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Vin Photography, 61 Nathalie Street, Rockland, ON (2025)

10/06/2025

09/30/2025

On this day of memory and resilience, we honour a story that has been unfolding across generations. In this image, created by artist Bluebird Mustooch, a grandfather plays his drum, sending the heartbeat of ancestral stories into the air, while his young granddaughter responds with the soft shake of her rattle, and his grandson responds with an echo of his own drum, a call and response and a bridge between the past and the future.

This scene speaks to the deep power of intergenerational knowledge. Despite the ongoing intergenerational trauma caused by Indian Residential schools, Indigenous families and communities are reclaiming what was hidden, silenced, and torn from them. Through love, ceremony, and persistence, knowledge is being revived, language is being restored, and identity is regained, by Elders and children, side by side.

When we look across the country, programs and initiatives show the success of this process. In Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, the Mi’kmaw School Board, hosts skilled trade summer camps that bring youth and Elders together combining skilled trades such as welding, carpentry and culinary, with language, story telling and ceremony. Community schools provide an atmosphere where young learners can grow up in their language, rooted in traditions, and supported by community. This is language revitalization in motion.

In the Prairies, Cree communities are rekindling heritage through immersive language programs and cultural revival. In Saskatoon, wâhkôhtowin School’s nêhiyâwiwin Cree Language and Cultural Program provides Pre-K to Grade 8 learners with conversation Cree, cultural ceremonies and gatherings, and land-based learning opportunities led by Elders, facilitating the intergenerational sharing of knowledge.

These revitalization efforts are more than programs, they are living, breathing acts of language and cultural reclamation. They also provide a counter-story to Indian Residential School histories, grounded in the strength, creativity, and joy of Indigenous communities determined to preserve what was nearly lost.

Join us at Canadian Geographic in honouring these survivors, their children, grandchildren ,and great grandchildren. Let’s learn from example how resilience resonates through time, and how, as Canadians, we can listen, learn, and support intergenerational healing.