Aurora College educator Mari Darkes (second from left) works with her Adult Basic Education class on fish-scale art in the Northern Life Museum.

Literacy and Traditional Knowledge at the Northern Life Museum
Fort Smith, Northwest Territories

A Joint Report by Students involved in the Project

Life Before Reading the Museum
The Northern Life Museum has many objects made by aboriginal people. However, in its twenty-five year history, few aboriglinal people had worked with the collection. Students and other visitors were not allowed to touch the objects. At the same time, Aurora College had many adult learners who needed basic literacy skills. Over ninety percent of these students were aboriginal. Many students had been out of school for a long time and were tired of studying books. Finally, the aboriginal community had elders with traditional skills that few young people were learning. When these elders died, the skills were lost. We wanted to work together to help solve these problems.

The Process
Elders were hired to come into the museum to show their skills to students from the Aurora College Community Learning Centre, the Albert Bourque Education Centre (sponsored by the Salt River First Nation), Paul Kaesar High School, Joseph B. Tyrell Elementary School, the Community Day-Care, Women's Corrections and the general public.

First, Jane Dragon, an elder from Fort Smith, NT, showed how to make fish-scale art. Then, two elders from Lutsel K'e, NT, Madeleine and Judith Catholique, showed how to tan caribou hides. They had learned this skill from their mother when they lived in the bush sixty years ago. The students watched, listened to and worked with the elders while they made the objects. They made notes

about the elders, their techniques, and their stories about the traditional objects.

After the sessions at the Museum, the students wrote reports and stories for their individual programs. Some of the students speak Chipewyan and were able to talk with the elders in their first language. The Chipewyan names for tools and materials were recorded and translated. The students' work was collected in a booklet, which will be used to make lesson plans for education kits for the school division.

Life Today
The Northern Life Museum has a new collection of aboriginal objects. Students and teachers may touch these objects and read the stories of the people who made them. When people in the community heard about the program, they came to the museum to watch and help. Now, five adults from the Investing in People program are working at the museum. They are teaching people caribou-hair tufting and bead-work. The elders were able to show young people how to make things in the old ways and the students have improved their literacy skills by writing about something their ancestors used to do. This was the first time we all worked together. Now everyone is asking, "What are we going to make next?"

The students of Aurora College and the staff of Northern Life Museum would like to thank the Canadian Museums Association and the National Literacy Secretariat for their assistance in making this project a success.