'Total disbelief': Okanese's Connie Walker wins Pulitzer Prize, Peabody award for personal podcast project

Yorkton, Sask. -

Growing up in File Hills, Connie Walker never believed an achievement such as a Pulitzer Prize was achievable.

On Monday, that all changed.

Walker was awarded the prestigious honour – one of the highest recognitions a journalist can reach — thanks to her work with Gimlet Media. Walker created and hosted her second podcast with Gimlet, detailing her father’s time in a residential school.

“Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s” is an eight episode journey, which focuses in on St. Michael’s Residential School, its effects on survivors, and Walker’s own personal connection through her dad, Howard Cameron.

Never did Walker think, however, the work would end in a Pulitzer Prize.

“Really, honestly, it feels unbelievable. Actually, I think that for the first couple of days, I've just been like, walking around in total disbelief and feeling like, ‘Is this really happening?’ ‘Is this actually true?’ It's starting to like sink in a little bit,” she told CTV News on Wednesday.

“It's just incredible.”

The Pulitzer Prize wasn’t the only major accolade Walker received this week. She also took home a Peabody award.

The deeply personal project began with Walker’s brother, Hal Cameron, telling her a story about her father, who was then an RCMP officer, stopping his former residential school priest during a routine checkstop.

“He told my brother this story and he told the story of how he beat up this priest that night on the side of the road, and that he expected for there to be some consequence for him, to get in trouble. But nothing ever happened and it just became this story in our family,” Walker said.

From that idea, the project snowballed. She visited old relatives, did tons of research on the school and church itself, and spoke with those closest to her late father.

She said it was a difficult process and a difficult story to take on, for many reasons.

“I think for the most part, though, like the conversations with my family, even as difficult as they were, I remember, you know, always feeling as I was leaving, lighter and feeling so good to get to know this, about not just their experiences, which they were so generous and brave to share with me about their experiences at St. Michael's, but also, just the trust that they were placed in any to share those stories,” Walker explained, before opening up about the research portion of the project.

She said they spent so much time in the archives in Alberta, where the Oblates kept their records of St. Michael’s.

“The school is open for over 100 years, and most of that time, it was run by the Oblates,” she said. “Just going through all of the documentation that they had, was necessary and compelling, honestly.”

For Walker, this project grew into a life of its own. But looking back, following the accolades, Walker is grateful for those who shared their experiences.

“In sharing those stories, they trusted us to help amplify their voices, and we hope that this recognition means that more people will hear their voices and learn from their experiences and learn the truth about what they went through at St. Michael's. And that is the ultimate goal and the best reward I think that we can get,” she said.

Walker added that she hopes these wins show how integral it is to share Indigenous stories, and how important those voices are.

“There was a belief that our stories didn't matter or that Canadians didn't care. And, you know, it was really difficult as a young journalist navigating through that racism essentially, in newsrooms and in journalism,” she said.

“This was such a personal story about me and my dad and this one single residential school, but this story could be told about every single residential school across the country. And there are stories in every single First Nations or, you know, Inuit, Metis community across the country that deserve to be told and not just because they're good stories, but because they help tell us the truth about Canada. And the truth about the shared history from an Indigenous perspective, which has been sorely lacking in all media.”

The podcast is available at any time, free on Spotify.