Footprints exhibit creating discussions with youth and Elders

Yvonne Neeposh, a Cree Elder from Nemaska, said she felt she was walking down memory lane when she attended the Footprints: A Walk Through Generations exhibit with two of her granddaughters.

One tool in the exhibit that Neeposh remembers using is the kuskunaapii, a traditional fishing tool that uses a bone as a hook, moose hide as rope and a lean stick set on ice.

“I told them how we used traditional tools in the past to survive,” she said. “That’s how Crees used to catch fish during the winter. They didn’t have metal hooks at the time.”

The exhibit is a creation of the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute in Oujé-Bougoumou that has been touring Eeyou Istchee since the New Year and will continue until the end of March.

Paula Menarick and Natasia Mukash curated the content. Their focus was on creating an exhibit that would help maintain Cree culture, language and history.

“The exhibit creates an environment for us to share our culture with each other, for Elders to share with youth, for people to discuss stories that have been passed down by their families,” explained ACCI executive director Sarah Pash.

For the Crees of Eeyou Istchee it was important to travel within the territory. They were innovative in creating practical tools like snowshoes, toboggans and traveling with dog teams. Culture is celebrated through walking, such as the snowshoe walk ceremony and the walking-out ceremony.

“We all have stories, with our families about the trips our grandparents and great-grandparents made on foot, with dog teams, by canoe and portage,” said Pash.

ACCI found that it was important to have a walking experience at the exhibit for others to see the Cree way of life, according to their community consultations.

“It’s really the core of who we are – our ability to journey and maintain that relationship with the land and the animals that we live with,” Pash emphasized.

She said snowmobiles were introduced into the Cree culture to help travels become a short one. “It just means that we adapt them to our own use. They become part of our culture and the way we use them to express ourselves as Eeyouch in our territory.”

Nemaska Cree youth Shania Jolly said that some objects at the exhibit were different from what she’s used to seeing, but she was content knowing that Elders were having a dialogue with the youth.

“You learn 10 times better with an Elder talking to you about our culture,” she said.

Yvonne Neeposh is one of those Elders who worries about the future of Cree culture and language. “One day we won’t be here, like us Elders who lived on the land,” she observed ruefully.

For now, the ACCI exhibit is a living wealth of memory and education. Neeposh noticed a child’s rabbit-fur coat at the exhibit and remembers her mother making her one and passing the teaching down to her. “I used to make some for my daughter when she was a baby,” Neeposh said.

She told her granddaughters that the rabbit skin was used as thread to sew together fur coats and fur pants. Neeposh also noticed caribou shoes that were useful during wet snow or rain as they were waterproof.

“By the hip is where my dad used to cut the fur to make these shoes,” she noted.

Neeposh said that there was no store to buy clothes, but she would make them for her children. “We never wasted our clothes,” she said. “We would wash them and then cut them for our children’s size.”

Neeposh said that learning Cree culture and Cree language should be a priority for others, so it remains resilient. “We need to continue teaching our people so they can understand our way of life.”

The exhibit is expected to tour across Canada and the focus will be to share Cree history and Cree culture from an Eeyou perspective. The first stop will be at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau from May 2019 to January 2020.