Archery | 2023

‘The story doesn’t end with me’: Mi’kmaw archer passes down traditions

By: Gabrielle McLeod and Fawzi Ibrahim

Inside The Barn archery range, located just outside the Mi’kmaw community of Membertou, Unama’ki (Cape Breton), Clifford Paul prepares to shoot an arrow from his wooden, metallic-textured bow. He closes one eye to focus, pulls back the string to the corner of his mouth and lets go. His arrow hits one of the animal targets set up at the far end of the room.

“For me, the flight of the arrow is a spiritual extension of who I am and who my ancestors were,” says Paul, a Mi’kmaw archer and archery coach. “It's still who we are today.”

Clifford Paul shares the significance of archery to his life, his community and his culture.

Paul says archery is like an art; full of creativity and hard to suppress.

“If there's ever a time where I cannot shoot that bow, I'll find a way. That's how much I'm drawn to it. That's how much it means to me,” he says. “There's nothing more exciting than this sound of a flying arrow.”

Clifford Paul teaches his four-year-old grandson Ryker Johnson how to use a bow and arrow. Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Clifford Paul

Paul first picked up a bow when he was a young child. His older brother taught him how to make his own bow out of sticks and fishing line with arrows made using cattails.

Paul’s own children and grandchildren have taken up the sport. He says it’s important to pass on the teachings to honour the legacy of their ancestors.

“I have to teach them how to make those bows that I made when I was a kid so that they can carry that narrative,” Paul says. “The story doesn't end with me.”

Bryden Johnson-Julian, from Membertou First Nation, has taken up the sport and often joins his grandfather Clifford Paul at the archery range. Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Clifford Paul

At the indoor archery range, Paul jokes around with his grandson Bryden Johnson-Julian and Addison Marshall, one of the athletes he coaches. He says these practices are about more than archery – it’s about spending time with family and friends and developing life skills.

Marshall, 15, took up archery when she was five. She joined Team Mi'kmaw NS in January and says the sport offers her a way to let out her emotions.

“If I'm mad, or if I just need to calm down, I just go outside and shoot my bow,” she says.

Addison Marshall, 15, from Membertou will represent Team Nova Scotia in archery to be held in Millbrook First Nation, July 17 to 22.

Marshall will compete in the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG), which will be held from July 15 to 23. Over 5,000 athletes, coaches, and staff from over 756 nations across North America will come to Nova Scotia to compete across 16 sports.

As archery coach, Paul says NAIG is a great opportunity.

“Archery is bringing us there. But that's only part of the big picture,” he says. “These games are bringing so many kids together. It is not all competition".

Paul says it’s a chance for young athletes to make lifelong friends and honour the legacy of the Mi’kmaw archers who came before them.

“You see the superheroes are shooting bows and arrows,” he says. “This is the skill of our superheroes. Our ancestors.”