The Sixties Scoop took away his culture. Now he's reclaiming it through storytelling

When social workers would visit DavidSmith's community, his sister would take him into the woods.

As a toddler,Smith asked if they were playing hide and seek. She told him they were.

Then, one day, they lost.

"It was pretty high stakes to lose that game because both me and my brother were taken away," Smith said. "We both had the same thing happen to uswe were both adopted away and lost everything."

Smith and his brother were taken from the Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation as part of the Sixties Scoop, a period in Canadian historyfrom 1961 to the 1980s, when Indigenous children were taken from their families and adopted by mainly settler Canadians.

Smith said relatively speaking, he got lucky.

"I had a good family. I love my family. They are still my family. Just now I have two families."

Since the start of the year, Smith has been reconnecting with his culture through First Nations Storytellers, a company he and his business partner Gail Bremnerlaunched this summer that provides tours about Indigenous history in Saint John and surrounding areas in New Brunswick.

"I decided, as a way for me to get my culture back, I would do this and dedicate all my time and my energy to learning my culture, my language, learning my family history and sharing as much as I can with people," Smith said. "So that they can get a better understanding of who we are."

WATCH | David Smith shares history of the Wolastoq and Mi'kmaq peoples from an Indigenous perspective:

A Sixties Scoop survivor is reclaiming his culture by teaching others

2 years ago

Duration 3:35

Forty-four years ago, David Smith was taken from his home in Metepenagiag Mikmaq Nation. Now, hes reclaiming his culture by sharing Saint Johns Indigenous history.

For Smith in particular, he thinks truth and reconciliation should be about supporting Indigenous communities, through infrastructure and attitudes.

"I just want to see a world where not all rivers flow away from the community," he said.

"Not all paths lead away from the community. Not every government policy or every social norm steers me away from the community."

Losing a culture, searching for connection

Despite loving his adopted family, Smith said his life away from Metepenagiag was isolating.

"I lived in a community where I'm the only one of my kind Which, children, they're not very forgiving. And mind you, it wasn't just the children either."

But Smith still looked for his culture anywhere he could.

"Secretly I was in the woods, looking at plants, or saving animals and looking for any connection: movies, videos, books, anything that I could find that would connect me," he said.

"But still trying to hide it to the point where even I met my biological mother once. And I never had the guts to walk up to her and say hello."

When Smith was around 16, he was at a gymnasium for a martial arts tournament and spotted a group of Indigenous parents and children. Whenever he would see other Indigenous people,Smith said, his young eyes would naturally gravitate towardthem searching for something to help him understand where he's from.

His eyes were transfixed on a particular woman he saw.

"It was almost like when you stare at somebody in a crowd that you don't know why you're staring at them," he said.

He imagined she might be his mother, but he could notbring himselfto go and speak with the group.

"I guess at one time, I didn't want to be that, I wanted to just be ordinary, which I've done up until recently."

He would never have the chance to speak to his mother, who died when he was 19. At her funeral, he learned who she was and realized she had been in the gym that day.

"I had dreamt for years about that moment when I would walk up and say hi to her. And justit never happened."

Decades later, it would befamily that set him on his new path.

Smith has a 16-year-old daughter and he wanted her to know that he was trying to do something important.

In January, he quit his job and began on his journey of discovery.

"Hopefully, she takes on the journey herself eventually, if not today, sometime in the future, because I don't want the line of my culture to end with me."

A journey anyone can join

One thing Smith wants to make clear is that he doesn't know everything there is to know about Indigenous history and culture.

"I am not the end-all, be-all of anything, I'm just a guy learning and I want to share my journey."

He's also trying to fill a gap in Saint John's tourism offerings, which was something his business partner Bremner pointed out before they founded the company.

One of the company's tours takes visitors on a walk through time next to the Wolastoq or St. John River. On it, Smith describes the rich history of the area that existed before the arrival of Samuel de Champlain.

During the company's first summer, Smith said he's talked to groups of 100 and groups of two.

"I'll talk to anyone who's willing to listen who has open ears."