Giniw Miigwaan (Christopher J. Myke)
Chris walks a path grounded in community, culture, and reconnection to Anishinaabe bimaadiziwin (Anishinaabe way of life). Working with MCFN as the Indigenous Outreach Worker for Social Services, his journey within the organization has grown over many years through roles such as Community Support Worker, Educational Assistant, School Mental Health Worker, and Jordan’s Principle Worker. Each role became part of a larger journey, one that allowed him to reconnect with his Anishinaabe roots while walking alongside youth and families as they discovered their own strengths, identities, and gifts.
Returning to community awakened something within him that had long been missing. Through culture, ceremony, and the guidance of many respected Knowledge Keepers and cultural teachers, both within and beyond the community, Chris began rebuilding his relationship with Anishinaabe ways of knowing and being. What began as personal healing soon became a responsibility to carry those teachings forward and help create spaces where others could reconnect to culture in their own time and in their own way.
Chris believes that healing happens through relationships; with community, with culture, with the land, with one another and gidinawemaaganidog (All our relations). Through his work, he has built meaningful connections with youth, families, staff, and community members, always striving to create spaces rooted in belonging, compassion, and inclusion. Even when faced with challenges, he continues to believe in the strength of people coming together collectively, alongside allies, to lift one another up and wrap a blanket of support around those who need it most.
Over the past ten years, working within the community has transformed the way Chris sees the world and his place within it. Guided by the teachings, traditions, and ceremonies that helped him find healing and balance through mino-bimaadiziwin (the good way of living), he continues to walk forward with humility and gratitude, carrying the hope that the work he does today will help future generations reconnect, heal, and thrive as Anishinaabe people.