New Coast Mountain College program in Prince Rupert to explore Indigenous connections to place and landscape

A new Field School is about to set up at the Prince Rupert Campus of Coast Mountain College, with the program a mix of in class instruction and out in the field exploration as part of the program called Indigenous Connections to Place and landscape in Northwest British Columbia.

Part of the course outlined provides a glimpse into what's ahead for those who enrol in the program.

Image from Coast Mountain
College 

This course will be taught through two weeks of in-person class time in Prince Rupert from May 16 to 27.

From May 30 to June 3 students will take a field trip to an ancient village site and significant clam harvesting location for the Gitga’at Nation, on an island south of Hartley Bay and the mouth of Douglas Channel. 

Students will camp at the site and participate in field activities with Gitga’at community members and other researchers to learn about the immense cultural significance of this location for Gitga’at people.

The Course which is led by Professor Bryn Letham begins on May 16 and runs through to June 3rd.

Some of the focus for the course includes:

Through classroom and field-based experience, we will explore how Indigenous peoples have managed, modified, and stewarded their lands for millennia, and how long-term practical experience with the landscape structures notions of territory, belonging, and Indigenous Rights and Title. 

We will study culturally significant places and landscapes through ways of knowing such as Indigenous oral histories, traditional ecological knowledge, anthropological ethnography, and archaeology, in order to understand connections between key concepts of place, culture, and history.

Learn more about what's planned and what pre-requisites you may need to participate from the Coast Mountain College course page.

More items of interest from Coast Mountain College can be explored here.