Learning tradition through the land-based healing program

By Paul Oskineegish

I am the program coordinator of the land-based healing program. The program started in April. It is a new program. This program started because we wanted to take the young people out on the land to do our traditions and culture. I do traditional things. Fishing, moose hunting, those kinds of things. 

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Preparing for the season is very important. In the fall, you prepare for the winter. You get the wood ready. I should be coordinating these types of things. I have chainsaws and can teach the young people how to go out and get the wood. 

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So far in the program we have gone on a fish basket trip in the spring, we have gone ice fishing, trail blazing, birch bark picking, snow shoeing, skidooing, snare fishing, goose hunting, sewing, and we hosted a slingshot competition. 

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I like to give hands-on education. That’s what I like to see.

There will be a fishing derby on Indigenous People’s Day and there will be fish to eat afterwards. 

One of the highlights this summer will be the youth retreat which will be a celebration of the 20 years of the youth retreat which will take place in July. There will be teachers and instructors who teach how to make a fishing net, how to cut the fish, how to smoke white fish. You need to do these things hands on. 

My vision is that the youth will know how to go on the land, I want them to learn how to go on their own and that they will be confident in what they know. 

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My grandfather taught me how to make snowshoes. I watched him to learn how to make the snowshoes. The traditional ways still need to be learned today and the youth have to pass it on. The language, too. That’s what’s most important is the language for us. For me it’s a balance between English and our language. You have to balance those two. Balance is important for the land, too. 

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