Students take in Indigenous view of stars

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This article was published 30/05/2023 (330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While many Manitobans looking at the night sky see the Big Dipper, people from Indigenous communities observe the Great Bear.

It’s this Indigenous view of the cosmos that drew students from across the province to Windsor School in Winnipeg this week to learn not only about Indigenous astronomy but also their scientific knowledge.

“Really cool, loved it,” said Avah Lapointe, a Grade 9 student at Windsor, adding her favourite things were the planetarium and learning about Indigenous constellations.

A classmate of Avah’s, Presley Harris, agreed, saying she enjoyed the “really cool experience.”

The Tipis and Telescopes event was headlined by Wilfred Buck, an elder from Opaskwayak Cree Nation who specializes in Indigenous astronomy, and U.S.-based researcher Juan Carlos Chavez.

Chavez said the main thrust of the event was to show students continuity with the past and how Indigenous communities have long held awareness of concepts once thought to be the exclusive domain of western scientists.

“The connection is, to parallel if you will, Indigenous sciences and engineering with western or European (science)… Our ancestors taught us these things, and now when these young people go to their classroom hear other ways of representing what we’ve already learned,” he said.

In this case, Chavez used the example of the aerodynamics of bottle rockets parallel to those of bows and arrows, and the interrelated nature of Indigenous cultures across the Americas.

“We don’t see it as that’s Canada, that’s the U.S., that’s Mexico. That’s Turtle Island (an Indigenous term for North America). We want to share that knowledge intertribally,” said Chavez, who is of mestizo ancestry (a Spanish term meaning mixed-race).

Buck has been doing presentations on Indigenous astronomy since 2005.

The first Tipis and Telescopes event was held in 2014. The majority have been located on the outskirts of Winnipeg, but the 2022 gathering was in Kananaskis, Alta.

Buck said where the event is located is largely dependent on the people inviting him to speak. For instance, this was the first Tipis and Telescopes to be held inside the capital city and in conjunction with a school, largely due to the participation of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society.

Jackie Connell, assistant superintendent of senior years and career studies at Frontier School Division, said 40 students from the division came to the event from places as far away as Wabowden, Moose Lake and Grand Rapids.

Frontier is geographically the largest school division in Manitoba and includes communities located as far north as Brochet and Churchill.

Connell said MTS had approached the school division about participating and it had enthusiastically agreed, adding any opportunity to celebrate Indigenous identity and culture was worthwhile.

Gurminder Kaur, a teacher at Moose Lake, agreed, adding her students had been active and engaged participants in the event highlighting their cultural links with science.

graham.mcdonald@freepress.mb.ca