A STORY TO FOLLOW
“What’s Happening at Charles Hays Secondary School in Prince Rupert, BC?”
Post 4
Gitsxan weaver Frances Jackson taught us to weave cedar rope for our Grizzly Bear Box of Hope.
Cedar bark is naturally strong. We are making cedar rope because for us it represents the strength of Aboriginal people.
Frances prepared yellow and redar cedar bark for the classes but students had to soften their strands and thin it before they started twisting it together. Francers told us this is how you get the feel for it.
Making cedar rope is not easy and requires patience. We found we got better each day. Cedar bark twine is made by rolling three strands which is anchored (in our case, by coffee cans of water.) As you twist the strands, you add strands continuously. This is how the rope grows. Releasing the anchored end causes twisted strands to ply together to form the rope. Rope is wrapped around anything you can find while it dries.
We feel honored to have the gifts of these teachings shared with us as we continue to work on our special gift.
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“What’s Happening at Charles Hays Secondary School in Prince Rupert, BC?”
Post 3
Charles Hays Secondary School is in Prince Rupert School District 52, which is located on the rugged northern coast of British Columbia, Canada and is situated in the traditional territories of the Ts’msyen people.
Sam Bryant, is a Ts’msyen artist from Lax Kw’alaams, who is mentoring the art students for this special project. Sam designed a spirit child with outstretched hands. Sam drew the face crying … and Project of Heart tiles made by all 4 of Tasha Parker’s art classes surround the crying face. The spirit child will be painted red to represent the past. The Project of Heart tiles will be placed around this design and a child of today which will be painted black. These two children have been brought together through the Project of Heart.
Jason Watts, a Haida/Nisga’a artist and mentor (barbed wire tattoo man in the pictures) uses a traditional First Nations bent knife to add detail to a bear.
Students, artist mentors and the teacher are excited to get back to work on the special project after the Christmas break and to bring you more updates next week.
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“What’s Happening at Charles Hays Secondary School in Prince Rupert, BC?”
Post 2
This week Louisa Smith came in to speak to students about her experiences at the Port Alberni IRS and St. Michael’s IRS in Albert Bay. She did this in a way that provoked students to feel and understand what she went through as they listened to her story and role played.
She began by talking about her Haisla culture and what her eagle crest represents to her people, making reference to cultural items she placed on an altar. She spoke about the family component. How the matrilineal side was followed and the roles of the parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and community. She explained how the family unit was very different to what we experience today.
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people lived together in peace but as Canada developed into a country, greed for the land took over and it was mandated by the government ‘to kill the Indian but save the man.’ This was done by sending Aboriginal children to an IRS. At the age of 5 1/2 Louisa’s life changed when the Indian Agent came and took her and her siblings away. She explained how the clergy deemed their cultural items to be the ‘work of the devil.’ These items were taken away or hidden, sent to museums or burned. When she returned, 4 years later for summer holidays, she had lost her language. All the cultural items were gone and replaced by the cross and bible. She was embarrassed by much of what she saw. The only person she could relate to was her grandmother because she treated her with kindness.
As an adult with children, she treated them much the same way as she was treated in the IRS. She hushed them by being short with her answers or explanations. She had a hard time showing affection. She turned to drinking which she found did not solve her problems. Louisa researched her culture but did not share what she found with her children. It wasn’t until a few years later that she included her daughter in her Haisla culture and this is when her daughter’s healing began. Over the years, Louisa has been able to put her experiences at the IRS and its effects on her life, in a place that no longer hurts her. The role play ended with the cultural items being returned with understanding along side the cross and bible. Both cultures have been embraced.
Louisa hopes that the students who listened to her story have a better understanding of why her story and stories like hers need to be heard so that healing can take place. Drugs and alcohol are not the answer. They only suppress the problems and will eventually kill you. You must have the courage to deal with your misfortunes.
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“What’s Happening at Charles Hays Secondary School in Prince Rupert, BC?”
Post 1
There is something amazing going on at Charles Hays Secondary School. The students in Tasha Parker’s Art classes are working to create a special gift that will be presented in an important event that’s coming up in June of 2013. They aren’t going to tell us what that is yet… that is a surprise, but we are inviting everyone to follow this journey of learning, of respect, of sharing and of cultural reconciliation that brings Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together, both in this classroom, in the community and in all of us who get to be a part of this journey as we check in on the progress of these students every week from now until June 13, 2013.
All four of Tasha Parker’s Art classes in semester one are participating in this project with the two First Nations classes taking the lead and carrying out the majority of the work as it ties into course curriculum.
This all started with Tasha Parker taking the students’ desire to watch the movie ‘Smoke Signals’ in class and turning it into justifiable curriculum. Tasha recognizes the value of storytelling for students and decided to focus on the storytelling aspect of this movie.
First Tasha arranged a trip to the museum where students were told stories about certain bear pieces on display.
This led to a story that was recreated in dance with a grizzly bear mask.
To compare traditional stories with stories from life experience, Tasha arranged for the Elder, Mr. Alex Campbell, to take students on a walk to a site just beside Charles Hays Secondary School, in a park, where many years ago a grizzly bear was killed by a boy. (This story is called, “Where Grizzly Bear Walks Along the Shore.” It was translated by William Beynon. It can be found in a First Nations textbook that was developed by Prince Rupert School District called “Persistence of Change: A History of the Ts’msyen Nation.”)
At this point local artist, Jason Watts, was invited in to the Art classes to show students how to draw and paint a grizzly bear before students set out to carve two 3-dimensional grizzly bears. One bear has been carved by the morning classes and the other, by the afternoon classes.
This project has taken on a life of its own through the commitment and intense work ethic of Tasha Parker and the Art students at Charles Hays Secondary School in Prince Rupert.
Check in each week as we provide updates of what the students are working on next. We’ll follow the inspiring journey of these young people and their teacher learn more about the Ts’msyen culture, to develop skill in their chosen arts and understanding of themselves.
The staff at NDHR can’t wait to see where all of this is going… can you?
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The origin of the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation in Canada stems from Australia’s National Sorry Day. On May 26, 1997 a report entitled “Bringing Them Home”, detailing painful evidence of the removal of thousands of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders children from their families, was presented to the government. One year later, a National Sorry Day was instituted sot that the healing process could begin. In Canada the value of such a movement was recognized by Dr. Maggie Hodgson, and others, and our own National Day of Healing and Reconciliation was born on May 26th to honor the Stolen Generation of Aboriginal Australians as well as the children who attended Indian Residential Schools in Canada.
