Jay's ETEC 521 Blog

On Thursday I had the opportunity to listen to Calvin Helin at the 3^rd Annual Rural Schools Conference.

He is a Canadian businessman and writer on aboriginal topics who is a member of the Tsimshian First Nation in northwestern British Columbia.

Here is a link to the recording of the key note presentation today. It is really worth watching.

In his presentation, Helin argues the Canadian government spends billions (18 I think) a year on services for aboriginal people and transfers to reserves. Therefore if money alone were capable of fixing problems there would have been major successes by now.

He says it’s time for indigenous people to stop dwelling on the injustices of the past and decide how they can influence the future.

According to the article below and the presentation Helin believes “the only hope for aboriginal communities in the future is to create their own wealth, with the private sector as the most efficient way to create that wealth” He also feels that “simply throwing more money at the problem will not make it go away. It probably will likely make things worse.”

(http://www.spiritorca.com/pdf/VCourier-July23-08_HT.pdf)

Please watch one of these videos. Overall he made some very moving and thought provoking statements.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_mUZYIS5x0[/youtube]

Nanook of the North

After discussing this film within our course it led me to want to watch and know more.

The Wikipedia search on the film raised many of the same questions that were brought up in our discussions. For example “Flaherty has been criticized for deceptively portraying staged events as reality. Much of the action was staged and gives an inaccurate view of real Inuit life during the early 20th century. “Nanook” was in fact named Allakariallak, for instance, while the “wife” shown in the film was not really his wife. And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his ancestors in order to capture what was believed to be the way the Inuit lived.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanook_of_the_North

This film in my opinion was ahead of its time and to this day regardless if criticism is a valuable piece of Canadian history. Below are a few more links connecting to Nanook:

How I Filmed Nanook of the North

There are also quite a few clips like these online::

[youtube]https://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=H_wS-Li-9eE[/youtube]

[youtube]https://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=9wmHvkrhmII[/youtube]

Here is a clip by Phillip Djwa about how the web is impacting aboriginal communities. Phillip has provided support to many worthwhile community initiatives, including the First People’s Heritage Council, Friends of Chamber Music, and First Nations Technology Council. He makes several excellent points in this clip regarding connectivity in rural aboriginal communities.

[youtube]https://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=oRSQiZZT3go[/youtube]

http://www.culture.ca/

This site was unfortunately discontinued April 2008 however the content is still availbe. It provides a vairiety of Podcast, Teacher Resources, Links for Kids, and Culture Showcases. I enjoed the interactivity, types of media, and the overall emphasis on the blend of Canadian Culture.

The Torres Straight Islanders  have created a database of language, culture, stories, resources. This site provides an amazing amount of interesting pages to surf through. I am amazed by the amount of material on this site promoting language and culture.

http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/

“The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is the world’s premier institution for information and research about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Institute undertakes and encourages scholarly, ethical community-based research, holds a priceless collection of films, photographs, video and audio recordings and the world’s largest collections of printed and other resource materials for Indigenous Studies, and has its own publishing house.”

Historical Indian Treaties Time Line

This is a Canadian Government websites that covers the in chronological order a selection of the major treaties, starting from the first Peace and Friendship Treaty in 1725. This site provides detailed, map information, and historical facts.

We must keep in mind that this is a Federal Government website based on federal and provincial reports. In my opinion this site does lack the aboriginal perspective of the events. Nevertheless it has excellent visual representations / maps  of the areas where treaties were formed.

Also here is a Youtube Video on First Nation treaty History in BC.

[youtube]https://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=YN2fOBqJpEA[/youtube]

http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/cultureshift/index.html

Click on the link above to visit a CBC Winnipeg site. It focuses on diversity and real life stories. The site is full of pictures, stories, audio files, and much more. By visiting this website you will meet 25 young people talking about how they live in everyday life.

It “shines a light on two segments of Manitoba’s next generation: young Aboriginals, our ‘first Manitobans’, and young Africans, part of the new wave of immigration. ”

I feel that this site does strive to connect and learn about others. It is also set up similiar to a blog whereby a visitor may also share their personal stories on the site.

FIRST VOICES

This is another quite interesing site.  FirstVoices is a suite of web-based tools and services designed to support Aboriginal people engaged in language archiving, language teaching & culture revitalization.

The FirstVoices Language Archive contains thousands of text entries in many diverse Aboriginal writing systems, enhanced with sounds, pictures and videos.

A companion set of interactive online games is designed to present the archived FirstVoices language data in creative learning activities.

Some language archives at FirstVoices are publicly accessible, while others are password protected at the request of the language community.

I found myself surfing through the many maps, links, games, and sounds.