Grants and Contributions

The Stó:lō Genealogy Office has many undigitized files containing valuable family history, xwelmexw (ancestral) names, oral history notes, Stó:lō Veteran research, placenames research, publications, and more. This project will be a continuation to digitize a genealogical collection of records and placename collection and the transcription of placenames and xwelmexw names from those records. As time permits, additional record collections within the office will be digitized. The funding would assist in continued capacity building, third-party training opportunities, and data sovereignty, storage, community sharing, and training for the genealogy assistant.

The first phase of this project was funded by LHOV. Now the third phase of work is required to fully arrange, describe and preserve the GTC-GSCI fonds which is a collection of Indigenous traditional knowledge language and cultural material created for the preservation and promotion of Gwich’in language and culture. The 100 audio visual part of the collection require arrangement, description and prioritization.

This project is about capacity building for the Haida Gwaii Museum Archive and has several components: Staff training in digitization, Refresher on other formats, use of digitization software, file storage, and checksums procedures, project management and documentation, digitization of oral history, language, and community history content on obsolete, never previously digitized formats, greater community use of and easier access to archival recordings, greater community use of digitization services.

Claudio Aporta, Ph.D., has spent over 20 years of his academic career documenting Inuit traditional knowledge across Inuit Nunangat. Aporta's most significant work is focused on the geographic representation of Inuit environmental knowledge. Through hundreds of interviews, mapping sessions, and trips onto the land/sea/ice, Aporta has recorded Inuit travel routes - trails - across the Arctic. Inuit trails leave little to no permanent marks, yet the same trails have been used for hundreds of years.
The Claudio Aporta fonds consists of approximately 1 metre of textual records, 10-15 maps, 10 photographs, and approximately 300 GB of digital files. The digital files consist of textual documents, digital photographs, datasets, and digital maps.

Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC)project will catalogue and digitize 300 Betacam tapes. Project activities will include updating data base and cataloguing, professional bulk digitizing of Betacam and tapes by a digital content curator, content viewing in real time and detailed descriptions, editing descriptions for clarity, grammar and consistency of language, refreshing video content to publicly accessible web platforms, updating/renewal digital asset management software (CatDV), and CatDV training.

Makivik Corporation holds a large number of analog and digital recordings on obsolete video and audio formats. They are of high value to both Makivik Corporation and Inuit culture and are comprised of radio and television interviews; press conferences; board meetings of Makivik Corporation or other Makivvik-affiliated organizations; meetings with Nunavik community members, federal and provincial politicians, business leaders, and members of the scientific community; oral history interviews with Nunavik Inuit elders; and several other crucial pieces of documentation representing the history of Makivik Corporation, Nunavik Inuit, and the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA). These materials are a high preservation priority because they are actively degrading due to age, physical condition, technological obsolescence and the availability of required playback equipment.

In 2021, PI/KHS received a donation of 276 Inuinnaqtun/Inuktitut recordings by George Diveky from 1973-77 during time spent teaching in the Arctic communities of Kugaaruk and Kugluktuk. George envisioned the recording project as a platform for documenting the region's rapidly vanishing language and oral history. The recordings contain a variety of Inuit recollections and stories, and rare retelling of the pan-Inuit mythological pantheon in the Inuinnaqtun language and from an Inuinnait regional perspective. It also includes rare first-hand Inuit accounts of encounters with early Arctic explorers, including Rasmussen's Fifth Thule Expedition (1923).
The main goal of this project is to make the important language and cultural content of these recordings accessible to Inuit across the Arctic; ensure long-term storage, preservation, and accessibility of Inuinnaqtun and Inuinnait culture; advance knowledge and understanding of Inuinnait history, language, traditions and culture through accessibility; increase the number of primary Inuinnaqtun sources available for language learners to consult Inuinnaqtun terminology and listen to correct pronunciations; support digital oral histories and songs to be shareable and accessible to the public.

Splatsin has a vast holdings of archive material that includes genealogical records, pictures, historical records, census, maps, artifacts, DVD collection of oral history, and audio recordings that have been gathered since the 1970's. It is our desire to create a physical and digital archives that our community members and staff can access to strengthen awareness and understanding of our history and culture. The collection is approximately 500 CD/DVD's, 200 maps, 300 photos and 120 boxes of written information

The project will ensure the preservation of ninety WW1 Mi'kmaq Veterans's collected by Dr. Julien, Mi’kmaq historian and researcher. The collection includes he First Nations community of which the Veteran is registered; family information (immediate and extended); personal accomplishments: obituaries; burial site locations.

Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) RC had its deposited holdings returned from the Northwest Territories Archives. This material is on mediums such as cassette tapes, VHS, reel to reel and DAT tapes with no digital longer-lasting format available. The older mediums will be digitized and added to our database and accessioned into our physical collection.

Given the date range of the material (1963 to 1979) and difficulty sharing the content including stories and conversations by those who are now elders and/deceased Inuvialuit beneficiaries, it is in our interest to preserve the content through digitization and training to make the material available to our beneficiaries and communities for learning purposes.