About 200 Cree students participated in the Cree School Board’s Higher Learning, Building Capacity Conference at Rogers Centre in Ottawa February 20-22.
The theme of this year’s event was “Preparing Our niimuutaan for Tomorrow’s Journey.” Organizers chose the term niimuutaan (Cree handmade bags) to symbolize the retaining of knowledge and tools for success.
The conference was an opportunity to network with other students, meet potential employers and connect with Elders and Knowledge Keepers. It included workshops on Cree language, history and culture, and panel discussions.
One panellist was Lyric Moses of Waswanipi. Moses has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Ottawa, a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Toronto and is in her second year studying medicine at uOttawa. She is set to graduate in 2028, when she hopes to become a family doctor.
Moses said highlights were testimonies and inspiring stories from leaders and students. “It was a positive space where people felt comfortable to share,” she said, adding that hearing from other Crees is important.
“You sometimes feel alone or isolated,” Moses explained. “You don’t feel like you belong in the environment that you’re in. Being away from your community, away from your home and away from your family can be really hard.”
She said the conference was an opportunity to reconnect with family, friends and fellow Eeyouch.
One inspirational experience from the event for Moses was hearing from Cree leaders, including James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement signatories Philip Awashish and Robert Kanatewat. “I am proud of the agreement because it has enabled us to grow as a Nation and recover from our dreadful past,” Awashish said.
He explained that before the JBNQA Crees were for the most part hunters and fishers as opposed to the modern living of today where Crees work for a salary in a wage economy.
“Over the past 50 years things have changed,” Awashish stated. “Life has changed. We have determined our way of life through Eeyou Ituun (the Cree way of life). Ituun is the way we do things. The way we govern ourselves. The way we live.
“That life has now evolved to the point where there are many, many more people working in the wage economy. Our way of life now involves the wage economy plus our hunting and fishing activities. We have never abandoned those activities and, most importantly, we have never abandoned Eeyou Istchee.”
Kanatewat said that before the agreement Cree university and college graduates were rare and the federal government attempted to control Cree communities.
“They tried to assimilate us and failed. We came together as one Nation. We fought together as one Nation. Now we have the ability to run our own affairs. When I was going to school and turned 16 that was as far as I could go. Not because I wasn’t able to but because that was the end of the government’s responsibility.”
Kanatewat said he enjoys seeing the accomplishments of today’s youth.
“Someday you are going to be taking over from the present leaders, and this is what makes me proud to be a Cree.”