 A small community in the Northwest Territories, Deni Nukwe, otherwise known as Fort Resolution, on the south side of the Great Sloth Lake. But I now call the Yellowknife home. Can you please describe your program? I was involved with the Dishinta Center for Research and Learning, where I first was introduced to the program by taking a one-week-on-the-land course, the Self-Determination Short Course, where we learned about Deni history with regard to treaties and just a lot of first contact and relationship with settlers, as well as on-the-land learning and cultural aspects, hide tanning, harvesting and fishing and the tools therein. Can you tell me about the target audience of the program? Target audience, I would say individuals looking to pursue post-secondary education and or university credit, people who want to gain more of a connection with the land and learn more traditional skills, people who have small children or children, family members, that are able to come and volunteer or who can be supports while they're in the learning processes. Can you tell me sort of what the aim of the program is? I guess what you can accomplish through the program? I guess with starting with the Self-Determination Course, I've learned a lot about the history here in the North and it helped me see my roles and where my roles can be in current, I guess in our current time with government and with, you know, non-government and on-the-land processes and where I can share my knowledge. I've also done a lot of personal development through the program. I've connected with other programs that are similar to Deschinta, received a certificate through University of British Columbia, a community and land-based research program and this helped me begin my journey towards an undergrad. I'd really like to work towards a degree which nowadays everybody needs to have. So I guess the next question would be to describe sort of what happens within the program. I guess just sort of like a day in the life of the program. Learning to prepare for being on the land process in itself and it is ongoing. It's through governance circles and going through all of the aspects of being in a small community setting with a small group of people where everybody needs to work together and making sure that that works smoothly because even within that there's all the aspects of group normatives, storming, norming, stuff like that. It's working through those processes and understanding that that is a reality. And going through the selective readings are from reading the treaties to reading a lot of the decolonization work that's happening in Canada. It is reading a lot of creative works that come from a lot of creative indigenous people across Turtle Island. It is working with elders and learning to slow everything down in order to connect with an elder on that level where you're learning by doing and you're learning by watching and being completely humble and open and laughing at yourself and having your family and your kids being able to come to you at any point during the whole time is just so grounding and helpful. It's doing all the different crafts and having all these different tools and textiles available to you and fishing and berry picking and hide tanning and traditional medicines, the gathering of water and the cleaning of outhouses. And just every process involved in being in a setting like that, learning to cook for a big camp and then having to write about it all from your perspective and understanding and encompassing all that you've learned and making something that entails everything from your learning to what you want to learn and what you don't want to learn and just making sure it all kind of comes together and even in how it doesn't and it's understanding that and writing about that even is involved. So how do you know that you are being successful within the program or I guess how do you know that you're being successful or what allowed you to be successful? What allowed me to be successful is the support from the beginning possibility of applying and being accepted into the program. It's the support from the staff that's there to continuously tell you that you'll get through it and to, you know, being able to speak in a government circle and express what you need to and to hear what other people have to share and how you go through every moment in constant correction, in constant connection and it allows for a lot of self-reflection. It allows for a lot of, you know, time that's given in that supportive process when you just want to walk away and procrastinate and that's okay. You know, it's with anything and it allows for that process to happen and that was a huge part for me, you know, time management is a crazy thing. But it, I felt good that I was able to complete everything that was required in order to gain a certificate and to have that credit work towards one of my goals and a goal that was in part, you know, a cause to flourish. It was through this program that helped me know that the supports are there in programs like this to make it possible for me to work towards a degree, you know. It's given me that well-rounded view, I guess, in engaging with the elders, the aunties and uncles that are there and all the different learning skills and knowledge. What I've taken from it is being able to then, you know, connect with community members to find a lot of the aspects within myself that I'm able to share. I was raised on the land. I mean, you know, and since I started school, it's been more and more that I haven't had a connection to the land. It's, you know, it's having to always find the next job and do the next thing that kind of kept me away from doing a lot of those things that, you know, coming back to the North was a huge thing and having a program like this is very instrumental in my next generation being able to have that start like I had and it's like a awakening for me and it's building that within my son so that he always has that connection to the land and that he can build on that and he can grow with that. I mean, even me having been away from any on-the-land processes and just living in this economic world that we do live in, it was a sense of comfort and a sense of connectedness that I have had instilled in me and I want to instill that in my son so that it's always going to be there. You know, it's a part of me that, you know, nobody could ever take away, you know, even, you know, wanting to pursue university education. It doesn't have to be away from the land. It could be done on the land and that's what Deshinta has done for me it's being able to get those university credits and still be connected to a place that is really in my heart and it's protecting that, it's being a part of that. So I guess the next question is from your perspective, what is Indigenous education? It is basically having a connection to the land. It is a way of learning, a way of doing and with more language and land-based programming that our family and cultures promoted. I think is fundamental for our day and age here right now in the Northwest Territories. We are really only a generation and a half away from being strictly on the land so having programming like this and Indigenous learning is, it's a process like language. You know, it's when you're speaking Indigenous language or at least what I know of speaking Indigenous languages is that it is descriptive. It's not just a one-word answer, you know. It's describing something like where things have happened or how things have happened and how people are named. It's, you know, it's a living thing, you know, when you have land and language and that's just the way that when you're on the land it's a constant learning, constant movement where you can't get from a piece of paper. So I guess the next question and the last question is what is your vision for Indigenous education over the next 10 years? I would really love to see on the land programming for full semesters be a common thing. To be something that encompasses, you know, all the languages of the Northwest Territories because that can happen. I mean, look at, you know, where we are right now. Yes, we're on, you know, in the Northwest Territories. We're in a place where all the languages meet and all the languages are somehow connected and you know, like my grandfather worked for a company where he was able to be in every community in the Northwest Territories and he learned all the languages. He knew every dialect of the Northwest Territories. I would really love to be in a place where all of that happens in one place and it to be a common thing. I mean, in 10 years it's possible, maybe, but it is possible. And being on the land is actually, I think a little more or actually less costly than being in a building that needs power and everything else. You know, have a site like Plash for Lake that is self-sustaining. It happens everywhere in the North. It's just creating that, you know, in more settings. So to go back to question A, or sorry, one, E, how do you mature your success with the program? My success with the program came from the supports from the staff, from the students, from the supports on the sites, the community members that traveled through our locations, the time frames that allow for flexibility, the self-incorporating, well-rounded activity base, engaging with the elders, the aunties and uncles, the children being able to run everywhere, learning different skills. You know, I've even learned a lot from my son in the things that he's done with kids you. That's given him a lot of confidence in his abilities. The knowledge that, you know, I've learned just in watching the things I've learned about myself in, you know, the process there in camp at the larger facility. But what I've taken from it mostly is in coming back from that, connecting with community members and having reconnected and gained more knowledge about myself and on the land knowledge. I've gained more perspective on, you know, present issues in the North. It helped me engage more with community members, having more discussions, being more understanding of current issues in the North with regard to land and resources, to education to my child's education and what I want to see for him, where I want to continue my studies and how I want to do that. You know, it's opened my eyes to, you know, the possibility of me being able to finish a degree. With a program like this, because it allows me to go through all the... What is it? You know, everything that you go through when you're in school or working a full-time job, it's those, you know, emotional highs and lows and things when you're learning something new and it's being able to, you know, deflect from that for a little bit and have my child come and give me a big hug and tell me the things that he's learning and then runs off to go do the next thing. And I'm like, it just reawakens me, you know. So it helps hugely to know that he's there and safe and learning something new and gaining confidence in himself and he's in a perfectly, you know, safe environment even being out in the wilderness, you know. In fact, he's more safer there than he is in town. And it's gaining strength in that possibility of coming from a place like that and knowing that I could, you know, someday even give that to somebody else. I could be on the other end of that. That's strength for me.