 We had this concept of Edmonton as a really new place and in a lot of senses it is and you go to Fort Edmonton the story starts with 1795 when fur traders show up But there's somewhere between 8 and 12,000 years of history before that that we haven't been talking about a lot Which when you start to learn about is extraordinarily inspiring So I was at the festival of ideas which is the university's big festival doing my lifelong learning thing a few years ago Jared Diamond was speaking and he talked about the migrations of people from Eurasia to To the Americas as we now call them Turtle Island as they were previously called Through the the Bering Straits and the land bridge during the glaciation when the sea level was lower But there was this break between the ice sheets that people passed through this this very bizarre corridor that they pursued animals through presumably To get to the warmer climbs further south and it's sort of a one in a million thing that this worked and that there was this bizarre Shelf of of ice two miles high on either side and people came through it And he said something which I'd never heard before he said as far as I can tell from the literature that gap in the In the ice passed right through this area And it's one of the reasons why this is was and remains and a trade corridor and And transportation nexus is that the the first peoples of these entire continents passed through this area? 12,000 years ago during the Ice Age this entire Pair of continents with populated by people who passed right through this area and there's inconclusive archaeological evidence about that But there's conclusive archaeological evidence people have been here for 8,000 years and that it's been and that archaeological Material isn't just from one culture It's from cultures from as far as the Great Lakes from the West Coast from the north and well into the southern United States So this has been for thousands and thousands of years a cultural and intercultural meeting place a trade hub a place where language And even genetics was exchanged. This is the story of a miss Gucci, what's going on which is Beaver Hills Lodge that's the Cree name for this place that we now call Edmonton and it has this extraordinary and rich history and It has these people 60,000 of whom who come from different First Nations cultures who live here now We're the keepers of some of that story and we haven't paid very much attention to it And I think if we do There's the opportunity to be inspired by it because it's extraordinary and there is much we can learn from it And there's great opportunity and strength and and enriched true multicultural Possibility that comes from that so that's that's why it's important And then because of the more recent historical trauma and the focus on reconciliation This is the year of reconciliation in the city Council declared that and when one of the things that we're doing that I'd encourage teachers to think about in your own schools and Alberta teachers Association and Alberta education is workplace education about Aboriginal culture and also about historical trauma and also about the resiliency of Aboriginal people who have survived an awful lot of Attempts to destroy their culture and yet it's still here And we need to celebrate that now more more effectively So thank you for giving me the chance to add a little something to that