Lessons from Trickster: Story, Humor and Survival with Julian Brave NoiseCat

What can we learn from the ultimate Trickster?

On the latest episode of All My Relations, we’re joined by writer, filmmaker, and activist Julian Brave NoiseCat (Tsq’secen / Secwépemc) to talk about storytelling as survival, truth-telling, and love.

We dive into his book We Survived the Night, written in the tradition of a Coyote story, and the ways dark Indigenous humor, oral storytelling, and ancestral teachings help us understand human nature—and each other. Julian reflects on Coyote as an epic trickster forefather, a guide for navigating grief, contradiction, and a world still full of trickster energy.

We also talk about why our stories aren’t myths or folklore, why Indigenous languages matter, and how multiple truths can coexist in a living tradition that continues to teach us what we need to know.

These stories survived colonization.

They survived the night.

And they’re still speaking.