Traditional teachings featured at Thunder Bay school

Popped wild rice, fried moose meat and corn soup were a hit at Ecole Gron Morgan’s May 24 cultural celebration of First Nation and Metis traditions.
“That’s usually what they like best — the popped wild rice,” said Seven Generation’s Mark Sault, who explained to the students how much work goes into preparing corn soup and wild rice during his traditional foods workshop. “It takes hours and hours on end. I think they’ll have a little more appreciation for the food when they’re eating it.”
In addition to Sault’s traditional foods workshop, the cultural celebration featured interactive workshops about making bannock, traditional games, drum teachings, Metis teachings, beading, water teachings, the medicine wheel, the hand drum, trapping and regalia teachings led by a number of Aboriginal community resource people.
“The goal of the day is to enhance what the students are already learning in the curriculum and to allow students to discuss and talk about their understanding of the culture with peers, parents and teachers,” said Darren Lentz, Ecole Gron Morgan’s vice principal. “It is a great opportunity for dialogue which will culminate with a community powwow in the afternoon.”
The traditional foods, traditional games, water teachings and bannock making workshops were held on the school grounds while the other workshops were held in the school gymnasium.
“Actually, our station was originally inside and we broke out,” said Lynnita Guillet, Aboriginal resource person at Lakehead Public Schools. “Because we were doing water teachings and water does come from the earth, we thought it was important to break out of the gym and get out here on the land.”
Guillet and Alice Sabourin shared the water teachings with students during their workshop.
“Today we are doing grandmother moon teachings and water teachings and sharing with the children our relationship to the water,” Sabourin said, “especially as women as water keepers and our responsibility of the water, that we have to always be mindful and also to love the water.”
The daylong event was organized with input from students and staff from the Biwasse’aa after-school program. Ecole Gron Morgan has an enrollment of about 600 students, including one of the highest Aboriginal student populations in Thunder Bay.
“It’s an opportunity for students to see First Nations culture and Metis culture first hand from individuals in our community,” Lentz said. “We wanted them to see it and talk about it, have dialogue about it with their classroom teacher, with each other and with their parents at home. They get really excited when they’re out here doing those (activities) and we want to continue that excitement through dialogue and get them to develop their oral language and ask questions and take those teachings and learnings back to their parents and share them with their parents.”
Gideon McKay and Coral Chisel taught the students how to play lacrosse during the traditional games workshop.
“I was trying to get them to scoop (the ball) up but there was too many of them crowding around,” McKay said. “Traditionally, it was played with a stick and for the netting they would use sinew. There wouldn’t be a limit to the number of players — there would be like hundreds and thousands — basically the whole community would play.”
McKay said the field size ranged from the size of a soccer field to many miles long.
“They would start from dawn even to dusk,” McKay said. “Even days at a time.”
Chisel said lacrosse promotes teamwork and cooperation.
“It’s one of those games where anybody could play,” Chisel said.
Matt Roy, a Grade 2-3 teacher, said his students “loved” the workshops, noting he wished the students had more time to learn about the traditional teachings.
“They just loved seeing all the things that were happening,” Roy said. “They were doing the beading, learning about culture. This is great to actually meet people who do this as part of their life and really offer that insight into it.”