"An elder visits Grade 7 students at Alaqsite'w Gitpu School in Listuguj to share Mi'gmaq legends and cultural stories. The students then narrate the stories in their own words, combined with a mix of animated drawings, real life footage and homemade sound effects."
"Alaqsite'w Gitpu School on the Listuguj First Nation has been offering a Mi'kmaq immersion program for students from kindergarten to Grade 4 since 2002 and is now taking the next step and developing its own curriculum. Since September, Mary Ann Metallic, 66, has been working with a group of Mi'kmaq speakers in an effort to improve their fluency, along with their reading and writing."
"Cape St George is unique in many ways. It has been isolated from the rest of Newfoundland for so long that it has a very unique cultural identity. In a time when the rest of western Newfoundland was being assimilated into English Newfoundland culture, a few communities on the end of the Port au Port peninsula held onto their culture and language. Alas, the French barely held on and the Mi'kmaq language all but disappeared. The cultural identity, however, remained....In this booklet we have scratched the surface of the rich history and culture that surrounds this area. The men and women that have revealed a glimpse of what it was and is to be Mi'kmaq in Cape St George have invited you to experience a small part of their experience. I hope you enjoy."
"To mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, the Mi'kmaq flag will be raised Friday at Moncton City Hall and will be flown there permanently. The Mi'kmaq Grand Council flag joins the Canadian, New Brunswick, United Kingdom, Acadian and Moncton flags already flying outside the building."
On Jan. 6, 2018, the students from Mount Stewart Consolidated School sang the national anthem in Mi'kmaq at the Island Storm basketball game in Charlottetown. On June 21, 2018, National Indigenous People's Day, schools across P.E.I. started their morning with the recording and many schools continue to play it on a regular basis.The nine-minute film, entitled "Oh Kanata", is a call to action for educators and parents to download the recording so that any school in Canada can listen to the anthem in Mi'kmaq in the daily morning rotation as a way of making steps along the road to reconciliation.
The International Year of Indigenous Languages is a United Nations observance in 2019 that aims to raise awareness of the consequences of the endangerment of Indigenous languages across the world, with an aim to establish a link between language, development, peace, and reconciliation.
To bring awareness to this important cause, students at Allison Bernard Memorial High School in Eskasoni, Cape Breton recorded Paul McCartney's Blackbird in their native Mi'kmaq language.
Pu'tliskiej wapinintoq
(Blackbird singing in the dead of night)
Kina'masi telayja'timk
(Take these broken wings and learn to fly)
Tel pitawsin
(All your life)
Eskimatimu'sipnek nike' mnja'sin
(You were only waiting for this moment to arise)
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"Born in Stephenville Crossing Ktaqamkuk and of Mi'kmaq descent, Jordan Bennett's ongoing practice utilizes painting, sculpture, video, installation and sound to explore land, language, the act of visiting and familial histories. His work challenges colonial perceptions of indigenous histories, stereotypes and presence with a focus on exploring Mi'kmaq and Beothuk visual culture of Ktaqamkuk. Over the past ten years, Bennett has participated in over 75 group and solo exhibitions, both nationally and internationally."
"In his new exhibition at Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, "Ketu'elmita'jik," Jordan Bennett has created something truly remarkable. Bennett, who is of Mi'kmaq descent from Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland and Labrador, is now living in the Halifax region at Terence Bay, Nova Scotia. In this show—whose title term translates as "they want to go home"—Bennett makes full use of the gallery's architectural quirks to create an immersive environment where traditional Mi'kmaq and Beothuk design motifs take on new life through physical, graphic and conceptual extensions in time and space...."
