Anishinabek Nation Language Commissioner receives recognition for lifelong work in Anishinaabemowin revitalization
By Rick Garrick
GARDEN RIVER — Anishinabek Nation Language Commissioner Barbara Nolan was recently recognized with the 2021 Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award for her lifelong work to revitalize Anishinaabemowin. A public presentation of the award, which includes $10,000, a framed certificate, and an Indigenous-designed blanket, will be made at a future date.
“I feel really honoured,” Nolan says, noting that she was nominated for the award in April. “I was very honoured at that point just to be nominated, and I never thought that I would win the award. I was kind of shocked when I got the phone call that I had gotten the award.”
Nolan says her work to revitalize Anishinaabemowin, which began in the 1970s when she developed the first Anishinaabemowin curriculum in the Sault Ste. Marie and Garden River area, includes immersion instruction videos that she created along with John Paul Montano using storytelling as a mode of instruction. The videos are posted on her website, barbaranolan.com.
“I guess that’s an art in itself, and that art involves you as the fluent speaker trying to get the message across to a non-fluent speaker of what you’re talking about without resorting to grammar or translation in English,” Nolan says. “It’s more like acting in a way — you act out your story in the language.”
Nolan says she has also taught Anishinaabemowin classes and immersion lessons on the virtual platform, Zoom.
“I’ve made a Zoom room downstairs in my home,” Nolan says. “I ordered a board and that’s where I do my immersion instruction.”
Nolan says she began developing the Anishinaabemowin curriculum in the 1970s after one of the students in the school where she was a child and family counsellor heard her speaking Anishinaabemowin to her mother-in-law and asked her to teach them. She created her own flashcards and other resources for the curriculum.
“The kids were happy that they were taking their parents and grandparents’ language,” Nolan says. “It is an identity thing … I wanted them to be proud of who they were.”
Nolan next received requests from Algoma University and Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology to develop Anishinaabemowin courses.
“Algoma University wanted to put on an interest course and Sault College wanted to include [Anishinaabemowin] and culture as a course within their curriculum,” Nolan says. “So I started teaching there but the class was so huge we needed another instructor. So they added another instructor to that program so there were two streams of language and culture for the students.”
Nolan also designed and produced the Nishnaabemdaa app, an Anishinaabemowin app.
As part of her recognition as the Indigenous Arts Award recipient, Nolan was invited to nominate a rising Indigenous artist or arts leader for the Emerging Artist Laureate award, which includes a $2,500 prize, so she selected Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory language-keeper and craft artist Cyndie Wemigwans for the award.
“Cyndie Wemigwans deserves to be recognized for the energy she puts into keeping her language and culture alive,” Nolan says. “After becoming a fluent Nishnaabemwin speaker, she has focused on sharing this knowledge with the next generation – both as a teacher and mother. She leads her students through beadwork and leather moccasin-making in Nishnaabemwin, creating important connections between language-keeping and other parts of their culture.”
Wemigwans, a language teacher with the Rainbow District School Board, serves as vice-president of the Nawewin Gamik Nishnaabemwin language nest executive committee in Dooganing (South Bay) in Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory. She also offers after-school courses where students can learn traditional crafts in an Anishinaabemowin language-immersion environment.