About Us
The Back StoryA Partnership of Community Members
Formally, the intention and goal of the Mishkodeh Centre for Indigenous Knowledge is to have a board of directors that is represented equally by Indigenous and non-Indigenous members. This will happen in the first part of 2022 once the community at Curve Lake First Nation has had time to fully consider all aspects of this project.
Informally and as a matter of course, the steering committee and fund raising and promotion committee have interested Indigenous advisors and contributors at many meetings. When that is not possible, we are in constant contact with Curve Lake First Nation for input to bring an Indigenous perspective.
We like to think of it as being in the circle together.
The non-Indigenous members of the team working on this project consist of members of the Truth and Reconciliation Community – Bobcaygeon, community leaders and those community-minded contributors who quietly make the village and region a better place plus other folks who are inspired and eager to be a part of this project.
The Back Story :
Why The Mishkodeh Matters to TRC-Bobcaygeon :
Relationships Are Everything
The picture from one of Truth and Reconciliation Community – Bobcaygeon’s (TRC-B) workshops “Gifts from the Moose” with trapper, teacher and activist Kaaren Dannenman tells a story of this group. Of course we have had many other workshops, big projects, events and actions that would also tell the story but this one seems fitting because it is about the land and the gifts it brings. The people in this photo are family, friends and strangers. They are both TRC-B members and other interested participants from the community and beyond.
We learned that the place where we live is, as Kaaren says, “… part of our great Mother the earth with which I have a very special relationship. That relationship includes those with whom we share that home – our aunts, cousins, etc., the moose, bear, gulls, ravens, mice, moles, flies, mosquitos, fish, the trees and grass and rocks, etc., etc. That relationship is characterized by a spirituality and sacredness, an intimate knowledge and huge reciprocal respect and reverence.
… I choose to believe that what is called Indigenous Knowledge is about relationships. What chaos and antagonisms that exist amongst us has come from having lost, but not irretrievably, the knowledge of having respectful relations, including the ability to accept and live with one another’s differences, the ability to resolve inevitable conflicts, the ability to have compassion, empathy and understanding. It seems to me that this is what respectful relations is all about.”
As a community group, we continue to learn about being in good relationships with our fellow TRC-Bobcaygeon members, with Indigenous friends, advisors and leaders, with community minded individuals and organizations in the City of Kawartha Lakes, but especially with the land.
Our belief is that the Mishkodeh Centre for Indigenous Knowledge will expand on this mission of nurturing relationships through land-based learning and bringing Indigenous Knowledge to the larger community.
