“I am not on anywhere near the career path I thought I was going to be,” reflects Vanessa Brousseau who grew up in Timmins, Ontario and moved up to Attawapiskat when she was in her early 20s. Later, she ended up back in Timmins, then Ottawa, North Bay, Niagara Falls, and now she’s back in North Bay, a place she feels will be her forever home.

After high school, Brousseau took the native counsellor program and ended up pregnant in her second year. She graduated with her young son in her arms. For a decade, she was a social worker at a treatment center in Attawapiskat, then she worked for the Indigenous Child and Family Services in Timmins until her sister went missing. She went back to school for Office Administration, graduating with honours. “The tools that I've learned along the way actually still helped me today, in advocating, in creating content, in public speaking, and all these different things. I'm really grateful for the path I ended up having,” Brousseau shares.

She did a lot of therapy for her missing sister and then had to do something for her healing. Elders gave her scrap seal skin when she was living in Ottawa and she started making earrings. She wanted to create more awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous people so she started making little red dresses out of seal skin. They became popular and she started a map showing where she sold red dress seal skin pins or earrings to show how much awareness one person can make and to encourage others to use their voices.  

Métis artist Jamie Black started the Red Dress Project in 2010 and Brousseau’s sister had been missing for seven years by then. Brousseau was grateful and connected to the project. “It was something to honor our loved ones and remember our loved ones in a good way, in a beautiful way. I grasped onto it right away, and that became a healing point for me, and it was able to make me feel like I'm actually doing something for my sister,”she recalls.

Her advice for students leaving home to pursue their education would be to create a community of support for themselves, from people at the friendship centre, teachers, Indigenous workers at school, people to build a trusting relationship with. “I think that's so important, because a lot of times it takes too long for us to report that somebody is missing, and it's because we tend to forget to check in with people and make sure they know where you are so people are aware if you happen not to be seen for a little bit, then at least they know what area to look for you in,” she affirms. Even now, Brousseau checks in about her whereabouts to keep herself safe.

When it comes to overcoming barriers, Brousseau says, “I am on the land person. I am always on the land. And I think that's why I love North Bay so much. There's some very beautiful lands around this area and beautiful water. That's what I always go back to is ensuring, and this is what I want people to understand too, is don't wait till you need self care. Every day….Don't wait. Just do it. It's like medicine. So do something that makes your heart happy. I go for walks, I touch the trees, I put my feet in the water. I really connect with the land, and that's my way of grounding myself and being in the here and now. I think that's something that's really important, is to make sure you're taking care of yourself, before it's an out of control kind of thing.”

If she could share a message with her younger self it would be, “Believe in yourself. You could do anything, literally anything. You're just as good as anybody else, if not better. And you have to see that, because if you don't believe in yourself, nobody else is going to believe in you. That's the way it works.” Without anyone to encourage her, she didn’t hear that message. Brousseau believes that if she had, she could have healed sooner.

To balance her mental health, beyond on the land therapy, Brousseau believes in talking to somebody to get things out. Crafting, staying busy with her hands, playing instruments and connecting with culture through hunting, dance or drumming. “You have to make sure you maintain your balance, otherwise you're not going to feel good,” she counsels.

“Music is so healing and sometimes we don't realize how healing it could be.”

When it comes to inspiration, Brousseau looks to the Indigenous community on social media or people she meets at an event or in community. “It's not just one person. We all have a part. We all contribute in a way, and we all have that certain gift that we're going to bring the world…Keep your heart open to all people,” she urges.

In closing she shared two stories, one of a wet feather she found on a day she was feeling overwhelmed by lateral violence, racism and bullying but she felt a message in her heart to keep going and keep speaking. Her second story was of her husband’s encounter with a raven who put a painted rock in his mouth and sang. The rock said, “You’re amazing.”  

She didn’t end up on the career path she thought she was going to be on but she’s been making a difference. From social work to red dress awareness, Vanessa Brousseau has made life better for people who have been struggling. Her life shifted when her sister went missing and things have never been the same.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.