Congratulations to elder William Dumas and his many collaborators for inspiring a whole collection of books to accompany the award-winning book, Pîsim Finds her Miskanow.
Thanks to Robert Falcon Ouellette (Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre, and dedicated Cree language learner) for sharing his interview with Mavis Reimer of the University of Winnipeg. Robert writes:
In 1993, the remains of a 25 year old Cree woman were found. She had lived 350 years ago near South Indian Lake [opiponipîwin]. The community lead archaeological research resulted in Elder William Dumas writing an award winning book, Pisim Finds Her Miskanow. This also led to working with Dr Reimer from The University of Winnipeg to create a research project with the goals of reclaiming Rocky Cree language history and culture. This is an interview with Dr Reimer about the community based research and partnerships that she has formed to ensure that knowledge moves beyond the academia to impacting community. Six Seasons research project is receiving $2.5M over 7 years to make this research possible. Only 15 projects were accepted for funding in this very competitive category of SSHRC. I was happy to be a part of making the announcement of funding today but also to hear directly from Dr Reimer on what work she will be doing in partnership.
The University of Winnipeg issued a press release and backgrounder – which you can view here as pdfs. Undergraduate students should watch out for Research Assistant opportunities in the coming year!
PR-2017-11-01 Six Seasons Rocky Cree
BG – Six Seasons of the Asiniskow Ithiniwak Final