The offset Indigenous person to be elected to the Cariboo Chilcotin School Board, Phyllis Chelsea has received the Social club of Canada, the Guild of British Columbia and an honorary degree from U.B.C. for her work. She has been instrumental in revitalizing Shuswap linguistic communication and culture inside schools, and co-authored Learning Shuswap, Books 1-2 (1980).

Along with her husband Chief Andy Chelsea, Phyllis Chelsea led a movement during the 1970s to abstain from alcohol and drugs within the Brine Lake Indian Ring, now known every bit the Esketemc, a nation of approximately 600 Secwepemc (Shuswap) people south of Williams Lake. At one time the Brine Band had an alcoholism rate estimated as high as 100 percent. The social devastation acquired primarily past substance abuse was such that others referred to the community as Booze Lake. Liquor stores and taxis in Williams Lake benefited from the widespread chronic addiction; there were regular deliveries three times per week on the so-chosen "Dog Creek Stage," and bootlegging was rampant.

Phyllis Chelsea was the first to abjure, followed by her husband iv days later, in June of 1972. They were responding to their seven-twelvemonth-sometime girl Ivy who told them, "I don't desire to live with yous anymore." The Chelsea family was encouraged past Alcoholics Bearding counselor Ed Lynch, an Oblate Brother. Andy Chelsea was elected as band chief soon after he quit drinking. He instituted a variety of reforms, some of which were very unpopular, in order to achieve an avoidance rate of more than than 90 per centum by 1979. Liquor sales on the reserve were banned, the RCMP used marked bills to entrap local bootleggers (including the mothers of Andy and Phyllis Chelsea), chronic drinkers received vouchers for Williams Lake stores instead of welfare money, an alcoholic priest was encouraged to leave the reserve and perpetrators of alcohol-related crimes were given the option between jail and undergoing handling.

Ivy Chelsea, later on as a single mother of five, gained employment equally a Secwepemc instructor and a facilitator and trainer for Letwilc Trainings. Sometimes accompanied past her female parent, Ivy Chelsea has traveled extensively to Ancient communities, sharing the story of her people's progress. Andy and Phyllis Chelsea made similar trips for years, recalling their experiences across Northward America and Australia. Their inspirational story of attempting to "dry out" the Alkali Lake Ring has been recorded in a documentary film, "Award of All: The Story of Alkali Lake," released in 1986.

[Blackboard photo by Vickie Jensen]

BOOKS:

Chelsea, Phyllis & Vickie Jensen & Jay Powell & Celina Harry. Learning Shuswap, Books 1-2 (Alkali Lake Band, 1980).

Mintz Parks, Caroline, with Andy and Phyllis Chelsea. Resolve: The Chelsea Story and a Beginning Nation Customs'due south Volition to Heal. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Printing, 2019. 240 pages. 9781987915884 (pbk) $24.95

[Alan Twigg / BCBW 2019]

[caption id="attachment_22594" align="alignleft" width="800"] Phyllis and Andy Chelsea[/caption]

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REVIEW

By Sage Birchwater

Andy Chelsea was principal of Esk'etemc First Nation at Alkali Lake when I arrived in the Cariboo Chilcotin in 1973. The year before, he and his married woman Phyllis launched a sobriety movement that would eventually transform their whole community and send reverberations around the world.

Merely the struggle to turn a customs soused in alcohol into a salubrious, productive identify was monumental. When I met the Chelseas they were the only adults in Esk'et not imbibing. In fact the nickname for Alkali Lake at that time was Booze Lake, and Andy and Phyllis wanted very much to change that paradigm.

I was a back-to-the-lander seeking a simpler way of life when I met Andy. I told him how much I envied his growing upward in a log motel, and expressed my aspirations to do the same. He surprised me with his response. "I want what yous had growing up," he said. "A modernistic house with civilities like electricity and running water."

Then there we were two ships passing in the dark, each heading in opposite directions. Well not completely. We were both committed to social modify and making a difference outside the box. So on that level we stayed connected and maintained a lifelong friendship.

Final leap Carolyn Parks-Mintz published a book near the Chelseas and their efforts to build a improve life for themselves and transform their community.

Resolve: The Story of the Chelsea Family and a Outset Nation Community's Volition to Heal (Caitlin Press 2019), begins Phyllis and Andy's early on life before booze was a problem. It describes their idyllic childhood living "up the meadow" with grandparents or in remote cowboy camps beyond Gang Ranch where they rode horses every mean solar day for fun.

It besides describes the harsh transition when the children from Esk'et were herded into cattle trucks and sent to Saint Joseph's Mission residential school and were forced to live apart from the nurturing and love of their families ten months of the yr.

Parks-Mintz doesn't spare any punches describing Phyllis and Andy'due south personal accounts of the traumatic physical and sexual corruption they suffered at that place. The event was deep emotional and psychological wounding that would accept a lifetime to heal.

Phyllis and Andy got to know each other at Saint Joseph'due south though there were strict rules keeping the boys and girls apart. They were both shy and recognized a kindred spirit in i another. After leaving the mission they somewhen became close and were married in 1964. Phyllis was 21 and Andy, 22.

Alcohol became a big factor in their lives, simply every bit it was with most adults in Esk'et. Andy was a difficult worker and a good provider, employed during the week at Linde Brothers Sawmill at Springhouse. The Chelseas enjoyed a rich family life with the nativity of 3 children in their starting time seven years of marriage.

Weekends however were different. Their social life included binge drinking with friends and family and that's when things often got ugly.

Parks-Mintz attributes the negativity triggered by the booze to the undercurrent of trauma suffered at residential school and the historical impacts of colonial and systemic racism.

"When booze was involved, things got crude," Phyllis states. "A different side of people would come out, and mostly information technology wasn't good."

The Chelseas' three kids, Ivy, Dean and Robert, usually spent the weekends with one of their grandmothers while Phyllis and Andy partied. Then subsequently one raucous weekend in 1972, 7-twelvemonth-old Ivy told her mother she no longer wanted to alive with them because they drank too much.

Phyllis took her daughter's remonstrations to heart. She reflected how she was passing on the hurt and neglect she had inherited from her residential school feel onto her children.

That's when Phyllis saw the urgency to make radical changes in her life. She promised Ivy if she came habitation she would quit drinking for good, and she immediately poured all the booze in the house down the kitchen sink. "I never took another drinkable again," she says.

A calendar week later, Andy followed suit, and that's how it all began.

Information technology was a lonely existence trying to reverse a social pattern so deeply ingrained in the community. Just Andy and Phyllis were determined. At first they were the only adults in Esk'et to give up drinking. Even the resident Catholic priest was a boozer, a bootlegger and a philanderer.

The Chelseas got support from Oblate Blood brother Ed Lynch in Williams Lake, who had wrestled with his own alcoholism and was now reaching out to help others. Gradually, one by one, other Esk'etemc members joined the Chelseas in their bid for sobriety.

Resolve is a story of personal triumph and achievement and community empowerment equally more and more Esk'etemc people swore off the canteen. In less than 10 years they went from 100 per cent alcohol users to more xc per cent sober.

Over the years new strong leadership emerged in Esk'et inspired in large function by the Chelseas. Quite naturally in that location have been ups and downs equally each generation comes to terms with its own challenges.

In 2019 Esket continues to exist an exemplary community with wellness and pride at the forefront. Every yr the annual Esket AA Roundup is attended by people from around the world.

Sobriety was just the kickoff step on the long route to recovery. Information technology made time and space for the community to address deeper problems like indigenous rights, reconciliation and justice for Get-go Peoples in Canada. Parks-Mintz includes the comments and narrative of other indigenous leaders on these subjects.

Andy Chelsea passed away while this book was in progress just he left bodacious his story would be told.

[caption id="attachment_22590" marshal="alignleft" width="800"] Chelsea family unit at volume launch.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_22593" marshal="alignleft" width="800"] Phyllis Chelsea getting her caste at UBC.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_22592" align="alignleft" width="800"] Phyllis and Andy Chelsea.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_22589" align="alignleft" width="640"] Phyllis Chelsea and Carolyn Parks-Mintz at Williams Lake book launch.[/explanation]

[BCBW 2020]