Photo credit : Crystina Pelletier<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the pioneer of \u201cInuindie\u201d music, Deer is an Inuit role model who tells traditional stories from her community and shares her personal stories as an advocate for mental health. Her latest album, Shifting<\/em>, reflects on the continuous changes in her life, the human desire to survive, and the nature of love.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: Can you tell us what it means for you to sing in an \u201cInuindie\u201d style?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>It\u2019s natural for me to write lyrics in Inuktitut because it\u2019s my mother tongue. It\u2019s the language I grew up with and I still speak it today, even if I live in the city. As for the indie style, it\u2019s just a genre I like. It also comes naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: What do you like about the indie genre?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>I just like the way it sounds. No deeper explanation than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: How would you say singing in Inuktitut compares to singing in English or French?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>Because it\u2019s my mother tongue, I have more confidence in what I\u2019m saying. The meanings feel like they\u2019re deeper to me. With English or French, which are my second languages, I still trust what I\u2019m saying but it\u2019s not the same level of trust with the vocabulary, definitions, and sentiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: I know that a lot of your repertoire renders traditional Inuit stories. What kinds of stories do you enjoy exploring?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>There are so many Inuit legends that I\u2019ve heard, and the ones that I interpret are the ones that touched or shocked me. Inuit legends and myths are pretty dark and there are a lot of them. Fox, for example, I first heard when I was in grade one from my aunty, who was my teacher. It mesmerized me when I heard it \u2013 I remembered being awed by this fox turning into a woman. When I became an adult and I was trying to write songs I remembered the story and understood it better. My song Fox <\/em>was actually written by Johnny Griffin, a Montreal singer-songwriter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: What about that story awed you? And what do you understand better about it now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>From what I remember when I was only six years old, I thought it was pretty magical that a fox could transform into a woman. She stayed with this hunter and did housewife things like preparing food, cleaning, and sewing. As an adult, knowing the full story better, it has a dark ending where the hunter kills the fox because she ran away from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: What appeals to you about the darkness and the legends of the myths?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>It\u2019s not something that I\u2019m attracted to, it\u2019s just the aspect of storytelling as an Inuk because storytelling was such a big part of our culture. That\u2019s what I want to keep doing and preserving, not necessarily the dark ending of the legend. Singing is just my way of continuing storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: You\u2019re very open at your concerts and speaking engagements about having overcome a lot of obstacles in your life and musical career. Can you tell us about some of what you\u2019ve overcome?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>I\u2019m sober since July 2011. I used to have an alcohol dependency and I made a choice to quit drinking completely. I wasn\u2019t a big drug user but I also decided that I didn\u2019t want to do that either. As with many Indigenous and Inuit people, there\u2019s a lot of loss in our family through suicide and tragic deaths. That\u2019s part of intergenerational trauma that we\u2019ve lived through stemming from colonization. It\u2019s still something we experience to this day: we have a high rate of suicide among our people<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: How do you address that in your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>I don\u2019t specifically say it in my lyrics, but I talk a lot about the hardships that I\u2019ve experienced and lived. I talk about how I\u2019ve had suicidal thoughts before, and how I felt hopeless. In the songs, I write about hope and finding my path, my calling, my purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAN M 360: That\u2019s kind of reflected in your latest album, <\/strong>Shifting<\/em><\/strong>, which is a lot about \u201cthe process of becoming in life.\u201d You say specifically in the abstract that you\u2019re in a period of shifting from one period to another. How do you see your life and path shifting now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice Deer: <\/strong>I see life as always changing. It shouldn\u2019t be stagnant because we\u2019re supposed to be evolving into our true, authentic selves. If we\u2019re not then there\u2019s a problem, so I\u2019m always in the pursuit of trying to understand myself better. If I\u2019m in a place mentally, emotionally, and physically that I don\u2019t want to be in, I always try to question that \u2013 I ask why it\u2019s like that and how I can move from there to where I want to be. If it\u2019s emotional I seek advice from therapists and people I trust. If it\u2019s physical ailments then I talk to my doctor and look for ways to feel better. I always try to stay proactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n