In August of 2025, the Cree Literacy Network received its first grant ever from Heritage Canada to support a project Aaron Fay and I titled “Sweetgrass Sacred Stories: A 21st-Century Perspective“. Last week in Sweetgrass we reached a milestone together, as Aaron completed his fourth four-day session with Wes, listening in Cree to stories both sacred and profane, recording to share with our fellow language learners.
In total, Aaron has now collected roughly 28-30 hours of recordings, representing as many as 70 individual stories of varying length. And we treasure every one of them!
Aaron created a TikTok video to acknowledge the milestone this week (embedded below – his username is @otipeyimisow). It captures yet another beautiful bite of wisdom from Wes (with a remarkable 33K FaceBook views to date).
Aaron also wrote and recorded this brief note of thanks in Cree so we could offer it here with read-along:
nipimi-nanâskomâw awa kisêyiniw kâ-pimi-ay-âcimostâkoyahk.
I’m deeply greatful to our mosôm and knowledge keeper Wes Fineday for sharing these stories and teachings with us.
#languagerevitalization #indigenouslanguages #nêhiyawêwin #creelanguage #âhkamêyimo
Enjoy this golden nugget, shared by Wes just last week. If you need help with the Cree, be patient: he provides full English translation at the end.
@otipeyimisow nipimi-nanâskomâw awa kisêyiniw kâ-pimi-ay-âcimostâkoyahk. I'm deeply greatful to our mosôm and knowledge keeper Wes Fineday for sharing these stories and teachings with us. Four sessions, 16 days and almost 30 hours of recordings almost entirely in nêhiyawêwin. What an honour, I still can't fully put it into words. And now the work begins of sorting, listening and posting this collection as we near this chapter of our project. All videos will be available on our YouTube channel, Sweetgrass Stories: A 21st-Century Perspective. Stay tuned #languagerevitalization #indigenouslanguages #nêhiyawêwin #creelanguage #âhkamêyimo
♬ original sound - otipêyimisow
