Details of canoe building program shared at Chiefs of Ontario wellness conference

Sylvia Plain is a firm believer in mixing things up a bit.

Besides being a veteran policy analyst, who has worked for First Nations throughout Ontario, Plain has another gig she’s proud of.

Since 2014, the member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation, has owned and operated the Great Lakes Canoe Journey Education Program where youth build birch bark canoes and are taught the technology that goes with it.

Plain provided details of her program at the three-day First Nations Community Wellness Conference that concluded Aug. 21. The conference, organized by the Chiefs of Ontario, was held in Toronto.

Plain was one of the panelists at a conference workshop titled “The Land is Better with us On It: Environmental Caretaking, Youth Empowerment, and Traditional Knowledge”.

During the session, Plain provided details on one of her program’s recent accomplishments.

“We’ve delivered a construction credit to a high school within the Lambton Kent District School Board,” she said. “So, the students built a canoe and they got a construction credit. They worked with their peers.”

Other high school students earned science credits by participating in Plain’s program in London, Ont.

“So, we’re breaking the rules,” she said. “School boards say they don’t have money. They do. (They say) they can’t guide the curriculum. They can.”

Plain said she’s aiming to provide teachings that students wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to be involved with.

“I’m just trying to be where everybody isn’t,” she said. “And that’s what the vision started out as, wanting to create a learning environment because I went through a canoe building experience. And I want young people to also go through that. I want to see a canoe in every single one of our communities throughout the Great Lakes region.”

Plain said the canoe building process is intergenerational.

“I always remind people of that because the reason I built that education program was to get us out of the classroom, get us out on the land to be with our families, to understand that education is about honouring everyone’s gifts,” she said.

“We all have different passions. We all have different strengths. And hopefully we pursue that. And there’s also a teaching where you don’t teach everyone the same thing so that we have a reliance on one another.”

Another panelist at the workshop session was Latoya Rourke, a member of Mohawks of Akwesasne, who works as a land-based healing specialist.

While growing up, Rourke said she followed a cycle of ceremonies. For her land-based healing programming, she follows these cycles.

Rourke said she’s currently assisting Green Corn teachings in her First Nation. It’s a harvest tradition symbolizing renewal and gratitude.

“We do them with an Elder, a knowledge holder, if you want to call them a culture educator,” she said. “We do it with them to open up that space for discussion. So, it welcomes people that may not have been raised the same way I was.”

Rourke said open discussions and workshops are staged around ceremonies to allow community members to feel welcome to attend.

“To me, that’s like being a steward of the land,” she said. “It’s like you’re continuing those ceremonies. So, everything I do is around that.”

Rourke said a lot of education is shared by storytelling and cooking soup over a fire.

“We can create that space over a fire,” she said. “It’s more welcoming and it’s easier to have those tough discussions. And for your staff, you just have to be trained and ready to debrief a youth or an Elder or anyone attending your workshop.”

The workshop included three other panelists. They were Taylor Deleary, Diamond McGahey and Theya Quachegan.

Deleary and McGahey are members of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation in southwestern Ontario. They work as Indigenous land guardians for their First Nation’s treaties, land and environment department.

Quachegan, a member of Moose Cree First Nation in northern Ontario, is working as a policy analyst in food sovereignty while pursuing a master’s degree in environmental studies.

Deleary, who majored in Indigenous studies at Western University in London, said she learned a valuable lesson through a former professor that she incorporates when teaching youth in her First Nation’s guardian program.

“He would make students take off their shoes at the start of class to touch the grass,” Deleary said. “And they’d close their eyes. You listen to the trees rustling around you and the birds and the animals. You just think of things you’re grateful for and it really helped me ease anxieties and it’s helped me out in decision-making processes.”

Deleary said youth in her First Nation’s guardian program are benefitting from this technique.

“It’s helping with their anxieties and just help them start in that good way,” she said.

Deleary added it’s a practice she’ll continue.

“That’s definitely a teaching I’ll carry with me throughout my life,” she said. “And I’m very grateful for that to this day.”

McGahey and Deleary have co-ordinated their First Nation’s Guardians program the last two years. Guardians are trained to carry out species-at-risk monitoring and habitat restoration.

“We now have a total of 16 guardians on our First Nation,” McGahey said, adding a program goal was to have more community youth feel included and connected to the land. “It’s cool to see how much the program has expanded.”

As for Quachegan, she’s grateful her family moved from their remote First Nation to Thunder Bay when she was three to give her more opportunities.

“I snatched them up,” she said. “I went to university, I got my undergrad, and now I’m doing my master’s.”

Windspeaker.com