This inquiry answered the questions: What is the most culturally respectful method for a cross-cultural researcher to discover how northern Aboriginal people learn and make decisions about their health? What will be the common patterns of learning among northern Saskatchewan Aboriginal people who have altered their life path? And what strategies will any common patterns suggest for the development of health promotion and community development programs specific to the cultures and people of northern Saskatchewan? Six Aboriginal people, whom I call my teachers, were selected because they had turned their lives around to more closely approximate a Cree idea of health called mithwayawin or the Dene idea of health called hote Zgehenai. A literature search and consultations with my teachers suggested that a respectful form of cross-cultural inquiry was possible in northern Saskatchewan communities. Furthermore, there were common themes suggesting a foundation of wellness and resilience indicating that similar resiliency factors exist in northern cultures as exist in other cultures. As well, common patterns suggested a lateral thinking and learning style or creative problem solving that is different from vertical or linear thinking common to the scientific-industrial cultures. Moreover, other themes suggested that the teachers had a preference for accumulating experience over abstract analysis indicating the desirability of active participation by community members in defining health challenges, arriving at solutions and planning and implementing changes. Furthermore, other themes suggested that the teachers life long learning occurred in a holistic context indicating that health promotion strategies could provide rich social, physical, spiritual and mental contexts within which Northerners can learn. As well, other themes suggested that the teachers used an Aboriginal ecological learning process indicating that health promotion efforts could consider working to revitalize the cultural beliefs, values and practices and could provide a rich environment of spiritual, physical and social activities so that the people would have the opportunity to fully develop their brain, mind, body, memory continuum and thereby achieve balance. The findings further implied that increasing general health knowledge among Northerners and using a community health development process in northern communities are strategies that northern health promotion and community development workers could consider employing in their work. More detailed and specific strategies are suggested.

This thesis concerns a study of an elementary school Cree bilingual program. Students’ language proficiency, attitudes and academic performance were analyzed and parent and teacher interviews were conducted to assess the program’s effectiveness and to determine how well it meets community needs and expectations. The study found that students were learning Cree vocabulary but developing only limited communicative ability and they were not able to converse. The study also found that Cree Program students had positive attitudes toward Cree language and culture, and that their performance in other subject areas was not negatively affected by their focus on Cree language learning. Adult interviews demonstrated that parents and teachers had realistic assessments of students’ performance, but that they were strongly committed to the program. Parents demonstrated that they were very engaged in their children’s education. / October 2006

This inquiry answered the questions: What is the most culturally respectful method for a cross-cultural researcher to discover how northern Aboriginal people learn and make decisions about their health? What will be the common patterns of learning among northern Saskatchewan Aboriginal people who have altered their life path? And what strategies will any common patterns suggest for the development of health promotion and community development programs specific to the cultures and people of northern Saskatchewan? Six Aboriginal people, whom I call my teachers, were selected because they had turned their lives around to more closely approximate a Cree idea of health called mithwayawin or the Dene idea of health called hote Zgehenai. A literature search and consultations with my teachers suggested that a respectful form of cross-cultural inquiry was possible in northern Saskatchewan communities. Furthermore, there were common themes suggesting a foundation of wellness and resilience indicating that similar resiliency factors exist in northern cultures as exist in other cultures. As well, common patterns suggested a lateral thinking and learning style or creative problem solving that is different from vertical or linear thinking common to the scientific-industrial cultures. Moreover, other themes suggested that the teachers had a preference for accumulating experience over abstract analysis indicating the desirability of active participation by community members in defining health challenges, arriving at solutions and planning and implementing changes. Furthermore, other themes suggested that the teachers life long learning occurred in a holistic context indicating that health promotion strategies could provide rich social, physical, spiritual and mental contexts within which Northerners can learn. As well, other themes suggested that the teachers used an Aboriginal ecological learning process indicating that health promotion efforts could consider working to revitalize the cultural beliefs, values and practices and could provide a rich environment of spiritual, physical and social activities so that the people would have the opportunity to fully develop their brain, mind, body, memory continuum and thereby achieve balance. The findings further implied that increasing general health knowledge among Northerners and using a community health development process in northern communities are strategies that northern health promotion and community development workers could consider employing in their work. More detailed and specific strategies are suggested.

This thesis presents a cultural analysis of teenage pregnancy in a Cree community. In the last fifty years, social and material change, prompted by residential schooling and the growth of settlement life, have catalyzed a shift in teenage perceptions of parental authority and norms of social relations. Today the peer group is a pre-eminent agent of socialization, generating pressure to drink and be sexually active. The peer group also, in part, sustains the valuation of motherhood, and some indigenous norms of interpersonal communication and socially appropriate behaviour. In this contemporary context, the meanings of teenage childbearing are multiple, and different for each individual. / Although a biological fact, teenage pregnancy may also be seen as a product of how differentials in power between teenagers, their peers and people of different age and social groupings are played out. The construction of a category of adolescence and the centrality of fertility and reproduction are keys to understanding the social and symbolic significance of teenage pregnancy. This analysis emphasizes the interactive relationship between historical change, ideological beliefs and individual perceptions in shaping the meaning of teenage pregnancy in a Cree community.

No description available.

The aim of this project is to investigate the transmission of knowledge, and cultural values on the margins of the colonial agenda. The oral traditional accounts, and lived experience of Kéhté-yatis Charles F. Queskekapow, in the community of Kinoséwi Sípíhk [Fish River], are examined through the lens of a postcolonial Indigenous research paradigm. As a synthesis of an Indigenous perspective, and Euro-Western research methodologies, consisting of an open-ended interview approach, and the local Indigenous knowledge, the goals and objectives of this project are: 1) to determine the role of the Kéhté-yatis(ak) [Elders], 2) establish the local interpretation of Kéhté-yatis onakatamakéwina 3) to determine the impacts of colonialism had on the transmission of traditional knowledge, and culture 4) to analyze the impacts of colonization on the broader concept of community. This research locates the detrimental impacts of colonialism, the loss of identity in the historical context, and endeavors to contribute to affirmation of our cultural practices, and values in the present.

The aim of this project is to investigate the transmission of knowledge, and cultural values on the margins of the colonial agenda. The oral traditional accounts, and lived experience of Kéhté-yatis Charles F. Queskekapow, in the community of Kinoséwi Sípíhk [Fish River], are examined through the lens of a postcolonial Indigenous research paradigm. As a synthesis of an Indigenous perspective, and Euro-Western research methodologies, consisting of an open-ended interview approach, and the local Indigenous knowledge, the goals and objectives of this project are: 1) to determine the role of the Kéhté-yatis(ak) [Elders], 2) establish the local interpretation of Kéhté-yatis onakatamakéwina 3) to determine the impacts of colonialism had on the transmission of traditional knowledge, and culture 4) to analyze the impacts of colonization on the broader concept of community. This research locates the detrimental impacts of colonialism, the loss of identity in the historical context, and endeavors to contribute to affirmation of our cultural practices, and values in the present.

The rocks studied in this thesis have been the subject of considerable discussion as to their original nature. J. D. Bateman of the Geological Survey of Canada considers that they are of igneous origin whereas others believe that they are metamorphosed sediments. It was thought that a petrographical study might provide some information that would help to decide the problem and it was with this object in view that this study was undertaken. Cree Lake, in the vicinity of which the rocks occur, is situated 2 miles North of the Sherritt-Gordon Mine, Manitoba, which lies about 20 miles east of the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border and 120 miles northwest of the north end of L. Winnipeg. The Sherritt-Gordon copper-zinc ore deposit is a very remarkable deposit in that it is a tabular body with a total outcrop length of 16,000 feet and an average width of 15 feet, thus being one of the longest exposed ore bodies in the world. The rocks in question outcrop around Found Lake which lies very close to and just to the southeast of Cree Lake (see Map 44-4) and fall into two groups; firstly, thos that outcrop south of Found Lake in an area which was mapped by J. D. Bateman as an oval body of oligoclase granite (Map 44-4, No. 12) about one mile long and 1/4 mile wide and secondly, those that outcrop as three smaller masses north of Found Lake but enclosed by the arms of Cree Lake and mapped as anorthositic gabbro (Map 44-4, No. 11). [...]

This thesis concerns a study of an elementary school Cree bilingual program. Students’ language proficiency, attitudes and academic performance were analyzed and parent and teacher interviews were conducted to assess the program’s effectiveness and to determine how well it meets community needs and expectations. The study found that students were learning Cree vocabulary but developing only limited communicative ability and they were not able to converse. The study also found that Cree Program students had positive attitudes toward Cree language and culture, and that their performance in other subject areas was not negatively affected by their focus on Cree language learning. Adult interviews demonstrated that parents and teachers had realistic assessments of students’ performance, but that they were strongly committed to the program. Parents demonstrated that they were very engaged in their children’s education.

This thesis concerns a study of an elementary school Cree bilingual program. Students’ language proficiency, attitudes and academic performance were analyzed and parent and teacher interviews were conducted to assess the program’s effectiveness and to determine how well it meets community needs and expectations. The study found that students were learning Cree vocabulary but developing only limited communicative ability and they were not able to converse. The study also found that Cree Program students had positive attitudes toward Cree language and culture, and that their performance in other subject areas was not negatively affected by their focus on Cree language learning. Adult interviews demonstrated that parents and teachers had realistic assessments of students’ performance, but that they were strongly committed to the program. Parents demonstrated that they were very engaged in their children’s education.