Na’skwa’ta’tultinej a’tukwaqnn Education and Outreach

Each year artist and cultural educator Gerald Gloade gives workshops, presentations, guided walks, and classroom visits to people of all ages in Nova Scotia. Join Gerald for an outdoor talk at the Mi’kmawey Debert Interpretive Trail, or invite him to speak at your location.

His wide range of topics brings a greater understanding and appreciation of Mi’kmaw culture:

• Kluskap Legends
  From his famous battles with Giant Beaver to the amethyst he found on Partridge Island, Kluskap stories tell us about Mi’kma’ki in a memorable and entertaining way.
  
• Aboriginal Traditional and Ecological Knowledge
  Our ancestors’ survival depended on seeing signs and patterns in nature to tell them when it was the best time to hunt, to plant or to prepare for winter. Many of these signs can be seen today, like the silence of crickets preceding the start of fall weather. (Our ancestors knew that when the crickets stopped singing, it was time to dry fish for winter, because the humidity was out of the air.)
• Mi’kmaw Art and Craft
  From drawing, painting and quill-work, to beadwork, canoe-making, drum-making and basketry, the Mi’kmaq have a distinct style and a rich artistic heritage. This topic can be “hands-on” or done as a presentation.
• History of Mi’kmawey Debert
  Glaciers and giant beavers! The ancestral sites in Debert, Nova Scotia, date back more than 11,000 years, (the oldest directly-dated sites in Canada) and tell us about our ancestors and the ice-age climate they lived in. The style of tools and the materials they are made of are keys to our understandings.
• Geology in Mi’kma’ki and its tie to Mi’kmaw Culture
  Our ancestors made tools from rocks and minerals found in specific places in Mi’kma’ki, and lived through catastrophic weather events and changes to our landscape. Stories passed from one generation to the next help share and preserve the knowledge of our land and our past.
• Mi’kmaw Spirituality, Governance, and other aspects of Culture
  By learning more about past and present Mi’kmaw culture, we gain a better understanding of what it is to be Mi’kmaw today.
• Primary to Grade 9 curriculum topics
  The MDCC project has developed a rich and engaging curriculum resource that provides content and teaching strategies for three subject areas: Healing, Contemporary Issues and Netukulimk. For each subject there are core activities, extension activities and resource materials. Gerald can help teachers introduce any of these units and/or work with teachers on how they can best utilize these creative and thoughtful units. You can find the curriculum here.
• High School curriculum topics
  Gerald is a guest presenter on topics like petroglyphs (Mi’kmaw communication symbols), traditional dance and music, drumming or drum-making, art with traditional materials and natural dyes, and painting – as part of the Nova Scotia Grade 10/11 Mi’kmaw studies program.

Gerald has experience working with students from Elementary to High School, plus government and non-profit organizations, private businesses and community groups.

To discuss your group’s area of interest, please contact Gerald Gloade at gerald@cmmns.com or by phone (in Truro, NS) at (902) 895-6385 ext. 280, or call toll free at 1-877-892-2424.