and inspired me or had things to teach me.

Speaker 3 12:47

So that's how did you find them? You were just doing research on people that were in the same field?

Speaker 12:53

And the Saskatchewan, I had um a friend that was down working at the facility in Saskatchewan that I applied to. So when I applied down there, um when I applied down there, he had said like you should come work here. So I went and applied there, got the job. And then um then we had we after a couple of years, we ended up having to move to Alberta because um Kurt became an uh RCP officer and we had to relocate. And um at that time I'd kind of had enough of trauma. Like I'd I'd been all I had done is work with sex offenders for three years and um people involved in gangs, so I'd I dealt with people that had just killed people, um done all kinds of really different uh difficult offenses. So and and and even some of the units there, like it's just the exposure to trauma was um was a lot. There's a lot of girls that were um in that unit, and in one of the units there where um they'd been sexually exploited even by their parents, um like hooked on drugs by their parents and then sexually exploited, and then there was just a lot of of trauma exposure in that job. So I thought I'm kind of done with this. So then when we went to um Grand Prairie, I started working in schools. So I worked in special education for two years and traveled all over northern Alberta. That's where I learned how to do psychological testing, and so that's been a good thing to have because later on in my career I paired that with forensics together. After about two and a half years of working in schools um and working in in um remote, so this is where the tr learning about trauma and remote communities starts to come in. Um, because we travel all over northern Alberta. Um I missed working with trauma. So I went back and started doing groups at the Young Offender Center, and then I started working at a sexual assault trauma center.

Speaker 3 14:59

You missed working with trauma.

Speaker 15:00

Yes.

Speaker 3 15:01

How do you how do you not carry that trauma when you go home? How how is that process for you? That that seems like a lot for me when you're there. You said for after three years you need to get a break from it, and then you go back to it. Did you learn new techniques to kind of help keep that from wearing on you? I I can only imagine the things you've had people just the things you you'd mentioned that people have gone through. That that would be hard to have a lot of those conversations day after day.

Why Speaking Up Heals Trauma

Speaker 15:34

Yeah, um sometimes I don't know how I still do it, but um, but I my thinking is that if people are talking about things, then that's a good thing. Even when they were talking about offending against people, and like at least then like I can work with that. Like what I definitely have learned about trauma is that like like secrecy is one of the things that breeds trauma, right? So when people are not honest with themselves, when they don't say things out loud, um, when they when they hold their secrets, they usually grow. So if I can be an avenue for people to have conversations, like in an honest way about where they're at, what their experiences are, um, and I'm a I'm a little I'm a bit of a tough therapist, like where I like people to understand where they've come from and what's it what's impacted them, but then there's a point where now it's time to take the learnings and change your behavior, right? Like so I don't think of it like I feel bad, so you should continue to hurt people. That's not the way I work, right? I'm like, okay, so we learn, we figure things out, um, and then we work on not hurting people anymore, right? Um, as whereas I know some people come from a victimization point of view where if someone's been victimized, they say, well, they can't help it. And that's not the way I work, that's not my perspective as a therapist. I believe people can change, but I think people have to be able to be honest about what they're doing without judgment and without shame. And definitely some of the things I've heard, there's a lot of shame attached to the things that people have done. So if they can't talk about it hear themselves and have somebody um reflect back to them and work back with them, then to me the risk continues. So I think that's why I've been able to do this for like two and a half decades, or right, is because I'm like to me, when people are talking, then that's a win, right? Always. Even when first when I'm talking to first responders about um traumatic incidents they've been to, I'm like, we can work through it. It's um it's it's worse to be in silence by yourself. That's usually when avoidance always makes things worse. So I think I like I wanted to get back into trauma because I it just it fits for me better. I like being able to help people who I think I like people to help people find that bit of power that they still have in them, even when things even if they've been an offender or they've been a victim. So where's like the power for them to work from? Because usually you can always find it. So and then that just feels like such a win, right? When you start to see people like living their life again, you're like, it just feels really good to be part of it, right?

Speaker 3 18:44

So that that helps get through the times where it's just hearing the stories and just weighing on you, you know, you get those few wins, and that's your fuel to continue going.

Speaker 18:55

Yeah, and even, yeah, and even even like so I've uh later on when I was working in the UConn, I've worked, I've worked uh I worked um a contract with the uh correctional center in Wayhorse. So I worked for about eight, nine years doing uh uh assessments for court, um, one of the community wellness courts in the jail. And even sometimes when people would get out and then come back in, they're like, okay, I should have listened. I should have like it's constantly just meeting them where they're at, right? And them even having that realization, like, okay, like I made a bad choice instead of like it's everybody else's fault. Like, even that's a win, even if they end up back in again. So just like just being able to see little bit, little bits of change is is um is important, and just because people like relapse in addictions or they do, it's still not all is lost, right? So um, yeah, and it's the same thing with working with first responders, it's always trying to find that the power that they have instead of the powerlessness, um, trying to find um the strengths in what people are doing versus all their deficits.

Speaker 3 20:09

So when you're when you're looking at trauma, it's not just criminal trauma or abuse at the home. You're dealing with everything.

Speaker 20:21

Yeah, it could be suicide, it could be um when people lost people in like motor vehicle collisions or um accidents or homicide or drownings or murder or all of it. I've talked to s people that have been on both ends of just about all of it. All of it.

Speaker 3 20:44

Yeah.

First Responder Trauma In Rural Towns

Speaker 3 20:45

And is it is it easier working with the first responders in any way, or is that just as is that just as tough? Because I think that's one of the things I think a lot of people I could be wrong, this could just be my opinion. But you see, like in Haynes, you see the police department responding to all these things, the ambulance responding, the fire department. And it wasn't until we had the slide in 2020 that I thought, you know, these guys, these guys respond to all of these things and started thinking about the things that they've seen. A lot of times when they show up at somebody's worst moment, yeah. They're dealing with people at one of their worst moments in their life.

Speaker 21:27

And I think when you have a town like Haynes, um, or even to some degree Whitehorse or some smaller communities, the difference in the trauma is that a lot of times you um you know the people. You know them or you know somebody attached to them. So the trauma is further impacted. So it's not just sort of like seeing like like death or um chaos. It's um y a lot of times in rural areas you know who these people are. So you know does that compound the trauma then? It does when you when you have a familiarity? It does. Like when you talk to first responders, when they go into homes and people uh like the let's say there's been a sudden death or a something's happened in a home and someone's deceased, um, they try a lot of responders will say they'll try not to look up people's photos. And they'll try not to, and that if the family's on scene, it further complicates the scene. So when you have a little bit of distance, it can help like encode the trauma differently. But when you are, you know, if you see, you know, somebody's deceased, then you look over and they see the picture and they were someone's grandpa or someone's like it's going now that now you're getting into their life story. And then that sits with you differently. So when you have that distance, it can help you put, okay, there's an another incident, and I can just put that in my filing cabinet of sudden deaths, or I can put that in my filing cabinet of a drowning or whatever it might be. But then if it's in the story of someone's life, it's harder for them to process. So that when you guys had this the slide here, and then even when you guys had the fire the lat the other year, and everybody's been to that building, you know who owns it, you um it's part of the community, right? It's um it affects people, it's not just another building or it's not just another person. And so that will that will compound it.

Speaker 3 23:29

And does it compound when there's like multiple in a series and too? Because like when the outfitter and the old field kitchen were just in a couple months of each other. Yeah. So that that that second one is gonna be worse than the first just because it's compounding that way.

Speaker 23:43

Yeah, and then sometimes responders don't like it's not like sometimes you have a traumatic event and then you just feel terrible right after. Like sometimes, which is why we like to do debriefings or talk to people after a trauma, is you want to take that trauma and you want to give them an opportunity to give words to it and speak about it so that they can process it better. Because if you don't process this one, you don't talk about this one, you don't talk about this one, this could be I call it the Jenga Lost Jenga piece. You know, like you don't realize the pieces are getting taken out of that Jenga game, and then all of a sudden it falls apart because you haven't even noticed that those pieces have been pulled out. So that's why we want to try and be as good as we can at spotting things and saying, that's when we should talk about, that's when we should talk about. So I discourage people from going around, I discourage first responders from going, You good, you good, you good? I'm like, let's just talk about it. Yeah.

Debriefings And The 72 Hour Window

Speaker 24:43

Like let's just I call it cleaning the closet as we go along.

Speaker 3 24:47

So do you when when you do something like that, do you get like if there's an EMT or s a SAR team that goes out, do you get the whole group together and have a debrief with everybody talking about it, or is it more of a one-on-one where you let each person or is is or do you use both?

Speaker 25:03

You can use both. So ideally, um, and there's there's different feelings about debrief debriefings um out there. So I I think you have to, I think a lot of it's who does the debriefing. Sometimes people don't do debriefings well, and then it can be a bit more damaging. Like I've had people say that people have been crying in debriefs and as the therapist, and that's not really helpful. Like you've really gotta be able to hold the space. So you really need someone with good trauma experience. So usually we say within about 72 hours. So let's say an incident happened. Let's just say an incident happened, you either find a body or somebody's found or whatever it might be. Um, you want to get that team together in about 72 hours. Not usually not any sooner, because you do want the information to sit in someone's mind and kind of float around for about two or three days. Like you'll notice if you ever hear bad news for about two or three days, is it depending on if it's somebody super close to you, this isn't gonna happen as quickly, but um, you hear bad news, usually about two or three days, it kind of rattles around your head and you sort of feel very internal. It's um people are talking to you and you're you're more drawn in because you're trying to sort out this news that you've heard. And usually after about three days, you'll notice like it starts to settle a little bit. So, right around that time, around 72 hours, like when people ideally get like two or three sleeps, have a little bit of time to have the brain sort of rattle around a little bit, then we want to kind of sit down and say, Okay. So, and it should only be people that were at the scene or part of it.

Speaker 2 26:41

Okay.

Speaker 26:42

Because you don't want to tree traumatize people, you don't want to traumatize people that weren't there. So, really, your guest list of who should come is the number one thing. Um, it should be people that already experienced it. Um, and then really the way I do debriefings is I kind of piece together the incident. So let's say you were the EMT and then somebody else is the um police, somebody else is search and rescue. Then we're gonna kind of go around and we wanna make sure that maybe you were first, this person was second, this person was third. We want to kind of create a nice picture so you can say, I was first on scene, and then this is what I saw. Oh, okay, so then I came in, and and then together when people walk away, they have a full picture of what happened. We want people to have the information they need so that they can work on again, sort of that concept of filing it. Lots of times we see later on in trauma work, people are like, I don't know what happened to this person, I don't know if this was done, I don't know if I contributed, I don't know if I um, or maybe they think somebody didn't do something. So when you do those debriefings, you get all the pieces, and almost like 95% of the time when I do those briefings, somebody goes, Oh, okay, okay, oh, that was that's good to know. I didn't know that. Right? So then I'm like, great, it gives them a little piece of information to help them with uh settling that memory. So that you want people to do, and use usually we, yeah, like I said, about 70, 72 hours. And the more we kind of clean things up as we go along, um, then usually sort of the more space people have to take on more. Because there's some units and communities where they're working and it's one after the other, right? So they have to keep some space for more. That's because you never know when more is coming.

Speaker 3 28:37

You never know when more's coming, yeah.

Speaker 28:40

You never know when more's coming.

What Trauma Means In DSM Criteria

Speaker 3 28:42

So transitioning away from that, one of the things when I've talked to people about trauma, one of the responses is everybody talks about trauma now. We didn't have trauma when I was a kid. It's like, well, I think there was you probably had trauma when you were a kid or when you were growing up younger. It just wasn't labeled that. So what what is your definition of trauma or a traumatic event? Is is there a definition?

Speaker 29:08

Yeah, so we um, and it would be the same in the States as Canada, we use something called the uh the latest edition is called the DSM 5 TR. So it's our diagnostic manual that gives us the criteria for diagnosing uh people with different um types of uh mental health issues. So when you look at the definition of post-traumatic stress, they talk about um about um either death or sort of threatened death or sexual violence, um, that that's a traumatic event. So either and there's different ways to experience it, you can directly experience it, you can it you can also um so it's directly experiencing the traumatic event. There's hearing about a traumatic event as it happened to a loved one. Okay. So if you hear that your somebody that's close to you was um, you know, stabbed or sexually assaulted or lost their life in a tragic accident, um, and you then that can be a criteria for post-traumatic stress. And then there's also the cumulative piece, which I'm glad they they added into the um diagnostic category because a lot of police officers, paramedics, fire, like I said, they don't realize that whole Jenga analogy that's happening, and they'll have um go to go to a call and they might kind of fall apart after a call and say, Why that one? I've been to so many calls that are worse than that. Um, but it's because of all the other times they met the criteria, right? That they saw death, almost death, um, acts of violence against somebody, but they just haven't kept things sort of tidy, or maybe there's a lot of things going on in their personal life and they have um this trauma, and then a new one comes in and they just feel like they can't process it. So that's what trauma really is. So, yes, people will say, I've definitely had people say, I broke up with my boyfriend, I'm traumatized. That does not meet the criteria for trauma. That is very upsetting. Uh, but it does not meet the criteria for trauma. Okay. Um sorry to all those people out there for screening. But that's not, that's not, that's that's that's being distressed because something's happened in your life. That's very different. You can be depressed about something, you can be anxious, you can be sad. Those are all what we would call normal feelings when something happens that we don't want to have happen in our lives. So sometimes we're using these bigger pathological words for things that are normal life experiences, like a breakup, like uh you lose your job, right? You do you get a you get an F on a test. Those are there's experience there's feelings that go along with that that are not what we would label as trauma.

Speaker 3 32:07

So what is your take when um on generational trauma?

Speaker 32:17

Um

Intergenerational Trauma And Community Healing

Speaker 32:18

I think that generational trauma can happen too um in families and and communities.

Speaker 3 32:26

So both family okay.

Speaker 32:29

So we can have communities that have had trauma in the communities. So we see that, so that's a big piece that um uh we've talked about in Canada about like the residential school effects and how um some like for example in the Yukon, uh a couple of the main residential schools like um Lower Post or the one outside of Car Cross, there was also one in Whitehorse as well. Um, and a lot of um people from Old Crow went to Fort McPherson. So you see a lot of generational trauma because kids were taken away from their parents. Um and then it impacted the community, right? Because the communities were broken because the children were taken, right? But you can also have tra intergenerational trauma within your family, like if you've got parents that have like addictions or alcohol or engage in abuse towards their children, and then they ended up abusing their children, and it can be in a in a family as well, where it can be passed through generations as well. But there are communities that have that impact as well.

Speaker 3 33:34

So when when you're talking about a community traumatic event like that, how how do you heal a whole community? How how does that aspect work?

unknown 33:48

Yeah.

Speaker 3 33:49

Because I know there's there's a lot of the clinkit kids in Hanes that were shipped off to boarding schools as well. You know, and it's not just shipped off, but then they were told to forget their culture, forget their language, forget the foods that they're eating, you know, they're trying to turn them into white kids.

Speaker 2 34:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3 34:05

And then they're coming back with that um here. That was a generation or two before for me, but yeah.

Speaker 34:15

Yeah, feeling that shame, like that the shame when people would um when uh the kids would speak their language, cutting their hair to help them like lose their identity. Um so one of the things like Canada's tried to do is they did something called the truth and reconciliation where they went across Canada and tried to get people to start talking again, like tell their stories. And there was um different modalities that they could tell their stories. Um, so I I worked a few of them across across Canada. One of the first ones I worked was in a Nuvec, um, which was interesting because you had a lot of people from Northern Canada that had never been out of their communities, they'd been isolated. So if you look at like the Yukon First Nations, they were so much more advanced in being able to speak about their trauma because they weren't isolated in these super small communities. So for some of these people coming out of these communities, it was there, it was very overwhelming for them because it was the first time that they could ever tell their story. And they offered different ways to tell the story so that you would so you could tell it individually in a room with a support person. So you there's nobody else listening to you. Then there was like sharing circles where you could go around a circle. Then there was like um being on a stage so you could speak to an audience. So they offered different different ways to, and then they've been doing lots of like trying to do revitalizing, like language revitalization. Um, but of course, sometimes then that comes with its own trauma because it's bringing some families together in different communities that like that don't get along or were ripped apart. Like there's all of these other things that um, yeah, and then I I don't know, I always thought from a justice perspective, I wish that we could see more of like, like let's say you have, you know, somebody that's part of this intergenerational trauma, and then a lot of them end up in the justice system too, right? So, and then when they want to go home to their small communities, I've always wanted to see more of the community working with the justice system to say, okay, so how do we bring him or her home? Like, how do we get them to sit down and say, Okay, this is the hurt to the community, this is how you can repair it. Sometimes we would hear, like, I don't we don't want them back. But then I'm like, whose problem are they? Right? So it'd be great if more things like that were happening where people were sort of working together as a community justice system, then you got like your child apprehension family system that's like you get all these systems that have been involved in the intergenerational trauma piece as well, as well as the police.

Speaker 3 36:57

But then you look at it as you're describing that, trying to bring somebody back into a smaller community. You're trying to bring somebody back in. You've got people that are in the community that have also been traumatized, maybe in the same way or different ways. You have prejudgment of who this person was because they did this or this and they don't want them back. There's it's so multifaceted on levels of healing that it's not just the person that you're trying to bring back that needs to be healed, it's the whole community and trying to figure out how because a lot I'm I'm sure a lot of the people that need the help aren't gonna ask for help. I don't I don't think Canadians are any different than people in the States on that. There's a lot of people there's like, no, I'm fine, I don't need help. Yeah. It's like, yeah, no, you do. Yeah. A lot of us do. Yeah. And and and so that's that's the hard part for me is trying to because I see a lot of this happening on the periphery and try and looking at is how much it hurts our societies, the amount of the amount of time and effort we put in trying to heal people. And how do we get ahead of that? How do we get ahead of that so we lessen the amount of trauma that's because a lot of trauma that's out there is is inflicted intentionally. That people might not think it, but they're doing, they're making a conscious effort to do something that's causing trauma for others. And so it besides just trying to heal the ones that are suffering from that act, how do we reach these people? Who are engaging in the harm? And and and part of that, I let me know if I'm totally off base on this, but a lot of the people that are committing those acts, like you'd mentioned before, probably had that done to them at some point. To try them just trying to figure out where is a spot in that chain that we can figure out a way to break that chain. And yeah. Or is it hopeless? And I'm just wishing.

Speaker 39:01

No, I I think we kind of have to have some hope, or else we might as well just go back to old, old, old, old ways. Or else we're in trouble, right? But you're but you're right. There's a lot of people that are um, yeah, there's a lot of people that are inflicting harm that um this kind of brings in some of the justice pieces too, right? Like where we have a lot of leniency in Canada. Um so there's a lot of people that do things that get out and they continue to keep doing it, right? And and that's a struggle because then the people that are following the rules in society are like, well, what about what about so it's always that balance between like having an of having an offender um their perspective and what's driven them to do it, but it's also about public safety as well, right? So if a lot of Canadians would argue that we're not really good at at airing on public safety, that we're erring a little bit on the side of side of offenders. Um whereas the states is kind of known to be a little bit different than that, depending on what state you live in.

Speaker 3 40:16

And I guess with that is I I think the problem with locking people up is a lot of times they come out in worse shape from when they come out angrier from when they went in, and so looking at possi figuring out a way to reform the criminal justice system so they're not learning new ways to abuse people or to do harm or they're angrier coming out, but use it as a way, yes, you're locked up for the community safety aspect on it, but actually having problem programs and training in there to a different level, yeah, that they're getting some, they're they're getting the help, and and maybe it's a maybe it's a factor that until they want to change, they're not going to, no matter what. And this as a therapist, you might be able to answer that. Is you can talk to somebody for years and until they're like, okay, I want to change, this is what I do. I think the same with substance abuse issues too. Unless the person's not wants to change, they're not gonna do it. Doesn't matter how much help you put in front of them.

Speaker 41:18

That is one of the key things is that if you don't want it to change, you won't change. Yeah, that's where I'm kind of a fan of really good psych assessments. Because I think I think um people that are tr really well trained in forensic forensic assessments can have a really good read on what a person requires, their level of risk. That's what that's what forensic assessments are supposed to be for. They're not always done, but they're um I've done a lot of forensic assessments, and I've had um some really awesome people that have that I've worked alongside or or even just provided collaterals to um doing forensic assessments where I'm I read their assessment after, and I'm like, that is absolutely bang on. That's exactly what needs to happen. So I mean, I I'd like to see more of that because I think there's a good read into like this person's ready to change, not ready to change, this person's like got this kind of diagnosis. You can I hate to say it's a bit mystical thinking, but there are when you've done this for long enough, you can sometimes meet people and go, they're they're um the chances of them changing is is very slim. And then you meet other people and you might see a huge list of offenses that they've done, but there's something about them that um you know uh it could if they had this fork in the road in their life that they could go the other way. And the more you do these jobs, the more you work with these people, the more you get it, and that's the importance of getting mentored, I think, as a and and never thinking that you know everything. Um, because we should never know everything as psychologists because we've never met, we haven't met everybody in the world. So there's always somebody out there to teach us something new, right? Um clients teach should teach us a lot. Um, but I think good forensic assessment is very helpful about this area of work, right?

What A Forensic Assessment Includes

Speaker 3 43:13

What what is the how do you do a forensic assessment? What is what all does it entail for the people that don't know?

Speaker 43:19

Um like me. So it's it's an area of psychology that like focuses on like that focuses on criminal behavior, that's sort of the forensic aspect to it. But usually we do a combination of things like we would um interview the um the offender and we would gain collaterals, so collateral documentation is really important. So that could be things like a criminal record, the circumstances of their um criminal offense, um or past offenses, past psychological assessments, compliance with past orders. So do they uh breach? Are they compliant? What's Their substance use history. So we want to look at like all factors of their of their life, get as much as we can about their um upbringing. They might have people in their life that could be collaterals for us. Because a lot of times, this is making a bit of a blanket statement, but a lot of times lots of people that I've worked with in the justice system aren't the best historians of their life. Because a lot of them have had early trauma. So the more you can kind of get from as as collaterals, the more robust your assessment's going to be. And then you can do some current testing. It could be like personality testing. There's like a variety of what we would call like standardized tools that you could be using. So you want, you want an interview, you want collaterals, you want some testing, and then you sort of put it together, and then you kind of say, This is what I think are the risk factors, or what the person's diagnosis is, and what you think moving forward. So sometimes we do hypothetical situations. So should for example, should this person relapse into drinking? We think that, or should this person you know lose their marriage or relationship? Like what would be some of the things that we might see could happen that would make the increase this person's level of risk or get them to relapse? So those are some of the things that we would include in our forensic assessment.

Speaker 3 45:30

And is that something that assessment, does that go to the judge? Does that go to the jail, the police department, all of the above?

Speaker 45:38

Not the police department. It should go to usually it would go to anybody that's like case managing them in the justice system. So it could be like a probation officer, parole officer. Um, usually it goes to uh depending on the stage of when you do the assessment. And if it's a court-ordered assessment, if it's an ass, it depends on what juncture the um the assessment's being ordered in. So for example, um Whitehorse, for example, has something called a community wellness court. So the person has to plead guilty to their offenses and they're opting into getting an assessment done. Whereas other people might they might get a court-ordered assessment, so they have to attend it. It's not an option for them. So then that would go to like their lawyers and then to the judge, usually.

Speaker 3 46:24

Do you usually have better success with the people that are asking for it on themselves compared to being ordered to have this as far as making breakthroughs or well, usually if it's ordered, it means something more serious has happened. Is that one? Okay.

Speaker 46:38

Yeah. And definitely there's been assessments that have been done while they're in wellness and they've gone on to do more serious offenses. Um or they've managed to be in wellness and then not be in the system at all after. So it depends. But at least even if somebody like reathens, then you have some good information on them so that if that does happen, you can use that as your next risk assessment.

Speaker 3 47:06

So how long does it take to do one of those to put all that together?

Speaker 47:09

Well, I'd say like a solid. I'm trying to think.

Speaker 3 47:16

Okay.

Speaker 47:17

By the time you're pretty thorough. By the time you interview them, read everything, test, score, write. I'd say about 20 hours. But again, it depends on who you're doing, if you're doing a court-ordered one or something, so depending on what somebody wants. But I mean, going back to your other question, it's about about how you stop some of this stuff from happening. Like that's you you kind of want to do some things even before they get into the system. Yeah. Right? So there's all this what we would call like proactive things that we can be doing with people before they even get to the point of being assessed by somebody like me.

Speaker 3 47:56

Right? Well, and that and that's what I'm wondering. Is there because it uh with with a lot of these kids or it a lot of it starts is with kids. It's uh and again, I'm not a professional on this. I think anybody watching this knows I'm not a professional on anything.

Speaker 48:15

But you've lived your life on the five. I've lived my life.

Speaker 3 48:17

I you when you see things, a lot of it bec comes from things that happened in childhood. Yeah, where a lot of our personality, the things that we're we do, it it's because of things that happened when we're kids. Good things and bad things. You know, if if we've got loving, nurturing parents that always make sure you have food, that you know you've got a stable place, you know you're cared for, most people growing up in that lifestyle are gonna are gonna do fairly well, be pretty well adjusted. When you take some of those things out where there's not that stability, where there could be abuse, there could be trauma in the house, I think it leads to a higher degree of them being involved in the criminal justice system later.

Belonging Attachment And Early Brain Wiring

Speaker 49:06

Yeah, so one of the we we talk about universal needs, right? So one of our one of the first universal needs we have is the need to belong. So and so when we're born, we belong to somebody or something. So whether we're apprehended at birth and put into a foster home, then we're we belong to child and family services, or we belong to our family, or we belong. So the belonging is is always the first universal need. But what you belong to dictates the rest of your life cycle, right? So then after belonging, we talk about like the things that we master in life, the things we become independent in, the generosity, like how we get back to our our system, um, like our family system. So, but if we come in and we belong to a family where there's um addictions or abuse or um then that's gonna dictate the rest of what we master in life, what we become independent in. So sometimes, for example, we see people born into um families where um addictions are such, or it could even be they're quite absent. So they're making their own meals when they're three years old, right? Or trying to take care of their younger siblings. So, how are they supposed to really develop independent skills and healthy attachment when the caregiver's absent, right? So attachment is number one of the number one things for belonging, like having healthy attachments, because that's the number one thing that makes us feel secure, right? Feeling secure, it dictates all a lot of our other things in life. So, and that's usually like most of our um brain wiring happens by age six. So that old saying, like kids are resilient, they'll they'll get over it. It's like when I do assessments and I know someone's had really great stability and attachment till age seven, and then maybe something bad happened, maybe somebody lost a parent at that point. I know that they have had six, seven years of really good stable attachments and um connections, they're gonna have a better outcome. If what like in terms of processing their trauma, because they have um they have some good cognitive stability. Their brain is wired around um certainty attachments, um, good cognitive stimulation, all of those types of things, versus like growing up in a home where there's trauma from birth, then that brain develops around trauma versus having a traumatic event interpreted by a healthy brain. So that that first six, seven years of life is like so super important. So if you were to ask me about our best interventions, it's it's in it's in that period of life. So, and if you don't feel like you have any place that you belong, you're gonna go find it. So that's the other thing, right? So this is when we get into people attaching themselves to like drugs and gangs and other groups of belonging, right? That because there's a set of like there's a set of norms, there's a set of people have your back, they um take care of each other, right? That whether that's selling drugs or doing other things to people, like it's still a s a group of belonging. So really that's that that piece about what we first attach to is one of the number one things that's important, and it could even be, you know, you see this in um some people as well, that even if they struggle with their family, when they're parts of like sport event sporting events, like they're part of a team, right? I mean, of course, somebody has to get them to their practices, and then that's oftentimes where things break down. But like let's say they're attached to a hockey team or a soccer team or a swim team or like that team can become a sense of belonging that can help mitigate things that are a struggle with the family, right? So there's all kinds of ways for people to attach to things that you know are the outdoors, right? Like attaching to being able to be in the outdoors and have something in common with people. So having interests is a is another piece of belonging because it allows you to gravitate towards those healthier things versus like running around hurting people, right?

Speaker 3 53:34

So yes, and I I hadn't thought of that attachment part of that. Um but along with that, so if you're saying I I'd never heard the six to seven years was like the key frame for that, but I've I've known people that have had a really rough childhood, and then they're whether they got usually got support at some point later. Is how does that work that if you see somebody that has that trauma in that first six years, is that possible to kind of with the if you get them in the right environment to overcome that and get them into a more productive pathway?

Speaker 54:15

Yes, but it will take way more brain repetitions to change those brain patterns. So when you're okay, so one of my very favorite professionals is Dr. Bruce Perry. So if you ever feel like you want to look him up, he's awesome, very inspirational. He's my he would be my my professional guru. Um so I did a lot of training um in his child trauma academy at one point in my career. Um, so he's got some really interesting research on this, but um your brain fast uh wires the fastest zero to six in utero to six, right? So after that, you can repair brain pathways. Um that so if the wiring is a little off, um it can be changed, but it takes way more repetitions. So you have to work that much harder to repair the the damage that happens in that and but it's not it's not impossible. But if you but rare very rarely do we hear of like a kid getting apprehended at five and then they're put into this perfect home and then everything is smooth sailing after like like so usually they have to try so now we're still we're still repeating brain patterns, right? That that are still struggles for attachment because a lot of people don't understand, for example, that when kids we when when kids kids present to school at age five, right? So if most of your brain wiring happens to uh up until age six, and then you might be in a home where all kinds of things are happening, and then you show up at school at age five. Well, you've already got five years of brain wiring, and somebody goes, Something's not right here. Like this kid needs some help, but we've already got five years of wiring happening, right? And then we have to start investigating what it is. Yeah, and people have rights. You can't just say, We don't like the way you're raising your kid, so we're gonna come in and intervene. Like now you gotta start to, you know, be like trying to figure out what's happening. So sometimes that takes time, right? So you can reverse it.

Speaker 3 56:20

There's also limited ability, there's limited resources. You can't do that with every child that's had that you recognize issues with. There's not enough places for them.

Speaker 56:28

No, and and I think the other thing that people miss is that we, you know, sometimes we even if we say, Oh, that's a really bad home, we're gonna apprehend that kid and we're gonna put them in this home, and we say, you know, we're gonna send you to this home where you're gonna be safe, and and they go to that home and they've never been safe, they feel really weird, right? Like we go, oh look, they're safe, they should feel good. But if it's a feeling that they've never had and and it feels foreign, it's terrorizing for them, and then they resist it. And then people go, Oh my god, that kid's awful. They, you know, they yell, they do this, they try to run away, but it's they don't have a brain pattern for safety. And so they resist that. So that's where you can't give up on those kids, right? You gotta be, but that takes some pretty amazing adults, right? To be patterned, repetitive, consistent, um, to rewire that so that that child actually believes in what they're experiencing. Otherwise, they're gonna toss the world up to make it feel as chaotic as where they came from. Right? Because then they're like, okay, now I feel normal. Yeah, that feels normal. That feels normal, right? So it takes a lot of work and it takes some pretty amazing adults. And then we see a lot of times in these homes that um we put a whole bunch of these kids in with one set of and it doesn't work. It doesn't work. They need more some of that research from Dr. Bruce Perry that is just makes sense and it's good as we talk about how like traditional communities had, you know, for every kid, you had about four or five adults around them. You had like grandma and auntie, and right, and now we're now we have like one adult for like six kids and a daycare. Right? So when we think about attachment, we think about all of those types of things, it's we're we're we're watering down those things that actually breed security, right? So it's a very complicated thing, but that eventually leads to the whole forensic thing later on down the road, yeah.

Speaker 3 58:36

No, that and that's and that's the scary part for me, is that there's that any kind of fix is when you look at it, it's just doesn't seem possible.

Speaker 58:51

Well, you need people to heal people, right? That's that sense of belonging, and it's like people are so busy trying to just make it on their own, right? Like they're so busy trying to like go to work and parent their kids and or not or take care of their dogs or pay their mortgage or whatever or whatever it might be that there's not a lot of time for people to do a whole lot for other people. Right?

Speaker 3 59:17

And it's that type of thing that is gonna help people because we don't see people volunteering like they used to, and I don't think our society is is trending in a way where we help each other. No. I think it's going the the opposite way. So much of it is focusing on what's bad about the other people, not about how we can help them and heal them. And if we if we keep going down that trend, it's gonna get much worse before it gets any better.

Speaker 59:46

Yeah, and I think that's why in the last several years in my practice, um, I've tried to make it a priority that our practice um at Creative Works is we do a lot of focusing on helping the helpers. So trying to make sure that like the mental health of the people that are providing the services to the community is the best it can be. Because when they provide good interventions on someone's worst day, then that's the beginning of something for somebody else. Whether that's the way they were arrested before they went to jail, um, the way somebody knocked on the door and told them that their loved one's not coming home, and they do it with compassion and care. Um, whether that's somebody um following up on something when someone's lost somebody in an accident, like it's I think that's where I've spent a lot of my earlier maybe the first 15 years of my career with victims and offenders, and I've and I've I I'm spending a lot of time now building the capacity with our first responders because they're the ones that are there. To me, like even when someone knocks on your door and does a next to kin, it's that's the beginning of their grief journey, right? So I hate to say it, but if if it's done with compassion and care, it can really help the next chapter for that next person.

Speaker 3 1:01:06

I can see that, yeah.

Speaker 1:01:07

Yeah, so that's kind of uh it's not that we don't do other work in in in other areas, but a big focus for me has been on that in the last five, ten years. Helping the helpers. Um so that they can be there and be the best they can be and the healthiest they can be when they show up for people. Because someone has to take care of them too, right? And that was inspired by my husband being a police officer. Going back around. Going back. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:01:41

So did did you learn a lot in conversations with him, knowing what they're dealing with? And did that help you figure out, okay, this is what we need to do for the first responders?

Speaker 1:01:51

Uh yeah, and then seeing how um people that we started off in the career with, like watching how people have been impacted. So he would have started, it'll be 24 years in November. So just watching like how what's happened to our friends, how they've been impacted, how marriages have been impacted, how the kids of first responders are are impacted. So looking at the whole gamut of like what's that like for people to go to work and see something horrific and then have to drive home and quickly change and go to a Christmas concert.

Speaker 2 1:02:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:28

Like, right? And so, and sometimes they don't give the they're like, well, you know, I we I we haven't served overseas, but I'm like, okay, but when you go overseas for a tour, you're you're actually focused on that tour, right? And you might get absolutely there's intense trauma on any kind of overseas tour. Um, but it's a different kind of trauma for first responders. Like I said, they could be working a motor vehicle like a fatal and then have to come home and drive their kids to soccer. And there's and then they kind of might get criticized for like, how come you're not paying attention? How come you're in a why why why you're in a bad mood? Why are you right? And then there's that piece, right? So we try and work with spouses too to try and understand that part too, because that can be pretty hard to understand when somebody comes home and they're they're off. So that's been a focus for for us. And yes, definitely seeing it on the um the side of a spouse has been an imp an important piece as well, right?

Speaker 3 1:03:35

As you're talking about that, I was just thinking some of my friends and people I know in Haynes that were you know, either EMT and fire or one or the other for 30, 40 years here in Haynes and just thinking back of knowing the different things that they'd responded to and how much of that weight that they were carrying. Because you you'll be at a basketball game or you're at a church or you're at a concert and all of a sudden you hear the plectron and you got a whole bunch of people getting up and leaving. And you know it's like, oh crap, I hope it's nothing bad. But you know, they're watching their kids or whatever, and they get up and they go and they respond and uh wake up at 2 30 in the morning, one o'clock in the morning, you know, the middle of the night. I I just can't imagine I can't imagine doing that for that amount of time. And at the same time, I'm extremely grateful the ones that do it.

Speaker 1:04:34

Yes, and that's why we need to make sure that they're cared for so that they continue to go do that, right? Because it's um and the thing is when in rural areas it's hard to find the expertise of people to talk to about first responder trauma. It's very different. Like it's it's um like you might not have a whole bunch of ex people with that background in a place like Haynes because it's small. So then you get into who supports them. Now, s one of the things, good positive things that came from COVID, I guess, is virtual therapy. But my experiences is a lot of first responders don't love virtual therapy, they like to sit down with somebody and but it's not always it's not always possible when you're in a remote area, but it's more important to have the person with the right expertise. Because sometimes they'll have to share with you some pretty awful things. And that's why sometimes people don't like to see first responders, is because then they're exposed to the details of trauma. And not every th not every therapist that's not what they're they want to do.

Speaker 3 1:05:46

I don't think there's very many people that would ever want to be exposed to that.

Speaker 1:05:51

Yeah, but then the healings and the details. That's why I know that is.

Speaker 3 1:05:55

That's why I'm a pro I just Dealing with the trauma from the slide and Haynes, I can't I've I'm blown away by you being in this business for as long as you have and dealing with that on a daily basis. I'm I'm not built for that. That's definitely not a skill set that maybe it could be developed, but that's not a road that I I want to go down to to I I tend to carry it all in myself and not and uh so yeah, individuals like yourself that are out there helping all these first responders and like, oh my gosh, talk about angels. I have no idea how you do it.

Speaker 1:06:36

Well, but then you had a role too there where you got you had to lead a community after as well, right? It's uh it's not easy.

Speaker 3 1:06:49

Nope.

Speaker 1:06:50

No. So everybody has their role, and that's that's where we hope the a leader can can find the people that can come in and and the do those things that that they're that they're good at, right? Um but it is it is finding those people. We just had uh we just had one of our um uh we haven't had very many school shootings in Canada.

Speaker 3 1:07:16

You just had one though.

Speaker 1:07:17

We just had one.

Speaker 3 1:07:18

And I heard you were there, well not at the shooting, but you were providing support.

Speaker 1:07:23

Yeah, after. So we don't we don't see that a lot in in Canada, right? So that's a another example of a very small remote community being um devastated by um there's so I guess there's no one place, right, where things things are gonna happen. Um and then it's like who are the resources for those people? Um because um there's a lot of first responders impacted by that, and an entire community of kids and teachers, and so um when I went down to the vigil, um the the vigil um for the community, the mayor was definitely leading, right? Um with some amazing words, and uh our prime minister and the opposition all kind of came out together, which I thought was pretty good on the same plane. Um I was impressed by that.

Speaker 3 1:08:25

Um so but but they were so Canadians come together in times of crisis, just like we do. Yeah, it's one of those you can fight all the time, and then you got okay, let's let's help together.

Speaker 1:08:36

But you you see the burden on um on a a leadership in a in a community like like the mayor, like the position you were put in as well, too, right? Where you're like, so what do we do, right? Because that's definitely not part of being part of your training, right, as a community leader is what do I do now with this?

Speaker 3 1:08:56

I had no clue.

Speaker 1:08:57

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:09:00

And that's where you try and find folks that and we we we did have some amazing resources in Haynes that showed up and people come came from Juno to help out the school and then the community. There's a ton of resources that came and and helped us. Um and I kind of I kind of joke that the two things that I learned most in my three years was uh dealing with trauma and geology. Two things I'd never thought I would be any part of being mayor, but yeah, after after that I I learned a lot on both of those subjects.

unknown 1:09:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:09:38

So how do you so you're going to this they just had this terrible event. You've got all these kids that are traumatized, you got the first responders, you got this whole community. How do you try and reach them a couple? Because one of the things that was frustrating for me is I knew there was people in Haynes that needed help, that weren't gonna get help, and trying to come up with activities that would be therapeutic or things that were helpful, but that it wasn't necessarily therapy because a lot of people have a negative conduct. I don't need therapy, I don't need to go see a counselor, I don't need help with that. Are there any tricks of the trade on that, on things that uh a community leadership can do to to help the whole community heal after events like that?

Speaker 1:10:31

Um, I but I think you you hit the nail on the head there, right, by just um creating things that bring people out because I I th and bring them together, even if you're not like we're having a therapeutic experience. Um it can be burgers and hot dogs. But the therapeutic experience is being together. So especially when you've had a community event, um traumatic event, um, you're you've all had loss, right? Loss and so grief and loss, um it's it's better experience together. It's not good in isolation, right? What do we see in isolation? We'll see things like increase in substance use, we'll see increase in domestic violence when when they're not necessarily in this case, but um we'll see um yeah, potential like suicide. Like we want to bring people out. So when you when you create things that people can come to, like that vigil that happened in Tumblr Ridge after the the school shooting was like very, very powerful, right? And they they even made sure that it was the community of Tumblr Ridge that was um within a certain area, and then anybody that was sort of visiting the area sort of had an area outside of there because they really wanted to keep their um their their core community because they knew there was a lot of like press and other people coming, so um, I was impressed even even by that, right? Um but having events that come out so that people don't have to grieve alone or experience the loss, and even if they didn't know like the people that were in the slide, it was still like a very significant event, like it's gonna have a ripple effect, right? So, and not knowing how to talk about it.

Speaker 3 1:12:13

Well, I looked at it as that I think it was made worse because it was in co during COVID that you'd had since March till December, whatever, you had nine months of uncertainty, economic uncertainty, health uncertainty, there's just so much uncertainty worldwide, and Haynes was no exception because so many touch points were gone. You know, you're gathering as a community, you know, you're not supposed to get together with your friends, you're not supposed to can't go to a basketball game together, you can't, all these, you can't go to church, you gotta be, and then it was six feet apart. And so there's all these were things that were keeping people out of your normal daily life, your connection with the people, and then you have an event like that, and that's still part of it. And and it wasn't just on Beach Road, there's slides all over the place, and there's damage all over the place. And so I think that uncertainty, and now you've just got another event that just added more uncertainty on top to it, plus the the tr the trauma of losing two community members, losing some houses, people losing parts of their property, and and I I think that made it worse.

Speaker 1:13:20

Yeah, true. Because the loss, it wasn't just it wasn't just loss of people.

Speaker 3 1:13:25

It wasn't just loss of people that loss of property, loss of lost, yeah, and just loss of a a sense of safety.

Speaker 1:13:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:13:32

That I mean the trees, there's there's just like 200-year-old trees in this area. You look uh people go through, it's like I can't believe that's where and then they start looking around their neighborhoods. Man, my neighborhood looks really similar to that.

Speaker 1:13:45

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:13:46

And so then every time you get a heavy rain, they're just gonna they start looking around the trees up above their house. And start getting scared. You look at Haynes here, yeah, there's a lot of steep mountainsides. Yes. And then and then was it a year later they had the slide in the Wrangle. They're a few years before that, they had a slide in Sitka, and we've had a slide in Ketch Can. You've got these other places, Tracy Arm last year, they had a big slide there. Yeah, and so there's I think there's still a can a considerable amount of unease for a lot of people when we get a heavy rain that this makes us still feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 1:14:23

Yeah, I I think since that's happened. I mean, we were in Whitehorse and feeling that for you guys, and then well, and we have a place here and going, is our place okay? Like what's thank God we know our neighbor, right? It was over checking, and like that's when having neighbors is very helpful, um as well, right? Um uncertainty though, and and that is is a is a is a really important word because I think that's that's a piece that um has come a lot since COVID. And then you're right, when you have natural disaster you have no control over those. None. Not really. Yeah, yeah. And that's where that would have been an extra challenge then. How do you how do you bring people together, right? But then also as a community leader, I think what's challenging too when you've had trauma is like identifying all the people that need to be attended to. Right?

Speaker 3 1:15:19

I think that's one of the things when I've I think we had a pretty good idea, but not all of them wanted to be attended to.

Speaker 1:15:27

Yeah. Yeah, and that's where that's that's and that's where setting culture is is important, but you don't you can't get the culture. So for example, when I think about working with police forces, it's like like in the Yukon, we for about 17 years I've worked with some of the first responders there, so it's like constantly coming to the table, okay guys, we gotta, we gotta talk, we gotta like creating that culture, but they have so much exposure to trauma that you can create the culture. You can be like, hey, this we're talking, we're talking, we're talking. Unfortunately, the more you have trauma, the more opportunities you have to set the culture on how to respond. But when you're it doesn't happen very often, you can't set a culture of like, okay, so and then it's hard to get those people that are resistant. Or feel as though they're not affected, not maybe understanding that you don't always feel it right away. You can feel it years later. Like it's not it's it's not an exact science.

Speaker 3 1:16:37

And so it one of the ways that I've thought about this is a lot of people look at it as um you know going to therapy is showing a weakness or something. Which I I don't know if this is a good analogy or not, but when you're when you're doing things in life, you always have mentors and coaches that are helping you refine what you're doing. And I think going through difficult events is going through traumatic situations, if you have the right coaching and mentors, you come out stronger on the other side. Yeah. Because you're learning you learn more about yourself, you learn more about what you can handle and ways to handle it. But like if you're learning to play basketball and you have a really good coach and they work on the fundamentals and the the conditioning and stuff, you can you can see that gradual improvement. And I everything in life is similar to that, and dealing with trauma or whatever obstacles you face in life, then if you have the right support system around you, whether that's therapist, family, that friend group that's uplifting and supporting and encouraging, you can come out of these situations much stronger than you were before.

Speaker 1:17:59

Yeah, absolutely. And and like I think with your first responders here, like I don't know what you guys have for resources here, but if I was working in this community and there was this person who works directly with first responders, or that's an area of expertise, I'd be in the fire department and and the police station and with the paramedics long before anything ever happened. I'd be meeting them, talking to them about trauma, giving them some psychoeducation, like here's what happens when you're stressed in a traumatic situation, here's how we sort traumatic incidents in our mind, way before, so that you become a familiar face. And then when something happens, you're the familiar face that shows up. You're not you're not a stranger that just gets dropped in and then goes away again. Like that's the ultimate scenario, right? Is that you would already have an established relationship before something bad happens.

Speaker 3 1:18:59

I don't know if they had this the the relationship before anything bad happened, but as soon as immediately we had three people over at the public safety building that they were dealing with, all the first responders, all the volunteers, they're coming in to the EOC, doing checkups with us, giving us training information about what we're going through, what the community's going through. And so during the event, I thought we were we had great resources over there that were guiding us through that. I don't know how soon before that or how much interaction they have off of that.

Speaker 1:19:34

Yeah, I mean, and and this is the thing about a rural area though, is that if you don't have the resources, you don't you can't proactively build these relationships because usually they're coming in from somewhere.

Speaker 3 1:19:45

Well, and and some and and sometimes they're here for a couple years and then they leave, or they're here for six years and then they leave. And so building up that long-term, like you said, you've got two and a half decades of doing this. You've mainly been in the Yukon, you've been you've been able to build some really deep relationships with there, but if you're only in a community for five years and then somebody else comes in for four years, it's when it's hard to build that trust and yeah with within the people that you want to help.

Speaker 1:20:15

Yeah, it is, and I um I've been working part-time in BC and going back and forth between the Yukon and British Columbia now for five years, because our youngest has been doing sports down in British Columbia, and I go back and forth, and there's tons of work in BC to do, but I feel like um I feel like the Yukon is small enough and I've spent enough time with some of the first responders in um the Yukon that I I always say, well, those are those are my people. Like those are the the ones like that. So I don't want to um be just in one place because I not that I'm the only person in the Yukon that can provide those services, but um, I've definitely invested a lot of time into it. It's important to me because it is our communion, they're the ones that are so you do need your dedicated people, but it they're they're not they're not easy to find. So like um, so for example, when Tumblr Ridge happened, the the school shooting, one of the uh um there's a a counselor there in in northern BC and she works a lot with um the uh the RC and P and it was fabulous having her because she's got the relationship. And so she showed up. She got in her car and drove and she just showed up and was there. And that's amazing. That was an amazing, amazing resource to have because they already knew her. So that was positive. But it's definitely hard. And but after um all was said and done, though, there's not a lot of resources in northern BC for a lot of those first responders for long-term help. Yeah, there's not a not a lot.

Speaker 3 1:22:02

That's usually when you have an incident and you have a lot of resources flow in and then they flow out pretty quickly afterwards, and trying to do the the repair afterwards. It's it's harder to have that support.

Speaker 1:22:17

Yeah. And that's one of the challenges with the rural areas. And then you guys, yeah. So it's the piece about not having the resources, about knowing people involved in the incidents, there being a huge ripple effect, um, and um, and then having like triggers in your community after, right? Driving by somewhere where things happened, seeing somebody that's related to somebody or somebody that was part of an incident, all those things are hard.

Speaker 3 1:22:48

How do you build are are you working on building a larger team to help with this, or is there a a certain capacity that you know this is this is the best we can do? I'm not going any further.

Speaker 1:23:01

I think at this point I'm not going any further. I did build um a bigger team, and then um things happened, right? Like people moved on in their lives, like had kids, got married, did different things, um, and then as a business owner, as everybody else moves on, then you end up with all that work. So um so I decided not to do that anymore because I I covered a lot of um big caseloads and people on leave and and um so that tired me out. So now I think um I'm just going to even though I would love to have a bigger team and I would love to work with people to build with them doing more more trauma. I um I don't want to it's hard when people move on and then you get left with all the work because that's what happens, as you know, when you're a business owner, you get left with everything and then you end up um getting tired. And so I don't want to be tired. I want to be like fresh and keep doing this, right?

Burnout Signs Worth Noticing Early

Speaker 3 1:24:10

So so so talking about that aspect of it, what people that are listening to this, what are some what are some signs that they should be looking for in themselves that they're getting burnt out, they're threatened, that they need to they're like, uh maybe I should go see somebody to talk about some of this or people who've experienced trauma? People that have experienced trauma or just people that for whatever reason that you think they should talk to talk to a counselor?

Speaker 1:24:43

Um well I think I think we all have a breaking point. Um, but I think we also all have like lots of earlier signs when we're not doing well, and I would always encourage somebody to go when you still have enough room inside you to do some work, as opposed to like when you're completely flat out. Um, so oftentimes uh so we might look at sleep disruption. Sleep disruption would be one. Um depending on what your issue is, um, isolation or withdrawal, any kind of increase in um substance use, um like feeling less control over your emotions, whether that's like feeling really angry all the time and feeling unable to sort of being able to like titrate that anger or feeling um really um anxious or um depressed. Like if you feel like there's things happening that you are like that doesn't that doesn't seem like a a proportionate response to situations. Let's say you get way angrier than you should, or way sadder than you should, or you're very anxious about things that you never used to get anxious about, um, then that's a sign to go, just a minute, like I I probably what's going on? You can think about like maybe what's changed in your life if something um has happened or changed, or um maybe you have maybe you have had a traumatic event happen. When you notice some of these symptoms, usually our sleep eating and energy are three of the biggest things. Um, oh, and um so and brain fog is another one that can come when you just feel like you can't keep your thoughts straight. Um, but really look for those changes in yourself um and and say, am I acting in a way that's reasonable to situations? Am I um are people making comments to me about like, hey, we haven't seen you out, or I don't think a lot of people tell people that they're drinking more than they should, but maybe they should be telling people that sometimes. Um but if you see any increase in substance use, that's often a time that people are trying to also dull some of their emotions or or cope. Those would be some of the some of the things that um I would suggest that people go and talk to somebody about it. Or any big loss and change in your life is good to get some support, kids leaving home, um, change of career, um, retirement, like uh the other one that retirement, Sam. The other one that people don't pay attention to is having less interest in things that they used to enjoy. That's also a piece to to watch for. It's like, why, you know, when I go on the on a hunt or a hike or something, I'm just not feeling it. So um that's one that people often miss, but it's it tells us a lot. Because then we're not we're just not getting the joy that we need. And that's actually joy feeds into motivation, right? So that's another one to look for if you want to go talk to somebody and shop. Around. Like find somebody that fits for you. And that's the other thing I I encourage people to do is um when you're sort of flat out, you sort of pick the first first first person that you meet, and they might not be a fit for you. It's got to be a fit. And that's okay. Therapists should have big shoulders if you say, hey, like this isn't kind of working for me, and keep looking. We're we're we're supposed to say it's fine even if we're a little sad.

Speaker 3 1:28:29

This might be a uh a question that's not appropriate, and if it is, we Sam can cut it out. But

Reset Habits Walks And No Phones

Speaker 3 1:28:35

do you do you have a therapist that you see to help you, or do you rely on your own training to get through stuff?

Speaker 1:28:41

Um I rely on Haynes Alaska.

Speaker 3 1:28:43

Haynes Alaska is your therapy session.

Speaker 1:28:45

This is my therapy.

Speaker 3 1:28:47

Yeah. No, it is for a lot of people.

Speaker 1:28:51

Yeah. Oh yeah. So so to me, Haynes is like my complete reset. I sleep, I turn my turn my phone off. Um, I feel like when you're in the water with your waders on, uh-huh, and you're just like you're just it's rhythmic, right? When you're casting and you're looking at the eagles, the only thing that's a bit nerve-wracking is the bears. But um it's okay, a little bit of shear's alright. Um that um that's a big therapy for me, and I walk every day for an hour after work.

Speaker 3 1:29:26

Okay. Unless is that that that's a exercise is a good thing for mental health.

Speaker 1:29:33

Exercise is one of the uh far before I try would try medications. I always encourage people to walking and running. There's um something called bilateral stimulation. Anything that's left, right, left, right, left, right is very calming for your system. Um, so my walking every night is a a big piece of like where I process so I can take it all in, and then no phone is allowed on the walk.

Speaker 3 1:30:01

It's just do you listen do you listen to music or anything like that? It's just quiet.

Speaker 1:30:06

Quiet. Um, but Kurt's allowed to come with me, and uh we can have conversation. That's fine. Okay. We we talk um or the kids come, but I try not to have any more input.

Speaker 3 1:30:21

Okay.

Speaker 1:30:22

Stop the input.

Speaker 3 1:30:24

Just so on my walks to and from work, I should turn off the podcast and turn off the music and just listen to nature. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Speaker 1:30:31

It's amazing. You might you might start like I actually crave it now, like what at in the evening, just kind of just I look forward to it. I'm like, I just very rarely, once in a while, I'm like, I do not want to have anything to do with my own thoughts right now. So that's but that maybe happens to me once every three months, and then I'll listen to a podcast when I'm like, I just don't even hear myself talk. Um but other than that, it's just we have so much input with phones and everything, and you're busy, like you got people talking to you all day. It's just a time to like let your brain we don't spend enough time just like on our with ourselves, letting our brain just whatever goes.

Speaker 3 1:31:13

It's scary to just be by ourselves.

Speaker 1:31:15

And that's exactly why you should do it then. Right? And then before you know it, before you're too scared, you're out the shop, and then everything will take over from there, right? So that it's just like letting a little air out of the tires, the walk there and back.

Speaker 3 1:31:31

I'll I'll I'll try I'll try it without my headphones for a while and see how that goes.

Speaker 1:31:35

But it is uh that you're not alone, that a lot of people are scared to stop at stop, stop. Stop the if you you stand in an airport, watch as soon as somebody's a tiny bit uncomfortable, phone, phone, phone, phone. We're very uncomfortable just being right.

Speaker 3 1:31:54

Well, I just my my mind goes in so many different directions that it sometimes is just exhausting. And if I'm listening to somebody else or I'm listening to music, my mind will still go in a but it'll go like in 50 directions instead of a hundred directions. And then so it seems calmer for me to be having music or to listening to something, trying to pay attention to something rather than just being left in my own thoughts, because sometimes they go in crazy directions and it doesn't seem like it's helpful.

Speaker 1:32:26

Well, and then sometimes you'll you'll notice that if if um if your sleep is not good, then um it's then it's your brain probably needs time to run its course during the day. Because then it's as soon as you shut your eyes and you stop the input at night, then it gets unleashed. So if you unleash it during the day.

Speaker 3 1:32:47

Well, that's why I can't sleep during the night because my a lot of times it'll it'll start that, oh, I need to do this at the store tomorrow. And the next thing you know, I'm like 500 degrees separate, and it's talking about I'm thinking about something that happened 30 years ago, and I, you know, just all over the place.

Speaker 1:33:06

It'd be interesting to see if you if you walked and didn't and just let your brain run its course during that time if you're starting to sleep better.

Speaker 3 1:33:14

I'm gonna do a study here that I'm gonna stop walking.

Speaker 1:33:16

Well, I'm back here in like through two or three weeks. Two or three weeks.

Speaker 3 1:33:19

You can check in and you can check in and see if I'm sleeping better. Yeah. I'm gonna no, I'll I'll try that and take out the earbuds and see if I sleep.

Speaker 1:33:28

Well, if you think about it, how often do we not have something going in our brain? Yeah, it's just music, phone, uh, mm memes, reels. You've got people constantly at you all day. You're a popular guy here, right? Well, I don't know if it's popular.

Speaker 3 1:33:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1:33:49

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:33:51

Okay. I'll try that. I'll report back when you come back to the fight. Sounds come back for the fairs. I'll have a report for you. We'll see if I make it that long before I get crazy and listen to my own thoughts.

Speaker 1:34:03

It helps. It I I think it helps. Um, yeah. Because it's gotta do our brain has to do our some work at some point.

Speaker 3 1:34:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1:34:13

Like that's but we're so we've got so many way ways of uh people inputting their ideas into our own heads through all the all the things that we're seeing on our phones. Like I I not to sound old, but I do get concerned about about phones and how much they're yeah.

Speaker 3 1:34:31

So it's it scares me the number of times I'm I'm I'm one of those people at the at the airport that I'm just standing there and I usually have a book with me, so if I'm waiting, I'll read the book. But then as soon as it's people start getting up to board or whatever, the number of times I I just what's my seat? What's my seat? I know my seat's 15A or whatever it is, but it's like I'll check like 20 times from when I stand up before I get to the front.

Speaker 1:34:59

Yeah. So there's a good book.

Speaker 3 1:35:03

I did that with the paper copy too, when I just had the paper thing. I'd always check to make sure I had I was at the right flight.

Speaker 1:35:09

I still ask for a paper copy because I'm anxious my phone will go will die. But there's a there's a good book out there.

Speaker 3 1:35:15

I have I had my phone die once on me in the Seattle airport, and I didn't have a I didn't have the paper, and it took me like three years to get over that fear. Now now I just I haven't had my phone die since then. But luckily, I was traveling with my sister to a trade show, and I think she had the boarding pass on her phone and was able to get me on the plane. But uh yeah, I was freaking out because my phone was would not.

Speaker 1:35:39

So now it's not an unreasonable fear because it's happened. It's happened, yeah. That's the problem when things actually. There's a good book out there though. Um, and

The Anxious Generation And Constant Input

Speaker 1:35:49

I I have I'm almost finished reading, it's called The Anxious Generation, and it talks about and the huge impact is is the phone. Like, even when you think about uh asking a kid, you know, what do you want to do for a living, it's so much more complicated than when we were growing up, right? Like we there was a few things to choose from, but now it's like there's so much input, they can't make a choice on what they want to do, right? It's very overwhelming, right?

Speaker 3 1:36:15

So I can't I can't even imagine being 12 years old and having a a f one of these phones with all the stuff that all the different apps, the games and everything. I yeah, I I can't even imagine what it would be like. And and often I'm fifty-seven years, fifty-six years old and I struggle with it now.

Speaker 1:36:37

Oh yeah, but let alone growing up with it.

Speaker 3 1:36:39

And now I was a lot more impulsive at twelve than I am now.

Speaker 1:36:41

I would and you know how to spend your time doing other things because you grew up without that.

Speaker 3 1:36:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1:36:47

Like so you actually have brain patterns on how to fill your time. Yep. Right? Mm-hmm. So that's the other thing a lot of these guys don't have now. They're not learning how to fill their time. Right?

Speaker 3 1:37:00

So Yeah, filling our time is what you come down to Haynes for. We're out hiking in the woods, we were skiing in the wintertime, riding our bikes, going, going out, taking our bikes, going fishing, all that stuff.

Speaker 1:37:10

Well, and we've had a debate about whether or not to bring Starlink out to our house. And so we haven't because like the last two nights we've been up playing board games and trivia and sit by the campfire with the boys, right? Uh-huh. And playing uh cornhole and whatever. So we're gonna bring Starlink out. Yeah, we just it it's it's so it's old school, and then we all chat and eat breakfast and have coffee on the deck, and it's just and you feel better. So then I'm like, well, there's something to this then, right?

Speaker 2 1:37:41

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:37:41

If we all feel better when we're all off our phones. And we're and we're connected, right?

Speaker 3 1:37:47

I think the thing that got me on it is I'm once I leave the store, I'm by myself. I'm at my house by myself, and that can get a little scary without having music playing or even a TV show in the background to just go home and spend three or four hours in silence before I go to bed. That's not a comfortable feeling.

Speaker 1:38:13

I don't know what there is to do here in the evening in Haynes. I've been to the Fawk Cutter, but that's what I don't know what else.

Speaker 3 1:38:22

I I uh I I invite people to the back of the sports shop and talk to them for a couple hours and share with share with everybody else. So that's one of the things I've come up with.

Speaker 1:38:31

There you go. There you go. Well, thank you so much for having me here.

Speaker 3 1:38:35

So what what what have we missed? What part what part of your story or what part of trauma and helping people should we do we still have to share with people? What what else do you got?

Speaker 1:38:44

I I don't know.

Speaker 3 1:38:45

There's you don't have we hit it all?

Speaker 1:38:48

I think we've I hit it all.

Speaker 3 1:38:49

I mean there's we can we can have you back for another episode later.

Speaker 1:38:53

There's so many stories that could be told too, right? But it's um but that's kind of I guess the general bet about like career-wise and stuff like that. There. Yeah, I think so. I'm sure there's something I've missed, but it's been 25 years, so it's kind of hard to capture 25 years in a couple hours. Yeah, and and of course I'm I'm I'm also a bit careful about how much detail I share because I I'm aware that my tolerance for talking about things is different than a general audience.

Speaker 3 1:39:28

Like No, the m the the main reason I wanted to have you on here is I think the more people hear discussions about trauma, treating trauma, hopefully there's people out there that will look at that and it's like some of the things that you talked about. And I was like, oh, maybe I should maybe I should go see somebody. Or when they s when we see people that are exhibiting some of the things you're talking about, hopefully we treat them with um a kinder, gentler take than just dismissing them for whatever reason we might that there's a lot of reasons that go into why people do the things they do, and I think if we have better understanding of that and then hopefully we will treat them in a kinder, more sh gentle way rather than just ostracizing or judging them.

Speaker 1:40:22

Yeah,

Rebuilding Community And Closing Thoughts

Speaker 1:40:23

and I I think an important message is that like you know, when bad things happen to you or a person, um, we are really like not meant to go through things alone. That's actually not how our traditional communities were built, like ever. So we always had people, but now we live in our homes and we gotta go find the people. Like it's but we're actually not biologically wired to like suffer on our own. Right? Like really, yeah, because we're built around communities. Communities. Okay. So even if you weren't of a well-functioning person, you'd someone would find you a job. Right? Because that's how the communities were. Maybe you'd carry the basket while someone was gathering berries, but that's still a job, right? There's a job for everybody, but you would ha be in a community or if you didn't have if you had challenges, the group makes up for it. If you had strengths, the group benefits from it. But we're so isolated now that we have to go find these things. And but that's not actually how we're wired. So how do we get back to that? Well, that's where that's where some of what you talked about about being able to come back out to and have gatherings together, being able to be social together, like being com community. Right? But we're it's not gonna be the same as it was. Right?

Speaker 3 1:41:55

Well, we're not yeah, I don't think anybody wants to go back to living in caves together.

Speaker 1:41:59

Or no, but maybe it wasn't so bad. I don't know.

Speaker 3 1:42:02

It might not have been so bad. Well there could have been there, yeah.

Speaker 1:42:07

But we had that generational like support built in, right?

Speaker 3 1:42:10

But that's but also like you were talking about too, because it used to be you know the the nuclear family where mom was home, or you had the grandparents in the same community, you had aunts, uncles in the same community, and then we started spreading out quite a bit more, and and I think one of the things that I've I've just amazed and really appreciative is that when my sister had her kids, they all grew up coming to the store.

Speaker 1:42:35

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:42:35

And now Tyler's daughter's at the store, Dylan's son is at the store. Um, and we yeah, they they come here and like Stella's got her dad, her grandma, her great-grandmother, her uncle, and a great uncle that are all there that are with her every day.

Speaker 1:42:52

So you probably have one of the more traditional families.

Speaker 3 1:42:55

All of us are spending time with her. Yeah, and and Henry's got his his uncle, his great uncle, his grandma, his great grandma, and his uncle-in-law. I mean, he's got five people there too that, and then a bunch of our people at the store are all and customers are all doting on him and saying hi and talking to them, and and yeah, and just having it it was really nice watching Sarah's kids grow up in the store. And then when Tyler asked if when he had his daughters, like, if I bring my daughter, it's all right, if I bring my daughters to work, all of us were thrilled. We're like, you enjoyed that when your kids like, oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:43:33

That's so cool. So you have probably one of the more traditional families that, right?

Speaker 3 1:43:38

I don't know if it's traditional or not. Some people think we're crazy, but they're like, how do you get how do you how do you get any work done when you're here?

Speaker 1:43:44

You stick together though, right? Like you support each other. Like that's that's kind of what that's kind of what it's about. I I get that feeling in general though, personally, when we're in Haynes. Like today, Kurt had the um lawnmower fella, like we was in the ditch and stuff, and a couple guys that have been in our house doing some contract work and stuff like that. They pull over and they're like, hey, and then get out, and everybody helps out navigate. And I was like, oh, like it just I'm like, hey, like it just a nice neighborly feeling, right?

Speaker 3 1:44:16

There there is um there's a lot of people that like to relish in the conflict we have in Haynes. Because on a lot of political items, there can be significant conflict. But I I think there is a lot more of what you just described that when you see somebody that's struggling with something, there's a lot of people that'll stop and help them out.

Speaker 1:44:41

And you don't see and you don't see that all you don't see that everywhere anymore. No. So it's still to me a special a special part of when I go down south.

Speaker 3 1:44:50

I was talking to somebody about this the other day. When I go down south, because I'm in that, I'm in the habit of holding doors. You know, if I if I'm if I'm walking towards a door and I see I know somebody's coming behind me, I'll stop and hold the door for them. Doesn't matter, man or woman, just kids, whatever, just hold the door. There's places if it's not an automatic door down south, people look at you funny. They're like, what are you doing? I'm like, just holding the door.

Speaker 1:45:14

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:45:16

It's kind of what you're you're it's kind of what my parents trained me to do.

Speaker 1:45:19

Uh don't stop doing that.

Speaker 3 1:45:21

Well, I don't I don't plan on it, but it is it is one of those things that and and it happens a lot in Haynes where there's people that help others out and they're not looking for anything in return. They're just doing it because they think it's the right thing.

Speaker 1:45:34

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:45:34

And I think there's a lot more of that than the the sometimes angry discourse that we have. There's plenty of that, but it's a lot more of the kindness.

Speaker 1:45:43

Well, we feel that when we come here, right? Like part of our plan when we retire is to be able to spend our summers out here is because we like the way it feels out here.

Speaker 3 1:45:54

Well, and and you guys, when you came down last year, there was you had friends and people in Whitehorse that are like, why are you going to the United States? It's not safe.

Speaker 1:46:05

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:46:06

And you're like, it's Haynes.

Speaker 1:46:09

I said, they're the clo Yeah, they're they're like, they're I said they're they grocery shop in Whitehorse. Like they're they're they're gonna be nice to us. Right. I'm like, this is fine. Yeah, it which to us it's an extension of home.

Speaker 3 1:46:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1:46:25

Right? Yeah, so we we couldn't compute that, but well that's and that's one of the things that growing up in the store, like your family, I know three generations of your family.

Speaker 3 1:46:39

There's other families that is four generations that I've known. Yeah that when I was a little kid and you know, great they had grandpa and then you had uh dad and then son and a great grand. I mean, just you see the the three, four generations of families coming down here from the Yukon, and it's just really cool to see that the next generation coming in and continuing that relationship. It's fun.

Speaker 1:47:05

Well, and I tell all the new police officers that move into town, I'm like, you gotta go to Haynes. Because they they usually come from another part of Canada. I'm like, have you been to Haynes yet? Haynes a lot, not Haynes Junction.

Speaker 3 1:47:14

Yeah, Haynes. Keep going, keep going.

Speaker 1:47:16

Yeah, and then I'm like, okay, so I try and get them all. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:47:19

Is that part of your therapy thing? It's like the best therapy you can get is come down, spend September. You're probably telling them though to come down on the weekends when you're not, you want to make sure you get more fish. You're probably sending them on the off weekends when there's not a lot of soccer, aren't you? Well would you do that, Nicole? No.

Speaker 1:47:36

No, of course not. But it's uh I'm I'm I I believe that therapy, like a therapy session is the beginning of a lot of other things. So I'm like, when when when we have officers move up to um the Yukon, I'm I'm like, what do you like to do? Right? So, and if they can love the outdoors and they can go fishing and they can do all the things and enjoy being up in the north, they're gonna be happier, healthier people. So I'm like, you see me every once in a while, but then you have to live it. Right? And I'm a big believer in like taking your days off. Not that I'm always good at that. Um, but um what do you like to do? Or what this is what we have to offer up north, right? So go fishing, go down and do some hikes down in Haynes, go in and then people will stay here and then they'll like it more. So I'm a big advocate for people to come down here.

Speaker 2 1:48:39

Very recommended.

Speaker 1:48:40

I think I might say stop in at the Alaska Sports Shop and see how it's gonna be.

Speaker 3 1:48:46

Have you as the Yukon ambassador for Haynes.

Speaker 1:48:50

No, it's good though. It's it's good.

Speaker 3 1:48:52

Get you some sports shop swag so you can just make sure you stop at this place.

Speaker 1:48:56

But I I feel like this is a little vacation away from Whitehorse. Yeah, it is. Like I actually feel like I'm on a little I'm on a little vacation. And we used to have a cabin out at Annie Lake, and that used to be I remember when we first bought a cabin out there, um, I thought that was gonna be Kurt's mental health when he was working as a police officer there. Um, and then I was like, the more I the more I progressed in my career, the more I was like, oh, I think this is actually for me too. And then Haynes for sure is the place that we come to regenerate. So thanks to this community for offering that to us because we love it. And then this is gives me a vision of retirement too, is being could being out here.

Speaker 3 1:49:37

It'd be fun to have you guys down here more often.

Speaker 1:49:39

Yeah, be nice. Yeah. And I love this show that you guys are doing now.

Speaker 3 1:49:46

Thank you.

Speaker 1:49:47

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 1:49:48

No, thanks for joining us. All right. We have fresh crab out there out at home, so uh Well shoot, if we would have known that, we would have filmed this out at the cabin and eaten crab the whole time. No.

Speaker 1:50:00

Thanks for um recording all this. Hopefully we hit everything that you wanted to hit. I if if you're happy with it, I'm happy with it. No, I appreciate the time.