 Tell me a little bit about the name of, I guess, today we're going to talk about, you created a Facebook group on social media and you were able to sort of have a wide range of audiences throughout the last year and a half it has been. And what sort of brought you into sort of creating this group? Well, it's a good way of reaching out to people who want to learn the language. And so I created the Cree Language Videos for Facebook, about four or five years ago. And so in this site I post Cree Language Videos, I will post grammar items in there and basically I found that if we have videos of grammar, people see it and hear it, people tend to pick up a lot more, a lot faster. But the main thing that drove me to creating this site was I was asked to do online Cree classes for our department and I wanted to provide videos for the online classes but there was no way to do it, the way with what we had to work with at that time. So I created PowerPoints and you cannot upload PowerPoints onto our online classes, which is unfortunate. So I found out we could actually make those PowerPoints into videos. And so once I made the videos I posted the videos on Cree Language Videos and from there I took the URL connection and posted them onto the online classes so students were able to get the URL connection from there and they just went right into the Facebook page for that when they wanted to listen to that. So that started off with the stories, with the grammar lessons and then after that I started doing the stories with the traditional stories. And so I posted a few of those on Cree, in Cree during the Aboriginal Language, Aboriginal Storytelling Month, which is February, here in Saskatchewan. So I made some videos of me telling stories and posted them onto this site and last year, last February, during the midterm break, I went to the first Cree Storytelling Camp in Big Stone Lake, just west of La Ronche. And so we told stories during the evening and one of my former students, we videotaped the stories, the Storytelling, and one of my former students took the videos and closed captioned the stories, which is really good. So I have me telling stories and you can see the Cree right in there. So that's one thing we did and it's an exciting thing. So it all started off with you needing to teach an online class and thinking how can I get these stories or how can I get these grammars or the teaching tools lessons to students online and other campuses and you just sort of created this Facebook. So it started off as an instructor slash student sort of driven thing. How did it kind of create from there? Was it just people, because it's a group on Facebook and was it students sort of sharing this with their families and friends and then people being added to this group and it just sort of created a larger community? Is that how it sort of went? That's how it worked. People would go onto the site and they'd get excited about the videos and then they'd want a copy of the videos, which you cannot do on Facebook. It's really hard to, as a matter of fact, it's impossible to upload the videos from Facebook to yourself. So my son who is an IT person created a link for me to be able to do that. People can actually go into the site and I provided a link where they could actually upload these videos onto a USB and use them. Now, the other teachers in Klee language teachers want to use the grammar videos in their classes, but a lot of First Nations schools do not allow their teachers to go on Facebook during teaching time. But there's nothing preventing them from using these videos off their USBs. So that was wonderful there, so the teachers were able to use these videos in their classes using the link that my son provided. So by able to convert these files, these basically online uploaded files into being transferred for these potential students or teachers across these communities to sort of take those USBs and teach them the class, have you gotten a lot of feedback or a lot of... I wouldn't say a lot, but I'd say quite a bit of feedback. I've got a lot of people wanting these things. The thing is they want the videos and I'll show them the link on how to get the videos, but then they want the PowerPoints from where I made these videos, which I can email those with those PowerPoints to them. And so these are teachers and I know of one student who actually made MP3 files out of all these videos, so she could listen to them in the car while she's driving. Wow. And she used the audio, so it's becoming useful that way too, because a lot of people don't know that they could actually make audio files out of these things, you know, it's just very simple to do actually. It's the Cree language, it started off as teaching a Cree language class. Dialects do you teach in? I teach the Y dialect, and I am originally a TH dialect speaker. So I've been doing this for 30 years, right, and I tend to mix up my dialects still to this day. And so I'm glad that I work with other people who are Y dialect speakers, so they will correct me. If I'm using a TH dialect word in a class or in my writing, they'll correct me on it, and then I'll have to go switch it to Y dialect and go back to a TH dialect. So you've mentioned that you've kind of started this about four or five years ago, and the success of this sort of Facebook group, and you've talked a little bit about how you have students, you have family members, and you just have, you know, community members of wherever around in the world, because Facebook is an online social media website. So you really can reach someone from here in Saskatchewan or all the way across the edge of the end of the world. Have you ever had an experience with this program where someone was able to reach out to you in terms of feedback, but really like where, how far have you been able to reach with this? London, England. Really? I have somebody from London, England who regularly goes onto the page and will talk, will put something in, how happy it is to be able to listen to the story as I'm doing so. Wow. A few years ago, too, we had put, I had students to my student project where they posted, they created an online, how to say it, and create booklet that we put online, and somebody from England went into that site using that booklet, just a booklet itself, no audio on there, but looking at the grammar from there, and he actually wrote me a letter based on that. I asked him, how did you write this letter? He said, you're online, online. Wow. Was that good? Just the initiative that the student took to be able to teach themselves to these things and it was great. So social media is great that way. With this audio link, with this videos on Green Language videos, people are able to see it. The teachers out there want to use the videos that we have, and so they'll contact me and I'll send them the PowerPoints for them so they can use it. And I'll also show them how they can upload the videos themselves if they want to do it. So do you have a lot of other contributors other than yourself, Korean language speakers who regularly contribute to this? Not to that page now, not to that page, but there's another page we saw, Korean day, where people are asking for words, and we have, that is a really active site. We have all people, all dialects contributing to that page for words, which is really great. The great thing about Facebook is it's easier to sort of calculate your feedback or the amount of people you reach based on likes, and I think most recently a great way to, a lot of people often share videos is through the sharing portion of it. Do you get a lot of people who share your videos to their Facebook pages? A lot. They will hit the share button and it goes, it's really nice to see. Some of them do ask, but then I usually tell them, if it's on Facebook, go for it. Yeah, for sure. I wanted to keep something to myself, I won't post it. It's as simple as that. Absolutely. You mentioned that it started off with a student and teacher initiative, but how do you see this growing in the next two or three years? I think in a few years, more people will be willing to tell stories and post them on the page. Other people have created their own Facebook pages to teach the language. There's a young student in Edmonton who created a cream of quality page. She's just wonderful stuff. So that wonderful teaching tool for her, and her videos are just awesome. So we see this happening in social media, helping to save the languages that we have. So it's good to see. Why is it important in your own words for you to, why do you see the success of this sort of program or community, really an online community that you created? Why is it important to you? It's important to me because one of the things, perhaps the most important thing that happened that got destroyed during the residential school years was the loss of language that a lot of us faced during those years. But more importantly though, as we were in school doing storytelling season, what they call storytelling season, because traditionally storytelling, stories were told in the wintertime. And so we were away at school during those times. So we no longer heard the stories, the traditional stories. And the traditional stories contained everything we needed to know on how to live in this world. So we were missing out on our education because of big residential school days. But this offering, this online thing where stories can be accessed at any time of the year is the perfect way of getting those stories done. We're talking about decolonization and reconciliation. And the only way that we could actually do that and be successful in decolonization and decolonization is to get to know the stories, our traditional stories. You are in a quota. In a quota it has stories. Cree has stories. And each of our tribes have our traditional stories that we need to get back to. Because this is where our education is on how to be who we are as First Nations people. And a lot of people don't know the stories. So this site provides that opportunity for people to get to know the stories, to hear them in the original language and to also see them written if they want to do it. A lot of people like writing stuff. Is there a significant difference between traditional stories being told in the English language as opposed to the Cree language? Is that sort of one of the other drives that you've had is making sure a lot of these stories were told in the original language? Yeah. There is a lot of differences. There is a lot of traditional stories that have been written down into English by ethnologists throughout history. And we at First Nations University have INDL classes, Indian Language classes, Indian Literature and Translation stories in Indian Literature and Translation classes where we look at the collected stories by ethnologists and look at the various versions of these stories and try to see, OK, where did something lose in translation? What got lost in translation? So a lot of people only have access to the English versions of these stories. So it's important that we tell these stories in the Cree and start telling these stories in Cree, in Dene, in Dakota, Dakota and so, though, in the Schnabbi, in our original languages because that's where our stories, our lessons are in the original stories. There's some of the translated stories. For example, a story called the Shaddai Dancers or the Dancing Ducks that's been collected numerous times. I don't know how many versions there are of that in English. It's quite a lengthy story. But one of the collections I saw was the story itself written in three sentences in English. So that's the kind of stuff you run into in these collections. You know, you just shorten, leave a lot of the story out. But doing it in the original language, you get everything. Yeah, that's absolutely. You know, the starting of your program, like I said, it was a student slash instructor initiative. As an instructor, you're at the First Nations University of Canada. What does Indigenous education mean to you? It means going back to the stories. Indigenous education means going back to the stories and finding out what the lessons are in the stories and what is it that is there for people to be educated. It also means going back to the land and land-based education, which is a movement happening right now in some northern communities. I think it's happening in... Edmonton is also happening in Saskatchewan, land-based education, and that's part of Indigenous education. But the main thing about Indigenous education is the sacred stories, reviving those stories. Going back to land-based education and storytelling, what would be your hope for the future for that in the next, let's say, 50 years? What do you see Indigenous education being more of? Our students being proud of who they are and where they come from. Today, there's a lot of young people thinking, asking, what good is our language? What's the use of learning our traditional ways? This is the situation today. With land-based education and Indigenous education, the revival of our stories, I think those students will be able to say, wow, is this ever great? They're going out in the springtime to go harvest birch bark itself, and then also harvesting birch bark syrup during the springtime. Students are doing that in Northern communities right now, on how to do that. In the springtime, that's when you go out, get the birch bark, harvest the birch bark baskets, and also get the syrup from the birch bark, from the birch trees in the springtime, and make your own syrup out of that. It's just really wonderful. Did that last year, did the students do things like that? I think that's definitely, yeah, the future with Indigenous education is about going back to land-based things. It's so interesting being able to talk with you today, because you're helping students and community members go back to language and storytelling. The interesting thing, I guess the most unique thing about it, is you're using new technology to access that. I think that's a key point for a lot of the younger generations to connect with generations now, younger generations now, is by using new technologies for this, or would you say a lot of it by using traditional methods? I think you have to go with both. We're traditional people, but being traditional, we were always open to trying something new. That's part of the thing about being traditional. We were very innovative in the way we did things, like our people created and discovered things like canoes, snowshoes, baby carriers, cradleboards, that kind of stuff. Those myself came from somewhere. Those are new developments during our time. From way back then, people were developing new things all along the way. So being traditional, you have to say, okay, what's here in front of me? What can I use? What's in front of me is social media. We have it there. We have computers, and we have students and children who are very, very interested in what goes on on the internet and playing computer games. Some people are actually developing computer games in their languages, which is something we need more of. And hearing killing zombies in Cree would be great, you know? That kind of stuff needs to be done. It needs more work. Like 1985, I wrote a paper on using computers to teach Cree, and at that time we were doing interactive fiction games in Cree. Very, very good. That's 1985. So looking at it back then, it'll be really primitive. So it's really been since, you just mentioned since 1985, that's kind of always been using computers or new technology, has always been sort of something you were open to doing. Like really this Facebook group that you've created, I don't even want to say it because I think it's an online community because you reach tons of people. This has been a vision of yours for the last since 1985. I've been working with computers since 1985 in computer. I've generated language assistance and it's been wonderful. I love computer stuff and my kids have grown up with computers all their lives. Nowadays I just sit back if I need help with computers I'll call one of my kids. I don't even bother wanting to know how to do things. My son usually does this stuff for me. As someone who really advocates for our indigenous languages moving forward, what's something, a word of advice that you'd like to give to young people? Young people it's basically to keep on going in our perseverance because a lot of young people will face discouragement when they try to talk their languages because they face people will criticize them because they don't pronounce things properly and they'll get laughed at for mispronouncing things. Sometimes you can help the latter because we end up swearing when they didn't want to swear I laugh at those situations but the thing is to keep on trying and to know that to get something done you need to spend a lot of time on it in order to learn something you need to spend a lot of time on it and that's where a lot of people don't want to do don't realize that they figure it's here, I should know it right away like how long did it take you to read? several years even now unless I think that's what a lot of people forget if they could keep in mind how long did it take them to read? use the same analogy to say so how long is it going to take me to learn the language? what did I do to learn to read? you spend a lot of time on it right? so that's what you need to do to learn the language you need to spend a lot of time on it and this is basically where people need to pay attention to you need to spend a lot of time on there you don't expect to learn something right away and that's do you think that's accessible now that you have a lot of times we look at facebook on our phones even children can look at it on play stations and things like that so spending a lot more time would you say it's easier to it's more accessible this day and age let's say in the last 30 years to access the language? I think it is, it's more accessible to do it because there are apps in certain languages kri has an app actually anishinaabe has an app I don't know about nakota or dakota I haven't seen anything to that effect yet but the other languages in the states, some of the languages in the states shayan has an app and chikazawa I don't know if chikazawa has it but some of the other languages in the states have apps on there but the thing is also other first nations people are actually starting to write their posts what do you call them time line facebook posts? they're starting to write them in their languages they may spell the wrong spell the wrong but that's okay you weren't a perfect Spanish from the beginning from the time you started trying to write that's the thing that's the thing they have to remember they can't spell perfectly right away but they're starting to a friend of mine just sent me an inbox message yesterday now the whole whole things so I just sent him back a message in kri at the same time so he probably got this message he says what? so I said what? in Navajo he laughs at me when I try to make Navajo because I cannot pronounce some of their some of their sounds would you say learning kri is uh especially here at the university we've offered kri throughout the years have you had any students come back to you and say or our community members and specifically say like these facebook posts have helped me become a better kri speaker no I haven't had that and it's been nice to get that but I have had students say that they appreciate my posts that I see that they see on facebook and the person from England is just awesome there because he's always forever talking about what it really is to get this stuff and he's not indigenous at all there's an old man in North Carolina who is Anishinaabe originally Anishinaabe but he lives in North Carolina and he comes in and writes in kri he's just learning this from the online stuff because he's alone in North Carolina there's no kri over there kri really does increase picked up from social media which is really good to see wow that's really good I guess the other thing is if you had any last thoughts about where you would like to see whether you'd like to see more programs like this online or how important it is to have different languages using these sort of things like if there's anything else that you'd like to add to that it's just that I'd love to see more activities online with other languages and it is happening it's really nice to see the other thing that is keeping us away from a lot of us hesitate to post things online is basically traditional storytelling was traditionally done in the winter and so come summer months nobody wants to tell stories and post them online during the summer months and I have an older cousin who gets involved in kri immersion camps during the summer months and she actually tells traditional kri stories during the summer months now that what is she doing this is forbidden and she says well this is the only time she has to be with these people to tell you the stories like we have to change new things traditions die if they don't change at the times so she's telling stories the traditional stories in the summer months she's going to meet she is meeting a lot of resistance including for me but then I see her point so I'm willing to do the stories in the summer time now because we need to change a few things and to be able to keep these stories going