Where will your story take you? Innovation born out of necessity
Learning, gathering, and community contributions
Boozhoo News River Readers,
This Indigenous History Month: who's keeping culture alive in your community?
If you enjoy the stories in this week’s News River - we invite you to join the conversation - reply with a story or a link highlighting community members stewarding language, culture and knowledge where you live! We’d love to share them in a future edition of this newsletter!
We hope you are spending the extra daylight hours with those closest to you, doing what you enjoy. Thanks for being here!
This week’s stories include:
Planning underway for the first ever Indigenous Tech Conference, to be held in BC next year.
Project designed to transform how healthcare learners understand and engage with Indigenous health, history, and healing, wins Innovation Award.
Proposed Indigenous Technology 12 course aims to examine cultural techniques through hands-on learning.
Indigenous History and Heritage Month Series
The big picture: Next up in this months series is Mi'kmaw Elder Margaret Pictou LaBillois (1923 - 2013), who photographed military secrets in the 1940s and in the 1990s she helped save an entire language from her kitchen table.
Why it matters: Elder LaBillios’s experiences demonstrated excellence and determination while maintaining connection to family and community.
Key points:
She was the first woman from her community to graduate high school. She started nursing school but couldn't afford to continue.
She enlisted and became a World War 2 spy photographer, sending her military pay back home to support her family. After the war, Margaret became New Brunswick's first elected female Chief.
Elder LaBillois started teaching Mi'kmaw language in her kitchen when the government wanted people to speak in English and French. She founded a co-operative selling traditional crafts, creating economic independence through culture as countless First Nations families have.
What they’re saying: She turned cultural preservation into economic power. While some debated how to save Indigenous language, Margaret just did it. Taught the language. Made the art. Employed her people. Protected the knowledge.
Learn more: View the full carousel of images we created here.
Curated Articles:
Indigenous tech, sports history courses contemplated for Nanaimo-Ladysmith schools
School board set to vote on four potential courses at its June 25 meeting. Indigenous Technology 12 will examine cultural techniques associated with Snuneymuxw, Snaw-Naw-As and Stz'uminus nations through "hands-on learning," said Don Balcombe, assistant superintendent of secondary programs. The course will adhere to the district's truth and reconciliation policy, honouring teachings of the land and students will have opportunities to "produce, re-produce and create" traditional artifacts.
Can AI help Indigenous communities preserve their cultures?
Indigenous communities are thinking about possibilities and concerns for how AI can help them preserve and pass on their languages and their cultures. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud is joined by Indigenous artists Marek Tyler and Susan Blight to discuss how AI could integrate Indigenous values and provide knowledge for future generations. Marek Tyler says “I think it's most important to remember that it's a tool to strengthen sovereignty, it's not just to boost efficiency. It depends entirely on who owns it, who controls the technology, who owns the infrastructure.”
Canada’s Indigenous Tech Circle has grown into vibrant community with this one simple question
National Indigenous Peoples Day June 21 marks one year anniversary of official launch of non-profit tech network. Asked what’s next for the Circle, St. Germaine said they are currently getting ready to host their first-ever Indigenous Tech Conference early next year. Scheduled to run from Jan. 20 to 21 in Richmond BC, the event will bring together Indigenous tech professionals, founders, leaders and allies to amplify Indigenous voices. “We are planning to grow (this) to be the largest Indigenous Tech conference in the world,” he said, adding that events like these is one way for Indigenous youth to see that the tech space is for them, too, where they can see Indigenous leaders thriving and being successful.”
MNO Education & Training Staff Attend National Conference on Métis Ethics and Data Sovereignty
The 2025 “Re-Claiming Métis Ethics” conference, was held at the University of Winnipeg. Hosted under the theme Beyond OCAP and Towards Métis Sovereignty, the event offered an engaging platform to examine the ethical dilemmas posed by existing research standards, and, particularly their failure to reflect Métis knowledge systems, governance, and priorities. While models like the First Nations Principles of OCAP® have historically provided guidance for Indigenous data governance, speakers highlighted how these principles are not designed with Métis communities in mind. The need for Métis-specific ethical frameworks was a recurring message throughout the conference.
The award recognizes Indigenous Healthcare Education and Practice: Applying Digital Teaching and Learning Resources to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action—a collaborative project that created a series of open-access online modules designed to transform how healthcare learners understand and engage with Indigenous health, history, and healing. The project, led by Dr. Nancy Dalgarno, Director of Education Scholarship at Queen’s Health Sciences, brought together more than 50 collaborators from Queen’s University, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University (NOSM), and Indigenous communities. The result is a digital collection of seven learning modules enriched with storytelling, Indigenous artwork, videos and educational content, designed to enhance learners’ awareness of their own biases and positionality. It translates the TRC’s Calls to Action into strategies that can be implemented in meaningful, accessible, practical and culturally appropriate ways within healthcare education and practice.
