Cree Literacy Network

Watch our collection of recordings grow on our dedicated YouTube channel:
Sweetgrass Stories: A 21st Century Perspective 

We’re more than a little over the moon to announce that the Cree Literacy Network has been awarded our first grant ever. We applied successfully to the Indigenous Languages Component of Canadian Heritage, funded by the Government of Canada, to undertake a project titled, “Sweetgrass Sacred Stories: 21st Century Perspective.” And now the real work starts! 

The project proposal came about when Wes Fineday – an Elder, Knowledge Keeper and Medicine Man from Sweetgrass – offered members of the Cree Literacy Network the very rare privilege of working with him directly. Wes is the great-grandson of kâ-miyokîsihkwêw or “Fine Day”, the noted warrior and shaman – reportedly Poundmaker’s War Chief – who fought in the defense of Cutknife Hill in 1885. In addition to his direct genealogical connection, Wes was also acquainted as a young man with many of the original Sweetgrass community members who entrusted Bloomfield with their stories in 1925.

As a gifted storyteller himself, Wes is also uniquely placed to provide that “21st-century Perspective” on the events that helped shape the beloved books, Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree and Plains Cree Texts. It is both an honour and a responsibility to be invited to help with this work, along with my friend and colleague Aaron Fay (whose language reclamation videos are popular on TikTok). We are grateful to Paul Sutherland of the American Philosophical Society for his help locating and digitizing documents from the collection there for our use in the project. We also owe some some deep appreciation to Charlene Bonnar and Jasper Bonnar for their patient and generous dedication to managing ordinary needs during the recording sessions, allowing Aaron and Wes to focus on the stories and the listening. 

At Wes’s request, we are proud to present two of the first recordings from our collection. Our very first video captures Wes’s personal declaration of his ownership of this material, and of the stature and autonomy with which he has chosen to share it through us (because people are sure to ask). The second video, which follows, is the story of How Sweetgrass Became Chief. As more videos are ready to share, we’ll be presenting them here with pride. We’ll be preparing transcriptions and translations as time permits (using Aaron’s kiyânaw: Transcribe software), but for now, as we’re getting started, gathering the recordings is our primary goal. 

Video 1: As Aaron Fay recently wrote on FaceBook: “We know there’s a larger discussion around copyright, ownership, when & how to share stories and the language. For the videos produced for this project, we’re operating at the direction of our Elder Wes Fineday and we look to him for direction regarding our project as we try to do things in the best way we know how. Here are his thoughts and words as it pertains to sharing these stories.”