In just a few days, a life-size birch bark canoe built by five Indigenous students in the Upper Grand District School board will be paddling along the Eramosa River.
Using materials such as birch bark, cedar wood and spruce needles, students followed the direction of Chuck Commanda, one of a few remaining First Nation individuals who continues the traditional craft of building birch bark canoes who travels across the province to encourage Indigenous youth to learn the traditional and ancient art and skill.
“They've been loving it. They've never seen anything like this,” said Colinda Clyne, the lead of First Nation, Metis and Inuit education at the UGDSB.
“There are no manufactured parts on the canoe. The nails had to be created out of wood out of a chunk of wood, and then they're sewn with spruce root, so the spruce has been harvested from a spruce tree.”
The project was to help Indigenous students get in touch with their heritage and knowledge and was created in partnership with Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Healing Centre Waterloo Wellington.
Five out of 160 self identified Indigenous students at the UGDSB spent seven hours each day at the wood shop at John F. Ross for the nine day project. The plan is to test the completed canoe on the Eramosa River on Wednesday. The canoe will also do a tour in schools of the students that participated in the project.
Students have also been learning how to create smaller items from the left-over pieces of birch bark, like beaded earrings, miniature canoes and baskets.
Clyne said during this time when conversations about truth and reconciliation are taking place, it's really important for school systems — which are colonial by nature — create opportunities for students to reclaim their cultural practices and identities.
“Traditional practices need to be taught by Indigenous people. There's a handful of us who are Indigenous who work in the school board so we have to find these ways. I think as a colonial system this is the opportunity for the school system to support this sort of initiative in their act of reconciliation to Indigenous students and their families,” said Clyne.
Clyne said none of the students knew what they were doing when they began the project, and as the days progressed, their confidence grew.
“They can share it and share the experience and and tell other Indigenous youth about it because we want them to be proud of who they are and what their their heritage is because many of us come from families where our parents or grandparents were not proud, and they hid it, because it was you know something that they felt ashamed of their identity.”
She said one of the important lessons of this project is teaching students the value of bringing Western and Indigenous knowledge together rather than having a dismissive attitude toward either of them.
“So that's something I do hope sticks with them, if they're ever out and learn how to identify that and be connected to the land,” said Commanda.
