In the second year of the program, not only will Indigenous youth be a part of Greater Sudbury Police’s Mooz Akinonmaaget Maa Aki (Moose Who Teaches Land Survival), but non-Indigenous youth as well.
It’s a chance for cross-cultural sharing, Det-Cst. Darrell Rivers told Sudbury.com at the launch of the event.
Rivers is the Indigenous Liaison Officer with GSPS and is one of the founders of the program, along with child and family services organizations and Shkagamik-Kwe Health Centre. The first run of the program began in June of 2021 and finished with a great feast in November that year.
Working in partnership with local Indigenous agencies that help youth in care and in transition such as Kina Gbezhgomi Child & Family Services, Nogdawindamin Family & Community Services and Niijaansinaanik Child and Family Services to create a pilot program, there was the hope of offering both a practical education in hunting, but also, a spiritual one.
Darren McGregor of Sagamok First Nation is a cultural educator and traditional knowledge keeper who works with Nogdawindamin Child and Family Services. He told the group at the launch that the ability to hunt is a gift given by the creator, and not one that should be taken lightly.
“When you have a gift, you need to make sure that gift is being nourished and taken care of in a good way,” said McGregor. “When we're teaching our youth about the seven grandfather teachings, they cherish that gift, they nourish that gift. Because we strive for knowledge, not to be better than anybody else, but to better ourselves.”
Rivers is excited this year for the chance to not only work with the Children's Aid Society Of The Districts Of Sudbury And Manitoulin, but the Rainbow District School Board as well, as the program can now offer two credits towards cooperative education.
“We worked with Jody Jakubo from Rainbow School Board through the winter and most of the spring to expand the program a little bit to accommodate, and with her hard work, we were able to expand it.”
Last year the program was all boys, but this year, there are girls attending as well. “This year, we're half boys and half girls,” he said, “So we're introducing female teachings, and we'll have female knowledge keepers. So that's another big component to this year's program.” Rivers is also pleased to be adding a legacy factor, having the original 2021 group back out to the land to meet the new group, and to have each group plant a tree on the hunting lands. This will continue as long as the program does.
In addition to the teachings and chance to get out on the land, the participants will also be able to take home some of the harvest, with the rest, at least half, going to the Shkagamik-Kwe Wild Game Indigenous Food Bank.
Angela Recollet, executive director of Shkagamik-Kwe Health Centre, said not only is the food bank happy to have the donation, but that this type of program is essential for their youth.
She describes life as a wheel, with birth, youth, adulthood and elderhood.
“For us, in the adult stage, it's our responsibility to ensure that the youth and the elders have a direct connection with one another, otherwise, our knowledge transfer can't continue,” said Recollet. “It's a circle of life, it's a circle of knowledge, and this has been happening for time immemorial.”
She said these teachings are essential for understanding the natural order of things. “Giving thanks to all of creation, to our four-legged family, the flyers, the crawlers, the seen and the unseen, those are parts of the fundamental value system that we're all raised with as human beings.”
She told Sudbury.com it is important to honour these teachings, for they were once almost lost.
“We did not have access to them (teachings) because of residential school, because of Indian Day School,” said Recollet. “For us, we need to recognize the resiliency of our nationhood, to reclaim who we are as a people, and to give safe space and places of belonging to the youth that are here with us and those that have yet to come.”
She said it will be an important safe space for Indigenous to recongnize their “blood memory,” a memory from their ancestors who knew the traditional ways. Recollet also said the donation will be beneficial for those who use the wild food bank. “Diabetes didn't just happen, it came because we didn't have access to our natural food system,” she said. “And so, this is our effort in reconciling that relationship with our land resources, with our four legged resources and honoring the sacrifice that they give to us, for us to survive.”
Recollet said Indigneous people are guided by their own land protocols. “We have respect for what those teachings are, and we provide those teachings to our youth.” She said they hold ceremonies to honour the animal, utilize every part for food and medicine, and then provide food for the community. “We have our land stewardship, we have our protocols that guide us, and we need to ensure that we're sustaining that moose population so that generations to come will still have that opportunity to feed their families.”
