As one of the main characters in Red Bull’s documentary The Engine Inside, Jay Bearhead has seen it all: residential schools, drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness. But it’s his rise from those lows that is inspirational. In part it was the bicycle that saved his life. And now from his home base in Kamloops, B.C., he’s giving back—teaching Indigenous youth how to harness the power of two wheels (or two edges) to create a future that is entirely their own, while continuing to learn and teach the Indigenous traditions and culture he grew up without.
While he’s only 44, he still experienced the harshness of a religious residential school in the U.S. during his teens. His response to the trauma he suffered there was to bury himself for years in drug and alcohol abuse. And that in turn led to homelessness. But it was the bicycle that brought him back. After he hit the lowest of lows, he’s rediscovered his culture, his people and his place in the world.
Check out these highlights from Colin Field’s conversation with Jay:
On dealing with past trauma:
The feelings are hard to deal with. They come at really inopportune times. In the years of my healing journey, there are some things I’ve learned about trauma, about issues that have happened to us as a people … the trauma doesn’t change. The impact of what happened, the size of it doesn’t change. People say it gets easier or it gets smaller. Well, that doesn’t happen. This is what happened to me. And I can cling to it, I can stay close to it, or I can start to let it go. And as I let it go, I grow as a healed person, but that trauma doesn’t change. That size of what happened doesn’t change. I just grow around it.
And there might be times where I’m closer and there might be times where I’m further away from it, but it’s always there. It’s something that I’m going to live with my whole life. And there were ways I dealt with it that were very unhealthy.
Beginnings in mountain biking:
As I progressed in my job in the bike shop [in Lethbridge, AB] obviously I got a bike and I started riding trails. I found that to be therapeutic. Looking back, I know it’s therapeutic now. We all know how awesome bikes are and how they get us through a shitty day. They help us deal with things whether we know it or not. So that was my way of dealing with the trauma that happened to me at that school, the trauma that happened growing up as a child, in an unspoken way.
I was able to be out on the land, putting my energy into pedaling up a hill or building a jump or a new trail. I didn’t have time for substances. I helped bring the freeride scene to Lethbridge and area. There’s a river that runs through Lethbridge so we had some elevation and some pretty big hits.
I vividly remember seeing a Bike magazine cover, a pretty iconic one that said, ‘BC sick riders do it better than anybody on the planet.’ And it was a picture of Richie Schley riding Devil’s Peak in Kamloops. And so around Lethbridge at the time, we started looking at things differently.
Substance Abuse:
When I was about 26, maybe 27, my substance use started. And what happened was a whole combination of things.
There was the end of a very long-term relationship. And my riding career as a downhiller … I started to lose to the younger guys, the up-and-comers I was helping out and mentoring. And I think that just kind of started to weigh on me a little bit. And I remember I was hanging out with some friends. We were at a pub and I was offered a beer. My first beer. It was a Budweiser. And it was so gross. I thought, Man, how do people do this? I think I had about three beers. And I was a lightweight. I was already spinning but I kind of liked that feeling …
Because of my job in the bike industry, I was like a mini-celebrity at that time. So people wanted to be out with me. Quite often there were times when I didn’t have to buy my own drinks. So it became really easy to follow that route…
Listen to the full conversation here.
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