Mom pursues four kids, two degrees

By Meaghan Smith

Elizabeth Edgar-Webkamigad
Elizabeth Edgar-Webkamigad

SAULT STE. MARIE – Many universities around the globe offer programs in modern languages – English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

Algoma University is the only university in Canada to offer a three-year undergraduate degree in Anishinaabemowin, the Ojibwe language.  Students like Elizabeth Edgar-Webkamigad, currently in her third and last year of the program, have the opportunity to be immersed in Anishinaabe culture while learning the language.

Edgar-Webkamigad – a registered citizen of Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island — was born in Toronto and  grew up in a variety of North American locales, including Timmins, Sudbury, San Diego, California, San Antonio, Texas, the Yukon, and Calgary, Alberta. For the past 17 years she has been a resident of the Sault, where she is a wife, mother of four, and full-time manager at Bawating Family Health Team.

In addition to her  responsibilities at home, she is a full-time student  completing two degrees, one at Algoma as well as a Bachelor of Education program at Queen’s University in Kingston, which she is scheduled to complete in April 2014.

Heritage, culture, and family are central to Edgar-Webkamigad.

“I come from a dancing family, so it is extremely important to me that I get to dance, and share my dancing with others.”

She has participated in the annual Gathering at the Rapids Pow-wow and Grade Six Education Day, along with beginning and end of semester feasts and full-moon ceremonies.

“While I cannot be a professional student forever,” she said  at the 2013 Anishinaabe Graduation Luncheon,  “I can be a teacher.”

She has already taught students from both local First Nations along with many of the mainstream students living and going to school in Sault Ste. Marie,and, hopes to gain acceptance into an elite two-year Master of Education program in Aboriginal and World Indigenous Educational Studies  at Queen’s University, complete a doctoral program, and later return to Algoma University-Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gaming to teach in the Anishinaabemowin program.

In August, Edgar-Webkamigad was one of six recipients of Scotiabank scholarships at the Evening of Excellence presented by the Anishinabek Nation Seventh Generation Charity.