Thread by @mishiikenhkwe

Isaac Murdoch & Christi Belcourt’s “culture camp” by the way

https://twitter.com/mishiikenhkwe/status/1854708596304433216

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It sounded awesome. I really believed in what he was talking about. He gifted me a banner, gave me a hug and I knew that I wanted to help in any way I could. I wanted to go there and help, but I was still a student, so I started donating artwork to their online auctions.

I was broke at the time. I really did not have the money to be giving my art away - again, I did that because I believed in what they were doing.
Isaac & Christi both noticed my work and commissioned paintings off of me, in 2017 I think, so I was 20. I was so flattered

That these “famous artists” wanted to support my artwork. Thinking back now, I think they bought my artwork because they wanted me to continue donating to their auctions. I had no idea people wanted to pay that much money for my art before then. It felt good.

I’d been donating to their auctions and supporting them online for over a year before I finally made it to their camp for the first time, in the spring of 2018. I didn’t have a drivers licence so had to pay someone to bring me there.

I stayed for a week for my first time there. I met a couple with two children who were kind enough to help me with rides to & from town for showers and food. We all helped clean up around the camp. There were only a few people there that week. And then I left.

I ended up going back a few weeks later, there were much more people there this time because there was a ceremony happening. I met the core group of people at the camp at that time. I tried my best to be helpful, I helped set up, I helped cook, I helped clean up after.

They noticed I was helpful and a hard worker, and acknowledged it. They told me I was welcome any time and told me they had a medicine camp planned. I told them I didn’t drive, so Christi told me it was fine, people drive by my rez all the time and someone could pick me up.

So I went home for a few days and I contacted the guy Christi wanted me to get a ride with. My rez is a three hour drive from their camp. This guy talked shit about his baby mom the entire time. I felt like I couldn’t get away from him, but I depended on people with vehicles

to help me with rides to town for showers and food. I mostly stayed quiet. Later that night that guy sexually assaulted me. I tried to get away from him after an uncomfortable walk, and he followed me back to my tent.

I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want anyone to think badly of me. I didn’t go there to meet guys. I went there for culture and language. I found out months later this guy bragged about having sex with me to an “elder” and the workers who were building Christi’s house

I thought if I just stay quiet and don’t bother anyone they’ll all just leave me alone and I can focus on learning, that’s what I’m here for. No one else can hurt me if I keep to myself.

I stayed for a bit longer, but eventually went home for a little bit after that. I was really starting to miss my family. I told my aunt all about this camp, and for the first time she said “that sounds like a cult.” I couldn’t believe she would say that about something I cared

so deeply about. I was so hurt that my aunt didn’t support me. My dad and my grandma shared similar feelings, they said that doesn’t sound right, why don’t you come home and stay here. I was considering it.

Christi called me some time in August 2018 to tell me that a man was caught in a locked cabin with a sixteen year old, and he was asked to leave. It was the same man who assaulted me.

I felt so fucking sick that I didn’t say something when it happened to me. I still didn’t say anything on that phone call. I hung up and got physically sick. I should have said something.

When I returned to camp, I told Christi that my aunt said that Nimkii sounded like a cult. She laughed and said that’s ridiculous. You don’t need people like that in your life. So I stopped talking to my family. In my mind they didn’t support me.

I stuck around camp for awhile after that. Most of the time, there were very few people around camp, I remember often times it was just me, another language learner, and an elder. Christi and Isaac were hardly around that first year.

Actually hardly anyone was ever around unless there was something going on, like a ceremony, an arts workshop, or if camera crews were around. Especially for cameras, that’s when everyone would show up.

It was some time in September when one of the workers told me the man who assaulted me bragged to him and an elder - he also told me that elder was constantly making inappropriate comments towards women at camp. It was at that time that I left. I mostly couch surfed that winter.

I ended up meeting a guy. We were drinking a lot that winter. I confided in him & he didn’t really know what to say but kinda told me I shouldn’t go back. I thought I wasn’t going to go back, but I got sick of the drinking. Christi called me & invited me back that December

So I sobered up and I went back to camp - where their camp employees were still offering me alcohol. I felt like I couldn’t get away from it.

I was trying hard to stay sober though. I started keeping to myself again. I would just work really hard all day and then sleep at night. I thought to myself if this is what I’ve got to do to learn the language I’ll do it. I’d do anything.

I’m going to add more to this shortly, my second year there is what really fucked me up.

There’s definitely some things I missed about year 1. I’m just not sure if they’re my stories to share.

There’s more stories from the first year but I’m not sure they’re important overall. Maybe another day I can get into those. I guess an important bit is that Isaac told me at one point that I could live at their camp, and that they would help me fundraise like I helped them.

There was this time I was doing a full moon ceremony for myself and invited a few of the people who were close to me to help. I did that a few times. But one time, some random white girl wanted to join in. I found there was an issue there with tourism, like white people coming to

Observe I guess? I hated having to clean up after them, and cater to their needs. One time christi warned us before a white visitor arrived to be nice. “He has money” she said. So we were always extra nice to white people & native celebrities, anyone who “has money”

I didn’t know this girl so I said no. The next day Isaac’s niece told me she had a dream her ancestors told her that what I did was wrong. Both Isaac and Christi tried to shame me for excluding this stranger. Mind you I normally just do those for myself, I don’t conduct ceremony

for others, I do cedar baths and full moons for myself as I was taught. It was something personal for my friends and me.
Anyway, the next day Christi approached me and told me that she thought I could fundraise and pay to build my own home.
At that point in my life I was living

In a tent and was too busy helping them with their camp to make art to sell for myself. The only time I made art was for their auctions, when Isaac would ask me to.

It definitely felt like I was being punished for not performing ceremony for this white visitor, and I felt really weird and uncomfortable about it. That was the first time I realized that I was not allowed to have my own opinions or make my own decisions, I was supposed to do

What I was told - that included cleaning the cook shack before and after every meal, paying workers from the camp account, doing speaking events to promote the camp, delegating tasks at camp, promoting the auctions on social media

I don’t know how they expected me to be able to make money to pay for my own home. I had talked to Christi before about how I was looking for an apartment in Elliott Lake and she told me “just live here.”

I talked to Isaac about how I was thinking about going to school, getting a driver’s licence - he told me I didn’t need to go to school, and never to get a licence. So I put away my plans to go to school, to get a licence, to find an apartment. My plan was to put everything I had

into helping them with this space that I really believed in.

I was 21 at this time, early 2019. I’d been told not to go to school, not to get a job, not to get an apartment, not to get a licence, not to bother with my family by people I really looked up to.

Not long after that incident, I got my second ever mural job in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Rihkee asked for my help painting those snakes on the side of Soo blaster.

When I was there one day while I was working my friend who I met at this cult tried to call me. She didn’t answer when I called back so I didn’t think much of it. I hadn’t seen her ever since she was asked to leave the camp for being a distraction - she had some obvious

trauma and mental health issues she was working through. She would sometimes call me to talk about things. She was my friend, I really loved her.
Christi called me that night to say she had taken her life after trying to call me

That broke me. I started drinking again that night

Isaac didn’t even go to her funeral. She used to call him uncle. He told me it was too sad. That bothered me so much. My friend was never too much & I wish I’d have left with her and I wish we got an apartment together like we planned to

I really think her being asked to leave that place really hurt her more than they knew, or more than they cared to know

I wish I picked up the phone and got to hear what she had to say. I’m going to take another break

The last time I tried to talk about this back in 2019 was different. I wanted revenge, to hurt them like I was hurt. I know they don’t give a fuck. I just want to talk about what happened to me now.

I think I’m done 4 the day this made me depressed lol. please ask me questions if you have any, I know this isn’t very well written

I do have more to say - I want to talk about how I decided to leave, and then what happened when I left. Some of you might remember Christi publicly talking shit about me on X while I was pregnant and homeless in Thunder Bay in the fall/winter of 2019

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