Tag Archives: elders

Module 3. Post 5 – “Fort McKay – A Plan”

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The peoples of Fort McKay have a plan and continue to work towards a partnership with the dozens of corporations and mines which extract oil from the Alberta Tar Sands area. The tar sands completely surround the small town of Fort McKay, lying within 6 km of the town in any direction. They are essentially cut off by industrial development from their traditional lands. Rather than host violent protests, they are seeking to work with industry and have helped organize a panel discussion:

“The Fort McKay First Nation (FMFN) and the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB) are bringing together industry experts in Oil Sands and Energy, Aboriginal Economics and Issues, and the Environment…”

Aside from awareness and a sharing of aboriginal perspectives, I am unsure what goals this panel discussion hopes to achieve. I believe that awareness and sympathies from outside of Fort McKay will be needed to help persuade industry to hear the collective voices of the aboriginal peoples of Fort McKay. A path forward which includes honouring treaties with First Nations of the McKay peoples seems like a simple choice to me (an outsider and non-aboriginal person), however, the push to make money, whatever the political or environmental cost, is a powerful force that cannot be taken lightly.

Mel Burgess.

Module 3, post #4: Four Directions Interactive Teachings

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Four Directions Teachings is a visually engaging, audio-narration about indigenous knowledge and philosophy. Elders representing five of Canada’s First Nation groups (M’ikmaq, Mohawk, Ojibe, Cree and Blackfoot) explain their culture’s creation stories, traditional ceremonies, prayers, elders and dance.

I learned a number of interesting facts about indigenous culture from this site. For example, indigenous language is made up mostly of verbs because the culture believes that everything is alive and has a spirit. Therefore, there are fewer words to describe inanimate objects. I also learned that as Mohawks count the numbers 1-10, they are recounting the Mohawk creation story. That is because their word for the number one is the the name of the sky woman who first created the sky, the number two is the same word for twins because the sky woman’s daughter gave birth to twins, and so on… What a great way to help indigenous people remember their creation story. These are the kinds of interesting facts that I would have loved to learn in my intermediate or high school years. In my opinion, this web-site is a very engaging teaching tool.