Rowan - Elders and other partners - Text Transcript

I asked Elisapie [the Elder], “Well, what would you like to do with the children?” She’d been working in the childcare centre for many years. And within 15 minutes she had a list with like 15 items or more. And she suggested things like, let’s take the children fox trapping, let’s go fishing. Fishing they had done, ice fishing that is something that, you know, that’s quite accessible. I would like to make a basket, I want to do something with seal. So, when we started to think with Nunangat, land; water, snow and ice, then things started to change. And we made a commitment to going outside and getting beyond the fence of the daycare. And then we realized that our position as humans again, was not quite as strong as we thought. For example, one of the learnings that I took from that was an idea – Sila Piuqpaat – which means the environment chooses. So that we could not actually, if you’re going outside, you can’t decide what you’re going to do. Like, it depends on the weather. And so that was a big learning from that. Another very substantive learning from that was that one of the educators said, I realized that, you know, when we had the Elder available, we could ask her questions and that if we want to be engaging, you know, going hunting or going, you know, taking the children out into the community, and onto the land, that we really need to be speaking with Elders and the hunters and local Knowledge Holders. We don’t have… this is not available to us through the internet or at the library. Our resource people are humans, and we need those humans, that input, from them. And that was a very important learning. So, that actually, when we purposefully thought with land; water, snow and ice, Nunangat, then we did shift the story.