This food network is expanding to offer more nutritious options
A group fighting food insecurity in historic African Nova Scotian communities is expanding. The Preston Area Food Network is now growing fresh vegetables and upgrading its community shed. The CBC's Gareth Hampshire has the story.
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Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
There's an app for that: Inside the technological battle to save Indigenous languages
'I will fight until the day I die for my language to survive and thrive.' Yvette Mollen's passion for championing Innu-aimun is unwavering. The professor, researcher, author and web content developer has dedicated most of her adult life to recording, preserving and passing on her ancestors' tongue, an Algonquian language spoken by some 10,000 Innu in Quebec and Labrador. One way she does this is by developing interactive online games that help children learn Innu-aimun, while also seeing how their people lived, and still could live, on the land. For Ms. Mollen — the recipient in 2024 of the Order of Quebec for her linguistic initiatives — Innu-aimun is the language closest to her heart, but all languages matter and deserve support to stay alive. 'Because if the Creator had wanted us all to speak the same language, he would have made it so,' she says. In fact, the United Nations estimates that of the 7,000 or so languages spoken worldwide today, some 47 per cent are threatened or endangered, most of them Indigenous tongues. In Canada, there are more than 70 distinct Indigenous languages spoken by First Nations, Inuit and Métis, but according to Canada's 2021 census, only 13.1 per cent of the Indigenous population reported knowing how to speak their traditional languages, down from 21.4 per cent in 2006. What's more, there is not a single Indigenous language in Canada that is not at risk, with the level of peril going from vulnerable (when a given language is still 'used by some children in all domains' or 'by all children in some domains') to definitely, severely and critically endangered (when only a few Elder speakers remain). On the critically endangered list are Haida and Tse'khene/Sekani, both with as few as a dozen speakers. But even Cree, which includes various regional dialects and has more than 86,000 speakers, is considered vulnerable. ('Cree' is the colonial name for these languages and peoples.) In Canada, the threats against Indigenous language use and proficiency are rooted in colonialism and assimilation policies. Historically, this was accomplished through residential schools, which forced children to speak only English or French and punished those who were caught conversing in their own languages. Consequently, many Indigenous people gave up speaking their mother tongues and did not pass them on to their children, a loss that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, declared a form of cultural genocide. But several communities and academic institutions across Canada are braiding tradition and technology to strengthen vulnerable languages, or even pull them back from the brink. The FirstVoices website, a joint project by the First Peoples' Cultural Council and the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation, has served as a platform for more than 50 Indigenous nations in Canada, the United States and Australia to share their languages since 2003. And increasingly, Indigenous people are creating websites, apps and online tools, including interactive dictionaries, YouTube beginner courses, grammar and pronunciation guides and archives of stories passed down from elders. Take York Factory First Nation (YFFN) in northern Manitoba. It wanted a way for members to easily access materials to learn Inineemowin, their dialect of Swampy Cree. Since most youth these days are attached to a smartphone, an app was the logical learning tool. But the First Nation also wanted a resource that would reflect who and where they are, and where they come from—an app steeped in history and the local context. So when Jordan Dysart, a Cree-Métis software developer with Winnipeg-based Vincent Design, was tasked with creating YFFN's Inineemowin language app, he looked to the nation's knowledge holders. 'To capture the specifics, you need to be sensitive regarding cultural knowledge and what you put forward,' he says, adding that the app, built mainly for YFFN's members, would also be out there for anyone to use. Together with a language committee and cultural advisers from the community, and in collaboration with the Winnipeg design firm HTFC, they workshopped ways to deliver grammar in a non-academic, grassroots way. The result features audio files and flashcards based on aspects, objects and activities specific to the nation's location and culture. Through its eight-module Learning Pathway, it guides beginners through basic Swampy Cree grammar, vocabulary and phrases through activities that would take place on the land, such as observing and tracking animals, but also through traditional skills like hunting and sewing. 'They wanted to share their story in their specific language,' says Mr. Dysart about York Factory First Nation. 'The Inineemowin app is a fingerprint of the community.' One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Indigenous Enterprises section. If you have suggestions for future stories, reach out to IE@
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Indigenous leaders urge reburial of Beothuk remains in Newfoundland
Perched atop Signal Hill, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, daily tours often recount the colonial tale of St. John's — a narrative of European settlers forging new lives on distant shores. Yet beneath the echoes of colonial triumph lies an even deeper story: one of the Beothuk, the Indigenous people of Newfoundland whose voices were largely silenced by colonization. Indigenous leaders in Newfoundland and Labrador are calling for the return and reburial of two Beothuk ancestors, Demasduit and Nonosabasut, whose remains have been in storage for more than two centuries. Now under the care of The Rooms provincial museum archives in St. John's, discussions are under way about their final resting place on their ancestral land. "They were stolen, they were taken, they were grave robbing and it's long overdue for them to come back where they belong," said, Mi'sel Joe, traditional chief of Miawpukek First Nation. A history of tragedy Nonosabasut, a Beothuk leader, was killed by European settlers during a violent clash in 1819 near Beothuk Lake in central Newfoundland. His wife, Demasduit, was captured shortly thereafter. She gave birth to their child, only for the infant to perish days later. Although attempts were made to return Demasduit to Beothuk Lake that summer, she succumbed to tuberculosis in January 1820 and was laid to rest beside her husband in a simple coffin. Decades later, Scottish explorer William Cormack located their gravesite and brought their remains to the National Museum of Scotland — an act that historians now recognized as grave robbing. For nearly 200 years, the remains were kept in Edinburgh before being repatriated to Canada in 2020. "She was taken away from her home and her infant child violently by colonists and later she and her husband had their skulls removed from their grave," said Leahdawn Helena, a Mi'kmaw playwright originally from Bay St. George, N.L. "It's just an all‑around really tragic series of events." Helena's extensive research into the lives of Beothuk women, most notably featured in her play-turned-book Stolen Sisters, resurrects the otherwise marginalized narratives of Indigenous women before and after colonization. Her work revisits the story of Demasduit, whose life and suffering mirror repeated patterns of dispossession and violence. "I think it's really exemplary of a universal Indigenous experience of colonialism… a story that repeats over and over again with just as much tragedy, just as much loss, just as much violence," Helena said affirms, highlighting how the Beothuk experience aligns with Indigenous histories across the globe. Remembering the Beothuk The Beothuk were the original inhabitants of what is now known as Newfoundland. They predominantly resided in central Newfoundland, near the Exploits River and Beothuk Lake. Travel within their island homelands was facilitated by birchbark canoes, and large sedentary camps were interspersed with seasonal encampments along rivers and lakes. Their sustenance was drawn from the land and sea: they harvested fish, hunted caribou and sea animals, and gathered berries and roots. The Beothuk were a hunting and fishing people whose seasonal movements were closely tied to the availability of resources. In spring and summer, families spread out along the coast to fish and gather, while in the fall they moved inland to hunt, trap, or organize caribou drives along rivers and streams. To meet their subsistence needs, each band required access to a large and varied territory rich in natural resources, according to N.L.'s Heritage project. In the early 1600s, for instance, the Beothuk — who interacted and traded with John Guy of the English settlement at Cupids — gathered seabirds, eggs, and fish along the shores of Trinity Bay. In Placentia Bay, they fished for salmon in the Come-by-Chance River and likely hunted the plentiful harbour seals on nearby islands. In a distinctive cultural practice, the Beothuk adorned their bodies, clothing, and tools with red ochre, earning them the misnomer "Red Indians" by early European explorers — a term now recognized as derogatory. Through displacement, disease, loss of natural resources, and violent encounters with settlers throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, the Beothuk population dwindled dramatically. With no transmission of culture and no new generations to carry on traditions, the Beothuk are often referred to as culturally extinct. The path to repatriation The repatriation process began in 2015 when Chief Mi'sel Joe initiated a campaign to return Beothuk remains to their homeland. This effort gained momentum with support from the provincial and federal governments and several Indigenous organizations, including the Nunatsiavut Government, Innu Nation, Qalipu First Nation and NunatuKavut Community Council. "There's nobody around to speak for the Beothuk people at this time. And somebody has to start a process of bringing those remains back to this land where they belong," said Chief Joe. Today, the remains of Demasduit and Nonosabasut are held at The Rooms in St. John's. While the physical repatriation is complete, Indigenous leadership is guiding the process to determine their final resting place. A statement from the office of Scott Reid, Newfoundland's Minister Responsible for Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation, said that they are leaving it in the hands of the Final Resting Place Circle to determine where Demasduit and Nonasabusut will be buried and that the province "will not dictate to them timelines as this is an Indigenous‑led process." In the meantime, Demasduit and Nonosabasut continue to wait in the vault at The Rooms.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
ADVERTISEMENT Video Milestones for June 26, 2025 Send your pictures and details to milestones@cp24.com for a chance to be featured on air.
Video Send your pictures and details to milestones@ for a chance to be featured on air.
