Indigenous Storytelling (2025-2028)
Based on the success of our pilot year, Bridge to Publishing is back, this time, however, with a much more environmental and intergenerational focus. “Weji'sqalia'timk: Reclaiming the Indigenous Narrative of Atlantic Canada” is a free storytelling initiative set to offer brand new cohorts of Indigenous youth online training, with a sharp focus on preserving the oral histories of Elders, and in particular, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
According to linguist and Mi’kmaw Elder, Bernie Francis, “weji-sqalia’timk” expresses the Mi’kmaw understanding of the origin of its people as rooted in the landscape of Eastern North America. The “we exclusive” form, weji-sqalia’tiek, means “we sprouted from,” much like a tree sprouts from the earth. As with the professional development pilot year, the next three years will focus on a series of online professional storytelling modules. However, the next three years will also include a selection of in person workshops focused on environmental stewardship and the preservation of Elders’ stories.
To learn more, feel free to check out a summary of our updated programming, as well as the successes of our pilot year, below.
Inaugural Pilot Year (2023-2024)
Bridge to Publishing’s inaugural year was a free storytelling pilot program designed to support young storytellers develop the skills and connections needed to reclaim their Indigenous narratives. This program’s success was evident in their collect engagement and impact (please see below) through a series of online training modules in storytelling, ultimately laying the groundwork for “Weji-sqalia’timk.” Building on the pilot’s successes, Bridge to Publishing’s Weji-sqalia’timk is poised to expand into TEK offerings as well as in person gatherings with Elder storytellers, while continuing to support and champion the storytelling skills of new cohorts of youth.
General programming overview:
Foundational Unit
Grounded in Elder-guided teachings, this unit delves into the importance of storytelling to Indigenous identity and culture. It covers past, present, and future Indigenous storytelling forms and functions; addresses the harms of eurocentrism in Canadian publishing; and provides tools to support collaboration on a path to narrative reclamation and sovereignty.
Professional Pathways:
Training Unit
This unit was created in collaboration with Indigenous and allied artists and storytelling professionals and includes learning materials and activities focused on publishing basics, nonfiction writing, creative writing, editing and digital storytelling. Going forward the training will also include online training in how to best honour and preserve the stories of Elders and the ingenuity of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge storytelling traditions.
Practical Unit
In this unit youth program participants will apply their honed storytelling skills to different forms of media publishing, including a book manuscript. Participants will also be invited to attend in-person workshops with well-respected environmental stewards. Finally, each youth participant will also receive professional feedback on their storytelling medium of choice.
To help participants build experiential knowledge, young storytellers will be invited to attend in person workshops on issues pertaining to environmental stewardship, including knowledge transfer as it relates to Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Food Security. These workshops will be led by knowledge holders who are Indigenous Elders and may also include the leaders of partnering environmental organization. In addition, youth participants will also be invited to meet with and capture the stories of some of this region’s most respected Elders.
Pilot year highlights
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Our 2024 pilot received even more youth interest than we had anticipated. We opened applications mid-fall, 2023, with a goal of enrolling twelve learners. Demand was so high that by November we had to close applications. We ended up enrolling 23 youth from across all four Atlantic provinces in the program. We have a growing waitlist for our next round and are working hard to find ways to bring this program to more young storytellers.
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Empowering youth through written and other creative activities is an important element of the program. One of our favourite pilot milestones was when we began to receive storytelling submissions from the enrolled youth. There is immense heart, healing, depth, and creativity in their storytelling works, and we have been inspired over and over by both their true and imagined stories. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for these accomplished young storytellers.
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Throughout the pilot, and in youth exit surveys, we received overwhelmingly positive youth feedback. Enrolled youth have repeatedly shared how important and necessary they feel the program is and how it’s teachings and activities— especially those that are Elder-guided— have made a lasting impact on their creativity, confidence, and overall storytelling skills.
