Learning traditions of your community
Dance project gives Saskatchewan residents a chance to learn Métis Culture
Young participants recently had the opportunity to spend a week surviving without many of our modern conveniences.
Every year, people in Saskatoon travel around the world learning about different cultures – only to find out what they have in their own backyard.
The village of Lestock is moving into the future using music and dance to celebrate differences and bring diverse cultures together.
In some communities, role models are merely people to be admired. While they also admire their role models in Balcarres, some students at Balcarres Community School are also preserving their role models for “posterity”.
“Culture Days at Wanuskewin Heritage Park was a great success this year. We were expecting around 100 people, but throughout the day over 500 people visited the park," says Cameron McRae, visitor services manager, Wanuskewin Heritage Park.
Teachers from local school divisions from across the curriculum and grade levels participated in the two- day workshop to collaboratively create three lessons plans in a given subject and grade level that supported Treaty and Aboriginal education.
Thanks to a partnership between Central Urban Métis Federation Inc. and the Métis Cultural Development Fund, Saskatchewan filmmaker Jeanne Corrigal was able to tour her film, Jim Settee: The Journey Home, a documentary film about the life of Elder Jim Set
“So much of contemporary Aboriginal art practice, whether it is visual, media, performing, or interdisciplinary art work, is rooted in our culture’s oral stories and customary knowledge,” explains Elwood Jimmy, Festival co-director.
This year, the Back to Batoche festival featured a wide range of performances including Saskatchewan’s own Lindsay Knight (Eekwol) and Donny Parenteau - among others, as well as workshops.
Themed the ‘Year of the Youth’, the 2023 event was designed to engage more young people.
How a canoe trip can teach youth about teamwork and leadership.
Michif is a Beautiful Language
Discovering our past down the South Saskatchewan River
Culture camp nurtures relationships
Ashley Norton, co-founder of the Wiichihiwayshinawn Foundation (“We are Helpers” in Michif), brought together a group of dancers from all over Saskatchewan to perform a contemporary jig dance at the Ice and Fire Festival, held in Regina, February 2013.
“Love Your Language, Speak with Pride.” This was the message bestowed on over 450 First Nations students at the province’s first-ever Indigenous language Festival.
John Lagimodiere has been busy myth busting with his Aboriginal Awareness Training sessions.
Gravelbourg’s Camille Bell was invited by teacher Anita Clarke to Mossbank School where Bell spent a day presenting Métis traditions to elementary school children.
The Aboriginal Arts and Culture Leadership Grant (AACL) was launched by SaskCulture in 2007 following a funding model developed by the Saskatchewan Arts Board. The AACL grant is aimed at increasing the capacity in Aboriginal communities.
The annual John Arcand Fiddle Fest has come a long way in 15 years. It has grown from offering a few fiddle work-shops to an eventful, four-day festival, held at Windy Acres in Saskatoon, featuring concerts, competitions, dances and performances.
Duck Lake has been busy with many projects aimed at bringing its history alive through arts, education and celebration. The area surrounding Duck Lake is rich with culture and the community has been busy working on ways it can reflect its vivid history.
Brady, a veteran of WWII, educated and mobilized Métis communities on the rights of squatters on Crown lands and the establishment of Métis political groups that sought political and cultural protection for Métis peoples.
Learning about Métis traditions during Culture Days
Creative project provides technological opportunities
It has been said that art has the capacity to express the inexpressible, and a new exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG) hopes to give a voice to what often goes unsaid, and attract a large audience in doing so.
There is more than one way to tell a story and the living sky school Division is bringing Treaty education to life through cultural experiences.
Live theatre has the power to touch audiences in a way few other art forms can. The play The Trial of Louis Riel has been reaching out and touching people with its story for 47 years.
Building community ties and connections is challenging for large, rural school divisions. However, some divisions make these connections a vital part of their students’ education.
Amazing connections can be made, and powerful ideas can blossom when organizations come together to work collaboratively on a project.
In its first year, the partnership between SaskCulture and Gabriel Dumont Institute (GDI), intended to increase interest and awareness of funding available to preserve Métis cultural heritage, has resulted in an overwhelming response.
This past spring, one small northern community decided to host an event that would bring together the northern communities together to share, learn and celebrate Métis culture.
In March 2006, the University of Regina’s department of Media Production and Studies brought in wellknown Canadian Aboriginal filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin, as a keynote speaker for what would turn out to be mispon’s first biannual film festival.
As reality shows, such as Canadian Idol or So Youth Think you Can Dance, continue to capture the attention of aspiring talent, Saskatchewan’s northern youth have an even better opportunity to show their stuff.