Pathways to Reconciliation: the Kitcisakik Land-Based Education Initiative

Abstract

ABSTRACTGrounded in settler colonialism and resurgence, this paper presents multiple accounts gleaned from students who underwent experiential ways of learning about Indigenous cultures and sociopolitical issues through a land-based education experience considered as a contribution to building reconciliation. For over 8 years, the semi-nomadic community of Kitcisakik in Western Québec has received non-Indigenous students to experience living ‘off the land’ and share Anicinape ways. Originally inspired by a community desire to share and transmit Anicinape culture while re-appropriating wider territories of their ‘occupied’ ancestral land, this became a grassroots social economy initiative, offering 4- to 10- day educational trips for students. In addition to encouraging cultural dialogue and mutual respect, the initiative exemplifies the benefits of Indigenous learning pedagogies that are both experiential and land-based. Students describe how they physically and spiritually encounter Indigenous resilience via a confrontation of the neocolonial intricacies evident in contemporary Canada. Such critical self-reflection is necessary in Canada’s nascent era of decolonization.