Eagles teach youth about living a good life in newly launched book
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Anishinabek Nation’s Lynda Banning and Thunder Bay District Health Unit’s Lyne Soramaki recently launched their children’s book, Migizi and Giniw’s Important Journey: Niish Migizi Bimisewin, on Jan. 29 at the Delta Marriott Thunder Bay.
“The main message is just about trying to go back to living a good life,” says Banning, Northern Superior FASD regional program worker at Anishinabek Nation and a Fort William citizen. “A good life means taking care of all spirits in the environment, that includes everything in the environment and children, and just living in the world in a good way, cooperating with all of those spirits and making those connections positive and healthy.”
The Anishinabek Nation and Thunder Bay District Health Unit have been working together on FASD programs since 2010, including the development of a series of resources and workshops for participants to include in their wellness bundles, which promote intergenerational healing.
“When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Calls to Action) came out, there was a Calls to Action #33 about partnering together to deliver FASD programs,” says Soramaki, public health nurse at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. ”We’ve been doing that for a long time, so as the years have gone by and the experiences that we’ve experienced, we found what we’ve been doing all along has been Truth and Reconciliation as well. So that’s a big piece of the story, it doesn’t matter who we are, what nation we’re from, or what race we are, we all need to take care of Mother Earth and we need to take care of our kids and protect our kids.”
The book, which was written for intermediate readers in Grades 4 to 7 but may be enjoyed by other readers as well, was the most recent addition to their development of resources.
“It’s based on the Medicine Wheel, so the eagles go out for four days and they try to help the children who are suffering,” Banning says. “The children are not really healthy so they take this four-day journey and they meet animals along the way who give them little messages.”
Banning and Soramaki’s creation process included meetings to talk about the experiences they had while working together and how they could use those experiences to create characters that would be of interest to a younger audience.
“It was very much a collaboration where we worked together — I did the writing just solely so that it would be one voice in the writing, but it’s both of our voices,” Banning says. “The backdrop is this area, so there’s Nanabosho and Anemki Wajiw and the River of Tears and the Bridge of Reconciliation was on fire so we know that happened.”
Soramaki says they scheduled two book events on Jan. 29, the official book launch in Thunder Bay and a second in Nipigon.
“We chose the (Delta Marriott Thunder Bay) location because it oversees the Sleeping Giant — when we start our days in the storybook, the eagles always start their days at their nest and the sun is rising or it’s cloudy or there’s something going on, so we’re looking forward to having the backdrop of the Sleeping Giant,” Soramaki says. “And then later in the afternoon, we’re going to Nipigon to do the second launch because a lot of the outlying communities were really important with our storyline and our project.”
The book was published by the Anishinabek Nation, the illustrations were created by Emery Tasheff, media specialist at the Anishinabek Nation, and the Thunder Bay District Health Unit printed the first 1,000 copies of the book.