NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region

Tags: history, Berger Inquiry

Objective(s): To create a bridge so that indigenous and non-indigenous youth can explore and debate issues around Aboriginal rights.

Project Description: The goal of this project is to create a bridge so that indigenous and non-indigenous youth can explore and debate issues around Aboriginal rights. The Inquiry exhibition is visiting eight colleges and universities across Canada, welcoming classes from Engineering to Fine Arts. Students sit in small groups and each student reads a “scrapbook” created from an interview with one participant in the Inquiry. Then the group debates an issue on which the participants disagree. The pedagogical goal is to discover how to structure these discussions to best encourage dialogue. Recently, the University of British Columbia committed the funds to put the Inquiry exhibition on-line, so the debate model – and interactive resources – can continue to be used free-of-charge by college classes after the exhibition tour is complete. In the 1970s, Professor Michael Jackson of the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia organized the Berger Inquiry’s hearings in the Delta communities. He will bring 300 slides that he shot in 1976. He will work with elders to identify people in the images before the collection is donated to the Gwich’in and Inuvialuit cultural organizations. In 1975-76, Drew Ann Wake worked for CBC Inuvik, travelling to the Delta communities to cover the Berger Inquiry hearings. She is digitizing hours of audio recorded in the ‘70s, so elders can listen to the voices of their parents. She also conducts the Photo-animation workshop with students in schools. Linda MacCannell was, until her recent retirement, an Instructor of Photography in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Calgary. Linda’s portraits of Dene and Inuvialuit leaders form the backbone of the Inquiry exhibition. She conducts the Photography workshop in schools. Dennis Allen is an independent Inuvialuit filmmaker living in Whitehorse. He will work with the elders to explore the subtle points of the stories told by their parents in the Inuvialuktun language. Then he will work with students to re-enact and videotape these stories. The project is designed to encourage participation from four generations of Inuvialuit: - great-grandparents through their recorded stories from the 1970s; - grandparents through their engagement with historic photographs and audio; - parents acting as teachers and translators in each community; and - students who will create photographs, video and photo-animations to tell the stories of the past. The research team hopes to bring the Inquiry exhibition back to the Delta this summer. It will definitely be installed at Aurora College in Yellowknife in the fall. In this way, Northwest Territories residents will be the first to see the completed exhibition. When the electronic version of the exhibition is completed in January of 2015, the research team will invite students at Aurora College and the University of British Columbia to join forces in north-south teams to test the interactive educational resource before it is released to colleges and universities across Canada. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from May 3, 2013 to November 1, 2013.