Grants and Contributions

Since 1984, the Waskaganish Sibi Ayimuweyabi (WSA) have been conducting interviews with community members, leaders, youth and elders. For this project, it is our mission to go through all the tapes we have in storage and to digitize cultural and traditional content to broadcast to our community. We will also give access to this content whether stored on hard drive (computer) at our office or even access on our website (which is now being built) to our community members and abroad. The content will be 100% Cree language. The main goal is to digitize, edit, and archive 684 Hours of reel-to-reel tape that we have in storage since the early 80's.

The Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Centre extensive archive and donated collection consists of documents, photographs, periodicals, newspaper clippings, audio recordings and video recordings that hold important local historical and cultural value for Saskatchewan First Nations including invaluable oral history from Elders gatherings and interviews, recordings of Indigenous languages, songs and music, and significant local history in recordings of assemblies. The main goal of this project is digitization of 1000 audio cassette tapes, improved discoverability and access of the collection through the creation of a finding aid and application of descriptive metadata; training of three staff members.

The first part of this project is the digitization, housing, labeling, and cataloging of the 1,120cm, approx. 700 of slides from the ACCI’s archival collection, Harvey Feit. This collection of slides was gifted to Anthropologist Harvey Feit by Eva Ottereyes of the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi. The images display Cree life in the 1960s and early 70’s, showcasing family gathering, food preparation and hunting and trapping. The goal is to make this valuable collection of materials accessible to the Eeyouch, by making them available via ACCI online database. Our project will include housing and labeling the slides, as well as creating a complete catalogue description on the database for preservation and access to the images, providing digitization workshops and a social media campaign to promote digitizing services and promotion on the Cree community radio station.

The proposed program is one component of Phase 3 of Lyackson’s Cultural Records Project. Phase 3 continues the revitalization of language and culture, and will focus on digitization, language, genealogy, GIS mapping, streamlining the referrals process, and gathering knowledge through oral history interviews. Each component of Phase 3 will have their own funding programs, and the project will digitize and upload, and describe pre-identified language and cultural resources across these different sources so that we can meet our goal to facilitate community access to these resources. The digitization of language and culture resources and has been arranged into 4 sub-sections: photographs and maps of LFN; Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group (HTG) docushare; collections of regional repositories; archaeological records and materials.

The vision of "Taking Care of Our History Bundle” originates from sacred bundles which has its roots in the Anishinaabe culture going back thousands of years. The bundle is a sacred item that requires great care and respect in the caring of the bundle and its items holds records of our history encompassing rituals with instructions written on sacred scrolls. Individuals within our community are given the responsibility to care for the bundle for generations and to pass the bundle onto other individuals to ensure this process continues.
“Taking Care of Our History Bundle” carries on that tradition. Over the last fifty years the Treaty Aboriginal Rights Research (T.A.R.R) has generated collections of records, such as maps, videos, audio recordings, photographs, oral histories statements by community members and copies of RG10 files. The impact of this project has a far-reaching cultural significance that creates a historic textual picture that brings the past into the now. The Bundle will bring together people who are in the pursuit of putting together the missing spirit in the ever-growing historical resurgence happening across turtle island."

Kitsumkalum’s Digitization & Migration Project will involve the digitization and migration of Kitsumkalum’s collection into the Community Knowledge Keeper (CKK), creating a comprehensive digital resource that Kitsumkalum staff and decision-makers can easily access. The Project will increase Kitsumkalum’s capacity to preserve and digitize their own collection to provide a legacy of cultural knowledge, archival information, and oral history and create a foundation for future research and information sharing, such as the development of an online exhibit showcasing Kitsumkalum’s rich history and cultural heritage.

The purpose of this project is to digitize high value, at risk documentary heritage and build capacity for archival digitization. The high-value, at-risk records include: (a) records contained on audio cassettes, VHS tapes and 3.5” floppy disks, which are classified at-risk due to the age of the technology and possibility of degradation and data loss; and (b) an assemblage of maps and diagrams that document that Nation’s relationship with its traditional territory and tell the story of its socioeconomic collapse and envisioned future as created by community Elders, leaders and members over 20 years ago. No copies exist of these documents exist and additionally, through this project, CLFN will develop a Digital Assets Policy and expand its capacity for archival digitization.

The goal of this follow-up project is to continued digitization of priority materials identified by 10 Yukon First Nations (YFN) and to work with the 3 YFNs who were unable to participate in the initial program to identify and digitize priority recordings of their First Nations languages. YNLC audio recording collection holds more than 653 prioritized audio recordings (the 10 participating YFNs requested a total of 871 audio cassettes.

The main goal of this project is to digitize, translate, transcribe and build a database of audio, video, and visual assets that are currently housed at Saik'uz band office. This collection represents research and interviews that reach back to the 1970s and covers topics such as traditional practices, genealogy, history, legends and beliefs. The focus of this 2023-2024 project is to digitize, translate, transcribe and build a searchable database of the work that was carried out by a retired researcher that worked with our ancestors.

“Archiving our Histories: Indigenous contributions to Art Histories and Curatorial Studies” is a large-scale project led by the Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochthones (ICCA) to digitize all exhibition ephemera as it pertains to Indigenous curatorial practice, as well as build skills and resources required to preserve Indigenous curatorial histories. Digitization of floorplans, brochures, photographic documentation, respondent texts from writers or artists, transcripts of panel discussions or talks, exhibition catalogues or publications that are rare, hard to find, or where circulation is very limited. Through our partnership we will build a strategy for housing these digitized archives, learn how to organize database materials, and build the tools necessary for managing the archive and database into the future and provide greater accessibility for researchers and Indigenous cultural practitioners.