2024 ESG Report
Roseanna rises to the occasion
June 3, 2020
For Roseanna Charlie, there’s a lot to love about her hometown of Duncan, B.C, in Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley.
“It’s pretty amazing,” she says. “It’s a small town, so you get to know mostly everyone that comes through. I like to go for little hikes and walks with my sister’s kids. A lot of cultural things go on in our First Nation’s community too.”
Roseanna is a part-time front-end supervisor at the Real Canadian Superstore® location in Duncan. Her job is to provide leadership and oversee roughly 14 cashiers per shift.
The work she does is informed by her first position at the store four years ago: cashier. She was in high school when she got hired, and then worked her way up the ranks to her current supervisory role.
“I started training for everything, like the self-checkout and customer service,” Roseanna says. “I used to be a really shy person, so I had to get out of my comfort zone.”
Roseanna is a member of Cowichan Tribes, a Coast Salish First Nation. Duncan, known as “The City of Totems,” is located on Cowichan Tribes’ traditional territory. Forty totems have been placed around the community, each with a story about First Nations history behind them.
In the spring and summer, Cowichan Tribes community members attend stick games, gatherings, and powwows.
Roseanna also attends Indian Shaker Church, an Indigenous religion practiced in the Pacific Northwest. “The services that happen for our people are on Saturdays,” she says. “We just go and pray and gather.”
Since June is National Indigenous History Month, and June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day (NIPD), it’s time for Canadians to make a concerted effort to celebrate and recognize the importance of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people and cultures, and to educate ourselves about Canada’s historical treatment of these groups.
In Duncan, NIPD is usually marked by activities, games, and dancing at Cowichan Tribes’ gym and field — though this year, with COVID-19, things will be a little less social and more low-key.
“But it’s important that we still honour it because it gives us a day to celebrate our culture and gather together as one,” Roseanna says of the holiday. “It’ll just be in a different way.”
