Welcome to this episode of The Wild Golf Podcast.  Our guest today is Steve Tooshkenig, an indigenous Canadian from Bkejwanong (also known as Walpole Island First Nation) in Southern Ontario.  Steve is a golf professional and former touring pro who now travels across North America sharing his voice and inspiring others to “walk in a good way.”  Golf was and continues to be Steve’s medicine.  It has been said that “Steve is a spiritual person living a human experience” and that spirituality comes through in his words and the story that he shares.  To add context to this interview, I spoke to Steve on June 23, two days after June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada.  Just a few weeks before the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves at a residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia.  A day after the interview, it was announced that the remains of 751 children were found at another residential school in Saskatchewan.  The now defunct Catholic residential school system was run by the Canadian government and church groups from the 1800’s until the mid-1990’s and was intended to separate and assimilate indigenous children.   This is just the tip of the iceberg as almost 100 residential schools were operated in Canada during this period.   Earlier this month the federal government acknowledged that this was indigenous genocide (which it clearly is within the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention), yet notwithstanding the promises made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016 to implement all 94 Calls to Action recommended by the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission, only a handful of those Calls to Action have been implemented so far.  This is indeed Canada’s George Floyd moment.  For the indigenous community it is a time for healing and it is a time for all Canadians and the rest of the World to stand with indigenous Canadians which as a minimum must start with implementing all 94 Calls to Action.  We hope you enjoy this episode with Steve and “focus on the fairway” with him.  Here are recent articles on residential schools in Canada:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/24/canada-hundreds-more-unmarked-graves-found-at-former-indigenous-school. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/the-guardian-view-on-canadas-residential-schools-an-atrocity-still-felt-today Here is a link to the 94 Calls to Action recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:  http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf.  Here is a link to an article in ScoreGolf magazine, a Canadian national magazine, that profiles Steve along with Jesse Smith and Steve Styres (both Mohawk of the Six Nations):  https://scoregolf.com/feature/a-nation-of-golfers/  For more information and the inspirational work that he does go to:  https://www.stephentooshkenig.com.  For twitter and Instagram go to:  @stgolfinc and @stgolf.  Steve Tooshkenig on Facebook and LinkedIn. If you like this episode, please tell your friends and leave a review.  Please also follow us on Instagram and Twitter. http://instagram.com/wild_golf_podcast https://twitter.com/wildgolfpodcast