 Tell me about your program. What is it called? Well, we're called the Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Centre and our mandate is to promote, preserve and protect culture and languages for the Indigenous First Nations in Saskatchewan. There's eight linguistic groups here, three dialects of Cree, the Plains Cree, the Swampy Cree and the Woodland Cree. And we have our Dene to the far north and we have the Soto people and Nicoda, Dakota and Nicoda people. So those are our eight linguistic groups. So what we do here is SICC was founded as a means to, well what I said as our mandate is promote and preserve the culture and the language, but more than that is they want to record. So we do a lot of recording here. We do a lot of elder interviews, knowledge keeper interviews. And that's our way of trying to preserve some of the stories and some of the, I guess, the visions of the past and how we're meeting those visions today. So a lot of the previous, or the founders or previous people who were involved with the centre, their goal was to have an institute where their language and their culture could be respected. It could be honest and it could be truthful and it could be shared. So that's pretty much our mandate. And because of the residential school syndrome, which we all know about now, back then I think they must have known something back then, even though they didn't say that. But a process was started to preserve a lot of that information that we're actually using now. And now we're able to publish education materials from really young people to really old people. And we have a collection of art from a lot of our artists and many of them have passed on. Art is a way of talking. And I guess you would know that with your degree in fine arts. It's a way of telling a story. A lot of the artists are gone now and I guess it's like a vision. It's up to interpretation. When we look at it, we can try and figure out what they mean or what they were trying to say. So we have a collection of art that we maintain here. We also have a collection of books. They're all Indigenous authors. Anything to do with our people. So when I talked to you earlier or I said earlier about the truth, I think that's what they were getting at, is we want to have things that tell us the truth. Right now in 2018 is becoming apparent that a lot more people are coming on board because when we were at the signing last week of the MOU with the school boards in Saskatchewan they talked about the truth hasn't been told. You know when we're dealing with the truth within reconciliation and everybody's trying their hardest to reconcile. But before we can do that we have to talk about the truth and we get to the truth through the stories of our people and a lot of them are not here anymore. A lot of them have passed so we were able to save a lot of their words into paper materials. So we get to use that. We're governed by a board of governors that are made up of 12 First Nations in Saskatchewan. So they represent all the linguistic groups. We have an elder on there from the senator. We have a lady on there from the ladies commission. We're an institute that was started or under the mandate of the FSIN. So we work closely with them. They generally provide us with support and we provide them with support and materials as well. We also have an elder's council and they're made up of the eight linguistic groups and we generally meet you know two to four times per year. So when they provide us with direction and guidance and support. So sometimes we have to deal with tough issues like repatriation of remains that have been unearthed somewhere those types of things that we that we need to deal with. And I think their main interest is to gather more fluent speakers in all the linguistic groups so we're always thinking of strategies and of course they share with us a lot of their stories and a lot of their prayers. Are there eight groups or a target audience? No we try and work like we we're community based so we try and respond to the community needs. A lot of the community needs right now are in education from pre-K early learning to I guess grade 12. Like a lot of the focus right now is in education so we're responding to that by developing different types of materials that they can use in their classrooms. So we're not targeting any specific age it's kind of like we allow the communities to let us know what they need and then we customize our materials or our programs around them. So sometimes that means formal curriculum that will go into a school and sometimes that means you know developing a set of dialogues for a language nest in a community. So we're doing that in a generic sense and then we can have it translated into any of the linguistic groups. It makes it easier for everyone in their guidelines. The curriculum we're using in the schools right now that we're providing we do have to meet certain outcomes provincial outcomes and what we did was we had worked with a group from the north balfour area that worked with elders for I don't know years and they had their elder outcomes meet the provincial outcomes so now they're kind of in sync when the provincial outcome says this the elders say this so we were able to take both of those and develop a curriculum they could use in school for land-based education. This is a program an example of excellence in Indigenous education. I believe it is I think it it is an example of excellent because it comes from the communities it's community-driven it's based on and I like to say this like we don't say it enough it's based on the truth they're telling us the truth and they haven't been heard you know they have these inquiries with Truth and Reconciliation Commission and now the murdered missing women inquiries and people get to talk there but there is no place where people can talk about a lot of the things they want to talk about so they come and talk to us about the gaps I get what's missing you know when they have hindsight now they're able to look back and that's what we listen to so I think it's only excellence an example is because it's coming from them it's driven by them and we're trained we're the we're the worker bees you know we do the work on their behalf and for what their objectives are so and I think our mandate is general enough to accommodate that specific mandate and to generally be able to respond to like we can't do everything we're a small staff it's a big province we have close to 200 000 First Nations citizens we have seven to ten staff at any given time so we can only respond as best we can and usually that's trying to find a way like the generic curriculum or the generic language guidelines that can be converted into any language we do have a huge network and a lot of outreach we do so we use a lot of people in committee forms and that's another way of getting community perspective I've been here for a year just over a year I started last january there has not been a way of really doing a really good assessment on you know vision to pre-development development and then implementation and then maintenance so that there's no long even though we're 45 years older isn't any way of assessing just because I can tell you how I think we're going to measure success but that's not and I think that's how it was done in the past so what I'm trying to set up right now is a process of where we do exactly that and right now the only way I can answer that is to say if one of our programs is being extremely useful like a storytelling very important it's like so hugely in demand that it's hard for us to keep up to that to me is a measurement of success then we have a couple other programs that we just sort of canceled because there was no uptake there was no interest there wasn't a lot of people showing up to the events and that's where I say okay it's time to pull the plug on that one that's sort of seen it's better days so besides that type of um and and I guess those are just decisions you make on a daily basis like are we going to put our scarce resources into doing this um when this one's hugely successful so um like our language keepers conference every year is just to talk about language and culture they're so um intertwined with each other so um this past year in November of 2017 was the biggest number they've ever gotten so to me that's a measurement of success because it keeps and that one was very responsive to the communities and all the linguistic groups so all eight linguistic groups who are represented there they had something for everyone to do there was over 600 so we surpassed previous numbers by over 100 yeah so to me that's measure of success that we need to keep doing this and doing it and building on what was the best of last year how would you define the word indigenous is this a term that you normally use well indigenous education is a new term that well I'm not going to say it's a new term because it's been used in an international level to describe I always I always felt like was to describe the people closest to the land how I say that is people closest to the source which are the brown people all say so those became the indigenous people and I always say like these non-native people like the the white people from Europe and wherever else they came from they used to be tribal people they used to be indigenous people but they developed these principles of colonization which they did to themselves they practiced it and and it worked you know and they developed this whole so now they went around the world because they thought this is such a great model we're going to colonize everybody so they went around the world doing that but we us brown people are still the people closest to the source which means we're closest to the land they're probably 11 or 12 generations removed we might be too um there's a lot of people who a lot of our people who don't live on the land so that term indigenous to me means all those people who are closest to the source so that is the brown people right wherever country you go in it's on those people so that's what that term to me means using that term here it's been new so it grasps more than just the first nations in Saskatchewan they're talking about the indigenous people they um people who are closest to the source it's a term I guess the UN uses in a specific way um and they'll have all kinds of definitions for it so what I'm saying to you is how I view it and how I've been taught to view it how would you define education I think to have our education and be able to have this this I'm not going to say I'm very grateful to have this opportunity I'm just going to say it's about them time because we've been not valued for that in the bigger world well now all of a sudden it's becoming a value and it's it's the catchphrase of the day and everybody wants to have these partnerships and they want to do the reconciliation and that's all fine and dandy but we need to hear the truth first education is how we're going to hear the truth growing up in school I don't know your experience I never learned about this stuff our elders taught us so that was never taught in school you know when they talk about the treaties and the spirit and intent of the treaties they talk about all this and if you close your eyes in and try and envision it you see this big you know ceremony where everybody's been consulted they're all informed and they know what's going on and you're like no they weren't if you knew the history they were starving they were falling apart you know it they were grasping they had no choice so they felt like they had to do that and that's why these documents are sacred documents because of what people died for that you know what I mean and we need to honor that and respect it the only way we're going to do that is through education and it has to be the truth and they have to hear those hard truths and that's what I think it is so we get to control the message and I like it that they're coming to talk now what is that message you know when signing this MOU meant to me like we finally get do we actually get to tell the truth first we signed we said we would but when we go do it sometimes you know the truth hurts they might not want to read it and I think a lot of the racism right now around that fishy case in north balfour it has to do with a lot to do with ignorance and on both parts like a lot of our people don't know our history our stories are you know the things that people had to do to ensure that they were still here and able to speak their own language it's not perfect but our ancestors I think were wise enough to see the future to know that they had to do something even though it wasn't something perfect and that story needs to be told to everybody so that's to me what indigenous education what is your vision for the future of indigenous education in your community and in Canada my vision for the future is to start working with a lot of the like the early childhood learning facilities you know the day cares and the head starts and you know our little kids are so pure and innocent and open they wouldn't have all these blocks when they start hearing stories you know they would have this true feeling you know whatever that feeling is and I think that needs to start there with the older people who have developed you know prejudices all this other stuff that blocks people and sometimes it's like addictions whatever it is that blocks people from moving ahead you have to deal with the health of those people first you know whether it be physical or mental health you've got to deal with that first before they can start learning so I think my vision in the future is to start working with the younger kids and start talking about it before you know told what we were told in school and which was the truth or it was nothing you know you read all these history books there's absolutely nothing in there like what happened to us we're all here like how come we're not in there how did we get to be here so I think it's really important that we start working with the younger people and focusing on that for not just the schools on the reserves or the schools that are First Nation controlled in Saskatoon or Regina or whatever urban center but all the public schools because everybody needs to know the truth like they have a right whether or not anyone agrees with them to be able to hear the truth so working with all those little kids and then reconnecting people with the land like a lot of our teachings go a lot of my teachings were done outside on the land whether if they were just talking to camping or in a ceremony or harvesting medicines or harvesting food whatever it was a lot of those teachings come into that area I think we need to make space for them and maybe in the future our school year won't look the way it looks right now you know what I mean it could be very different than what it is right now because right now it's following a process that was designed to support a system that isn't conducive to supporting harmonious teachings because to be in harmony with nature you need to learn about it so the school system is not based on our school system is and and those won't hurt to have those types of so I don't know my vision for the future is really big we need to really focus on you know doing some of our teachings outside you know having kids sitting there and listening to some of our knowledge keepers and in places like the cultural center and our board of governors and our board or our council of elders why are we not accredited to teach our own children why do we have to have an external place give us an accreditation of PhD when we should be issuing those PhDs to people we know lived and earned that life that they have or maybe we have our own way of accrediting our own people to teach because it worked for us we're still here no matter what they tried to do for us we're still here so it can work for them too so that's kind of my vision for the future it's kind of a big one but you know who knows can you think of any types of information that if you had now it would help to achieve your vision you know it would be really good to know how other people really feel like I know they talk about reconciliation the city of Saskatoon the school boards the provincial government now has a indigenous relations department you know the federal government they all say that but I'd like to know what they really mean because sometimes when it rolls out it's not what they say and it would be nice to know that because then you could know where to put your energy and not waste it you know if you're going to go down a path of wasted energy there's more fun or a path to take it wastes just as much energy aside from the programs in which you are personally involved what information do you have on other indigenous educational programs in Canada there's actually a lot of really good educational programs in Canada the first people's cultural centering pc has some really really amazing work going on there the manitoba education council I forget their formal name but they have like tons of stuff going on there the mcmack and all this kosher they have like and we get to share with each other and because of this language act the federal language act we get together actually quite often and we get to meet with them we get to share stories about what works what doesn't work what are they trying different types of programs so we get to share information and support each other too so there there is a lot going on out there it just hasn't been I guess displayed or promoted you know marketed so a lot of people don't know what's going on there's a lot of land-based education activities going on even though we've been doing our whole entire life it's not actually a fun thing for some communities to do because that's how they live right so they're like well our idea of a week off from school is not going and living in a tent in the bush because we do that all the time it's going to the city so we've been doing that for a long time but I noticed that almost all these institutions now are sort of leaning towards that land-based to learn the culture and reconnect because I think once you reconnect with the land and your natural environment all these other things start coming natural and then you feel protective because you're connected to it like it's you want to protect it so I think that's um there there are a lot going on they just need to be heard