Technolandy

Day 129 (of 2024/25) Tla’amin Day

Tanisi kiyawow, ʔaǰɛčɛp ʔot, (how are you all?)

Today we get to celebrate an anniversary of the local Tla’amin Nation – and highlight that this year they have been able to require their traditional village site after it was taken in 1878. https://www.tlaaminnation.com/tlaamin-set-to-reacquire-120-acres-of-former-village-site-at-tiskwat/ and has mostly been accommodating lumber/paper milling. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/first-nation-village-pulp-company-1.7485828

Place matters. Names matter. This is a good news piece of reconciliation! 

To find out more, here are some of the suggestions from our Indigenous Learners department:

 All grade levels: 

• Learn/practice ayajuthem greetings and emotions in this 3:42 minute video with Karina and Tyler Peters. Review/practice after the video with Karina’s greetings and emotions poster. 
• Practice greetings of “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” “Thank you,” “Good bye,” “See you later” using Karina’s QR codes and phonetic spellings from her website  on the SD47 portal
• All classes agree on a specific time and sing the Coast Salish anthem together in their individual classrooms 
• Watch this 17 min video of drumming, singing, and messages from Tla’amin Elders and community members celebrating Tla’amin Day. At the end, drummers wish everyone  “Happy Tla’amin Day” in ayajuthem, ʔimot ɬaʔəmen t̓ᶿokʷ   (say “EEmot Tla’amin Thok”)
• Create a bulletin board in a central location celebrating Tla’amin Day

K-Gr 3: 

• Create a personalized class territorial acknowledgement, using the lesson plan from the BC Primary Teachers’ Association. Thanks to Erin Hodgins at Henderson for sharing, and including her class’s powerful acknowledgement they created this year along with teaching notes and exemplars. 
• Learn the ayajuthem word for “to think of someone highly” by watching and rewatching this 15 second video 
• Listen to Karina Peters read “Mink and Granny” on youtube, a Tla’amin story that teaches us how to be a good person by showing us what not to do…silly Mink!  (if you watch to the end of 19min, at 16:39 she gives a creative writing assignment you may or may not want to do)

Gr 4-7 

• Stories of place: 

1.      Watch this 1:19 min video of Drew Blaney sharing Tla’amin Creation Story comes to life on the land.  

2.      After a conversation about the video, make connections about how the land is filled with stories.  Ask students to think about the place where their school or house is built.  Use this map from the Place Names project to find what the ayajuthem/ ʔayʔajuθəm name is for places closest to their home or school.   

3.      Use this resource from the Museum to see what the place is or was traditionally used for. 

• Scavenger hunt online: 

1.      Explore ayajuthem/ʔayʔajuθəm online using this scavenger hunt created by ʔayʔajuθəm teacher Alisha Point

Resources for teacher context (previewing strongly suggested, not all are meant for younger audiences) 

Reflecting Back on Treaty with Eugene Louie 

Video message from Tla’amin Leadership, Past and Present 

The Name Matters video resources 

Ayajuthem youtube videos teaching some of the spelling/orthography called International Phonetic Alphabet (Karina Peters’ SD47 website on the portal)

Happy Tla’amin Day!  ʔimot ɬaʔəmen t̓ᶿokʷ! (say “EEmot Tla’amin THok”)