There’s been a song in Laurie Shaw-Greyeyes’ heart for a long time. As a little girl growing up with her kookum (grandmother in Cree) on the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6, Laurie was deeply connected to her culture and the land her family had lived on for hundreds of years.
Laurie’s mom and siblings attended residential school, so her kookum didn’t have the chance to raise her own children. Raising Laurie and her siblings was a gift she treasured.
Laurie Shaw-Greyeyes wrote a song to honour her mother, a residential school survivor.
Laurie, a senior cybersecurity project manager on Suncor’s Cyber Security and Privacy team, recalls her kookum’s words, “Always remember who you are, your people and where you’re from. Always be humble. When you get older, you will do something amazing for our people.” Those words stayed with Laurie, who constantly questioned what she was supposed to do. Until it came to her in a song.
Laurie’s mother, Eve Shaw-Greyeyes, who is 90, frequently talked about getting back to who she was before she attended St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, which operated from 1884 to 1996. She was just six years old when she started attending the school and 16 when she left.
To honour her mother and other family members who attended residential school, Laurie took the words in her heart and put them to paper, writing the lyrics for the Path Back to Who We Were.
“The song aims to support healing by guiding our children back to their roots and preserving our heritage for generations to come,” says Laurie. “It emphasizes the concept of Wahkohtowin, which means we are all related, highlighting the interconnectedness of all beings as per Cree Natural Law.”
The music for Path Back to Who We Were was composed by Laurie’s partner, Leigh Friesen, an Edmonton-based music artist and songwriter.
“When I shared the lyrics with Leigh, he asked me ‘How do you hear it?’,” explains Laurie. “I shared an acoustic riff that I liked with him, and in one week he wrote the music for the song. When I heard it for the first time, I was blown away.”
From there, Laurie and Leigh began the search for a singer.
“Because the song is about reconciliation, I wanted to find an Indigenous singer. It took me four tries to find someone who would work with Leigh because he’s not Indigenous,” says Laurie. “Reconciliation is about Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working together to get on the path to healing.”
Those failed attempts led Laurie to Michelle Joly, a Métis singer who had been looking to work on a meaningful project like Laurie’s.
In July 2024, Michelle and Leigh recorded the Path Back to Who We Were and filmed the music video for the song earlier this month on the very lands Laurie heard her kookum’s words as a little girl. The home she was raised in is gone, but the spirits of her ancestors are still on Muskeg Lake.
Singer Michelle Joly and guitarist Leigh Friesen at Muskeg Lake Cree Nation for the filming of the Path Back to Who We Were music video.
“I can still hear my kookum’s words, and now I know what I was meant to do,” says Laurie. “I’m very hopeful that this song can help heal people, get us all on the path to reconciliation together—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous—and make a difference.”
The song and video, which features Elders, drummers, dancers and children from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation and the beautiful landscape of the community, will be released on September 30.