Elder In The Making: Sacred Ground

Elder in the Making is a documentary series featuring Cowboy Smithx (the “x” is silent), a Blackfoot searching for his identity, and Chris Hsuing, a first generation Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, on a trip across Treaty 7 territory to re-discover their shared heritage. In this episode Cowboy and Chris head out to the grassland prairies. They find an ancient land marked by thousands of years of history and a complex ecology of bison, grass, and other life.

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Use StoryMap to learn about Treaties

StoryMap by Canadian Geographic Education is designed as a resource for teachers to introduce and to understand treaties and agreements between Indigenous Peoples, the Crown, the federal government, as well as provinces and territories. The journey starts in what is now called upstate New York, then moves to the eastern coast of Canada before going west, and final north. Topics covered include Pre-Confederation Treaties, Numbered Treaties, Métis scrip, and Inuit land claims.

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Water Is Life

The Water Is Life learning package is a series of four lessons plans that draw on on land-based learning, centered on women’s teachings about, for, and from Mother Earth, with a specific focus on water and its connection to land and the Indigenous Peoples living on Turtle Island.

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Re:Location

Canadian Geographic and its publisher the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, created an interactive website, re: Location,  as part of a larger initiative dedicated to highlighting community relocations n Canada. Learn about communities (historic and modern) that have been forced to relocate.

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Watch Fox Chaser

Chris Hsiung, the producer and director behind Elder in the Making, also created Fox Chaser, which is now available on CBC Gem.

It’s a story that will take you into the harsh winters of northern Alberta where a young Cree trapper struggles to protect his childhood dream of living off the trapline. With encroaching industrial development and increasing family obligations, this may be his last chance for freedom in the bush.

Watch it here

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Learn Indigenous Teachings About Plants

This CBC News article  includes a short video and looks at a program at Wanuskewin Heritage Park —a walking tour of medicinal plants used by Indigenous peoples. Or read Braiding Sweet: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. “As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers.” A delicious read.

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