Historica Canada created a podcast series about the history of residential schools in Canada. The Residential Schools podcast aims to commemorate the history and legacy of residential schools, and honour the stories of Survivors, families, and communities.
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Listen to Season 2 Episode 10 of the Porcupine podcast, Indigenous Economic Reconciliation: The Way to a Strong Canadian Economy. It features Dan Christmas who helped transform his community, Membertou First Nation, from rags to riches. He explains why creating an environment where business can thrive is key to reconciliation.
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This TEDx Talk is A Beginner’s Guide to Decolonization. Decolonization is a word that is often met with resistance. But there is something better. Decolonization can be an invitation for all Canadians to be a part of something good and to leave behind a better version of the country for generations to come.
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Listen to the Duty to Consult podcast to learn more about Canadian Aboriginal Law, its interaction with Indigenous Laws and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Listen The podcast was developed by student researchers at the Centre for Constitutional Studies, University of Alberta.
Read MoreLearn about life before, during, and after residential schools from Survivors. Attended a presentation online or in your community. Check with location reconciliation groups, or set one up for your organization by contacting the Office of the Treaty Commissioners’ speakers bureau.
Read MoreWhen people are overwhelmed with what they are hearing, they tend to jump to a solution, In this web series called “First Things First,” educator Eddy Robinson explains why asking “How Can I Help?” is not the right question, and that the best way to help is to listen.
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Be Antiracist, a podcast hosted by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, imagines what an antiracist society might look like and how we all can play an active role in building one. He guides listeners on how they can identify and reject the racist systems hiding behind racial inequity and injustice.
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Are you looking for wisdom, courage, and guidance on your journey as a change maker? Tune into Become a Good Ancestor, a podcast hosted by New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Layla Saad. Saad, is the author of Me and White Supremacy, is a passionate advocate and teacher on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation, and social change.
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Tune into a podcast about systemic racism in Canada. The Colour Code hosted by Denise Balkissoon and Hannah Sung is a new conversation on race in Canada. Don’t Call Me Resilient hosted by Vinita Srivastava goes deep with academic experts and those with lived experience to bring you your weekly dose of news, from an anti-racist perspective.
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To become anti-racist, it is helpful to understand the language that got us here. Race is not a biological concept, but rather a social construction that gives or denies benefits and privileges. Learn more in this article Historical Foundations of Race, with videos included.
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CBC Unreserved with Rosanna Deerchild tackles the Indian Act. Guest Bob Joseph, author of 21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act, walks listeners through its continuing impact. You’ll meet First Nation people who are challenging what it means to be a status Indian.
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Learn traditional stories from Cree Language Educator, Simon Bird, and others through Indigenous Education: The National Centre for Collaboration. Start with the story of wesakekecāk and sihkos
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Watch this short video of Dr. Lanny Real Bird on the Importance of Language taped at the Poundmaker Indigenous Performance Festival 2021
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In the 2022 CBC Massey Lectures, Cree writer Tomson Highway explores language, creation, sex and gender, humour and death. Listen here
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The pîkiskwêwin project supports training and mentorship for Indigenous storytellers of all ages. The producers are learning their languages by working with fluent speakers and developing technical skills to record and produce stories in Indigenous languages.
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Listen to this episode of the Beyond podcast, featuring Chief Robert Joseph the Ambassador for Reconciliation Canada, and a member of the National Assembly of First Nations Elders Council. He talks about the revelations of 2021 in Canada, and our country’s long-delayed awakening to the truth of residential schools, and our growing commitment to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.
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Podcast hosts Charlotte Ross and Andrea Custer are both strong advocates for language revitalization. Through Cree and Coffee with the Crazy Crees, they discuss many topics including the importance of language, Silent Speakers, and further education.
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Our Native Land, a weekly society and culture podcast, hosted by Tchadas Leo explores all things Indigenous and First Nations. It features interviews and compelling discussions about Indigenous cuisine, culture, heritage, and more from Vancouver Island and around the world. Visit them on Facebook, and Twitter
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The podcast All My Relations, hosted by Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene, explores relationships — to land, to creatural relatives, and to one another. Each episode invites guests to delve into a different topic facing Indigenous Peoples today – they play games, laugh, and even cry sometimes.
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Mi’kmaq lawyer Dr. Pam Palmater hosts Warrior Life, an Indigenous podcast focusing on a lifestyle that focuses on decolonizing our minds, bodies and spirits while at the same time revitalizing our cultures, traditions, laws and governing practices. She interviews grassroots activists, Indigenous leaders, and knowledge keepers.
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Honouring Her Spark by Aboriginal Friendship Centres of Saskatchewan is a framework that focuses on Indigenous women, to increase awareness and understanding of the barriers they face, exploring their passions and providing support to succeed. Follow Honouring Her Spark Facebook to stay updated about their latest podcast episodes, workshops, and informational sessions.
Read MoreThe Wîcihitowin Indigenous Engagement Conference, gives survivors a platform to share their voices and teachings with the hope of inspiring respectful engagement and meaningful inclusion of Indigenous peoples’ within the community, and the creation of resources and tools needed to create culturally respectful organizations.
Sessions from the 2021 Wîcihitowin Conference have been made available and put online
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Check out Radical Narratives – stimulating and insightful conversations, with episodes like Treaty 6ix Clothing with Tesler Mosquito, and The Social Contexts & Personal Life of Ashley Callingbull
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Check out Indigenous Cloud, an online platform created to preserve and distribute Indigenous Music.
Learn more about streaming service in this CBC story: Sask. music producer on a mission to preserve Indigenous music through streaming website, app
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Still Here Still Healing, is a podcast that shares stories from residential school survivors and discussions with Indigenous youth about topics such as culture, language, identity, and community. Tune in to advance your awareness to the lasting impacts of residential schools and ongoing impacts of colonialization.
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Learn from Anishnaabe and Cree knowledge holders by watching the Visiting with Anishnaabe and Cree knowledge holders video series created by Nipissing University.
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Looking for a fresh take on Science Fiction? Listen to otipêyimisiw-iskwêwak kihci-kîsikohk (Métis in Space), a podcast of two Indigenous women reviewing Science Fiction through an Indigenous lens.
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Listen to the ‘Paykiiwikay’ Métis Culture Podcast, an online series exploring the rich Métis culture and Michif language. It was created in collaboration between Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and Canadian Geographic.
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Seven Truths by Tanya Talaga is an Audible Canada audio story series exploring stories of contemporary life for Canada’s Indigenous peoples through the lens of the Seven Grandfather Teachings. The episodes interweave conversations with Elders and reflect on Canadian history, civil rights moments and the ongoing challenges First Nations communities face.
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The Porcupine is a podcast series exploring reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. Listen in as they have in-depth, funny, and revealing discussions with a variety of people, from activists to comedians, who are all focusing on reconciliation in big, small, and surprising ways.
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Listen to The North Sound, who independently released second full-length roots-rock album, As The Stars Explode on Oct. 23
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You know it’s delicious, but take a minute to learn more about bannock. Read and listen to the CBC Unreserved episode – Bannock: A brief history
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In a series of Cree Teachings videos, Sylvia McAdam, shares information about protocol and smudging, women’s teachings and mossbags, Treaties, the Pipe laws and more.
Read MoreHear from people like poet Rebecca Lea Thomas, writer Joshua Whitehead, and multidisciplinary artist Moe Clark.
Have Indigenous artists you love? Let us know and we can add them to our list. Email beaconnectr@gmail.com
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Listen to the podcast Secret Life of Canada‘s episode on Kanesatake 300 Years Later
Anniversaries can be a strange thing in Canada, depending on who you are and which side you’re watching from. It’s been 30 years since an event you may know as the Oka crisis; but that’s not where the story begins…
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Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo, is a podcast by CBC Saskatchewan that seeks to tell the story of a young Cree girl apprehended by child welfare workers in Saskatchewan in the 1970’s. Her siblings say she was stolen, and then raped and murdered while trying to hitchhike back home, her body left at the side of the road somewhere in the United States. They have no idea where she is, whether her name was changed, or if anyone has been charged in her murder.
Like many Indigenous children, Cleo’s brothers and sisters were taken from their community, displayed in advertisements, and sent to live with white adoptive families across North America, through a controversial program called “Adopt Indian and Metis.” They’ve reconnected as adults and are determined to find their missing sister and penetrate the secrets shrouding the truth about Cleo.
CBC’s Connie Walker joins in their search, uncovering disturbing new details about how and why Cleo was taken, where she wound up, and how she died.
Read MoreMaskwacis Cree, developed by Samson Cree Nation, it lets you explore 20 different categories of words, play word games and take quizzes. For Apple devices
Maskosis Goes to School, developed by Samson Cree Nation, it will teach you about pow wows, traditional Cree values, culture and basic language structure. For Apple and Android devices
Kobe Learn, developed by Keewaytinook Okimakanak Board of Education, it is a suite of apps available in Cree, Oji-Cree and Ojibway. For Apple and Android devices
Plains Cree Yorkton Tribal Council, developed by Yorkton Tribal Council, it teaches the Plains Cree Language, including categories such as greetings, weather, animals, anatomy and family. For Apple devices
Singuistics, developed by Pinnguaq Technology, it will teach traditional songs from Inuktitut, Gwich’in, Anishinaabemowin, Cree and Chipewyan languages. For Apple devices
FirstVoices, developed by First Peoples’ Heritage Language and Culture Council, it contains keyboard software for over 100 Indigenous languages, including every First Nations language in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. For Apple and Android devices
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N’we Jinan works to amplify voices and stories of Indigenous youth by providing tools to create communication. They work to validate the narratives and experiences of young people and supplies platforms, like Facebook, through which they can share with and further relate to their greater community.
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Language is more than what we use to communicate. Through language, we begin to understand each other, and the land that we live on.
Through the Original Voices website, CBC is highlighting a few of the many diverse Indigenous languages that exist across the country.
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The Montreal Urban Aboriginal Network launched the Indigenous Ally toolkit in English and in French. Being an ally is about creating safe spaces by educating others on the realities and histories of marginalized people. The toolkit provides suggested steps and self-reflections for people who want to be an ally.
Read MoreCBC’s The Current covers a public forum held to discuss the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and how the traumas of Indigenous youth are connected to the violence against Indigenous women.
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sākihiwē festival (formerly Aboriginal Music Week) is a music festival in Winnipeg, Manitoba which presents Indigenous artists from around the world performing hip hop, electronic, traditional, world, folk, rock, country and blues music.
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The Native Drums web project is a diverse dialogue on culture, history and traditional knowledge with Indigenous cultural partners, educational institutions, government and private industry. Centred around the central themes of drums and music of Canadian First Peoples, Native Drums traces the history, mythology, and significance of the drum in traditional societies of Canada’s Eastern Woodlands, compared with Western Coastal regions in terms of history, arts and culture.
Read MoreThis 10 song album by Gord Downie (the Tragically Hip) tells the story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack of Marten Falls First Nation. Young Chanie escaped from Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in 1966 and died while trying to make his way home.
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Indigenous Musicians on CBC Music
Listen to episodes of Reclaimed, CBC’s Indigenous music program. Get to know nominees and winners of the Indigenous Music Awards. Watch videos showcasing Canada’s top Indigenous musicians. Here are some lists and artists to start you off!
We hate trying to fit these genre-defying artists into categories, but hope it will help you find your next favourite artist.
FOLK, ROCK, SINGER/SONGWRITER Andrea Menard, Digging Roots, Susan Aglukark, Winston Wuttunee, John Arcand, Tomson Highway
ALTERNATIVE Tanya Tagaq, iskwē, Jeremy Dutcher, Melody McKiver
CLASSICAL Cris Derksen
COUNTRY Crystal Shawanda, Shane Yellowbird
ELECTRONIC A Tribe Called Red
HIP HOP T-Rhyme, Eekwol, Drezus, JB The First Lady, Joey Stylez
TRADITIONAL Northern Cree
Want to recommend an artist for this list? Send it to us!
Read MoreCBC News: “What does Reconciliation Mean to You?”
Reconciliation can mean something very unique to each of us but we need to take the time to listen, learn and share with one another. This CBC article looks at individual reflections and will spark your own reflections!
Read MoreMedia Indigena
New Journeys
9 Great Podcasts hosted by Indigenous Women
From arts and culture to activism and current events, peruse these lists of Indigenous podcasts to listen and learn!
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Heartspeak is about sharing stories that inspire and providing inspirational educational media to support well-being and success. In this segment, Senator Murray Sinclair (Chair, Truth & Reconciliation Commission) provides background on the history of residential schools and the work of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. He highlights the need to teach the history and intergenerational impact of residential schools and our shared responsibility to forge a new relationship of mutual respect and trust.
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