Among other activities, students learned about Indigenous hand crafted materials and how to identify animal skulls

By Tommy Osborne

Indigenous Education

Indigenous education orientation day held at Shas Ti Kelly Road Secondary School

May 13, 2025 | 4:40 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Shas Ti Kelly Road Secondary School hosted an Indigenous land based fair, which was an orientation-day style event bringing elementary school students to the school to get comfortable in a high school environment. The event brought together Shas Ti Kelly Road students and students from three different elementary schools to learn about Indigenous ways of knowing together.

“Learning about local Indigenous knowledge and history is really important for us to move forward in a world where reconciliation is important. And we, especially here, want to think about the land and the environment and how we can contribute to that and make sure it’s going to be healthy for us, because everything we put into the land comes back to us,” said School District 57’s Vice Principal of Indigenous Education Jennifer Pighin.

Six booths were set up with a wide variety of topics covered, including but not limited to:

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• Hunting and trapping
• Drumming
• Gathering food and medicine
• Indigenous culture and language
• Land preservation

“I think they’ll (the students) come out with a lot more cultural knowledge around protocols, and understanding how everything’s interconnected in the environment that we live in, everything we eat, breathe, it all is connected into that sort of ecosystem,” Pighin said.

The students certainly enjoyed the opportunity to engage with Indigenous knowledge, as both the high school and elementary students had the chance to try their hand at activities like skinning animals, drumming, and more.

“I’ve enjoyed it a lot because, I’m Native myself and I haven’t really gotten that much of a chance to experience my native part of myself, so having that opportunity is really nice,” said grade 11 student Dallas Willier.

“It’s amazing for me. I’m Métis myself, so being able to see this and teach new people different skills and different ways that our ancestors did a lot of things, it means a lot to be able to share what we did,” added grade 11 student Terrin Jensen.

Jensen says he has a lot of personal experience with hunting and trapping, so it’s been a fantastic way for him to get his fellow students involved in a significant part of his, and the Métis, lifestyle.

“It feels good because then I can teach people new skills that I already know and carry on that knowledge to the younger generation, as well as the generation that I’m in right now, teaching people that may not know that want to get into it, have a new hobby, go out hunting, and then that way I can teach them how to do the skills that you need,” Jensen said.

The event brought in elementary students from Glenview Elementary, Heather Park Elementary, and Nukko Lake Elementary schools.

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