Museum’s Indigenous teaching aid awarded

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This article was published 09/11/2017 (2896 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Museum is receiving a Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Museums.

The museum in Winnipeg is receiving the History Alive! award for its development of an educational tool kit, called Spirit Lines, that combines Indigenous heritage with museum expertise. The tool kits are used in schools in the Garden Hill and Norway House First Nations in Manitoba, and provide access to a collection of assets preserved by the museum, a news release noted.

The heritage materials — ranging from audio recordings and replica artifacts created by local artisans, to instructions for making such traditional items as snowshoes and birch bark baskets — are being reintroduced to Indigenous communities. The kits allow for the advancement of Cree language teaching, and include a syllabic keyboard, enabling communication across networks in the Swampy Cree and Oji-Cree dialects, the release said.

“The Manitoba Museum’s Spirit Lines project is an inspiring work that captures the very essence of reconciliation,” said John McAvity, executive director of the Canadian Museums Association. “By working with Indigenous communities, the Manitoba Museum has been able to create educational tool kits that reintroduce into schools cultural heritage that may have otherwise been lost,” he said in the press release.

The award will be presented Nov. 22 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa by Gov. Gen. Julie Payette.

The award recognizes institutions that demonstrate excellence in the presentation, preservation and interpretation of Canadian history. The Governor General’s History Awards were established in 1996 to recognize excellence in teaching Canadian history.