Audio and video recordings of Northern Manitoba residents and conferences are now available though University College of the North’s Elders’ Traditional Knowledge online archive.
The material was digitized over 16 weeks by the UCN Thompson campus’s Wellington & Madeleine Spence Memorial Library in partnership with Keewatin Tribal Council. The project received funding from Libraries and Archives Canada’s “Listen, Hear Our Voices” initiative.
Items in the collection include interviews with elders produced in the early 2000s as part of Dr. Peter Geller’s “Kayas Acanohkiwina: Legends of Long Ago” course as well as conference recordings and oral histories.
Accessible at guides.ucn.ca/etk/home, the Elders’ Traditional Knowledge material is free to use for educational, research and noncommercial purposes.
“This project is exactly the kind of reconciliation effort that we need to engage in our libraries at UCN,” said Harvey Briggs, UCN’s associate vice-president of reconciliation, research and academic innovation in an April 26 press release. “This project honours the past but looks toward the future of our Indigenous communities in Northern Manitoba. We hope that this archive will grow and provide an excellent resource for all or students, researchers, and community members.”
