Environmental education often treats land as something to study or manage. For many Indigenous communities, land is a relative and a teacher. What can educators learn from a community whose land-based teaching was disrupted and is now being restored?
The research was led by a Woodland Cree knowledge keeper from the Lac La Ronge community, working with researchers who have partnered with the community for 14 years. The team gathered stories from Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors, activists and land-based educators. They also took part in cultural camps: gatherings on the land where Elders and land-based educators teach young people.
Community members described:
- Land-based teaching was broken by force. One Elder described his family being forced at gunpoint in 1927 off land that became Prince Albert National Park. Ceremonies, which were key places for teaching and learning, were banned. To keep them going, community members held them in secret and made them look like hunting trips.
- Residential schools cut children off from the land. Community members described how residential schools imposed a different language and culture, and took children off the land. They spoke of losing language, culture and family ties as a result. One Elder said traplines are being forgotten "not because nobody wants to trap," but because people were taken off the land. The community is now working to reconnect young people with these practices.
- Mainstream schooling rests on different ideas. Community members named three: sorting the world into opposites (good and bad, us and them), ranking some knowledge and some people above others, and putting humans at the center. In contrast, one knowledge keeper said teachers should act as guides, seeing learners as "bringing so much brilliance and ancestral knowledge" rather than as empty minds to fill. Another said the idea of owning nature is a "foreign concept."
- The community set out what is needed. Their recommendations were:
- land-based environmental teaching that supports the community's right to decide its own future
- renewed efforts to keep Indigenous languages alive
- respectful ways to share sacred knowledge
- more trust between government and Indigenous communities
- practical, hands-on land-based training for educators
- openness to Indigenous knowledge and teaching in mainstream schools
What this means for your practice:
- Learn the history of the land where you teach. Community members stressed that understanding past harms, such as forced removal, banned ceremonies and residential schools, is the first step (findings 1 and 2).
- Follow community protocols. This is how the research itself was done. The team followed the guidance of the community's land-based educator, asked each Elder and knowledge keeper for consent and guidance, and had land-based educators review the findings. The relationship had been built over 14 years.
- Treat learners as knowledge holders. Act as a guide alongside learners, as the knowledge keeper described, rather than as someone filling empty minds (finding 3).
- Teach relationships, not resources. Present land, water, plants and animals as things people are connected to and depend on, not things they own (finding 3).
- Learn on the land with Elders. Where a community invites it, support gatherings on the land where young people learn directly from Elders and land-based educators, as at the cultural camps.
- Make room for language and ask before sharing. The community recommends weaving Indigenous languages into environmental learning, and creating respectful ways to share sacred knowledge (finding 4). In practice, this means checking with knowledge keepers what may be shared, and how.
- Seek land-based training. The community asks for practical, hands-on training for educators (finding 4).
The Bottom Line
A research team led by a Woodland Cree knowledge keeper gathered stories from Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors and land-based educators, and joined cultural camps where youth learned on the land. Community members described how land-based teaching was disrupted: families were forced off their land, ceremonies that served as places of teaching were banned, and residential schools took children away from the land and their language. They contrasted mainstream schooling, which treats learners as empty vessels and puts humans at the center, with Cree teaching, which sees learners as already bringing knowledge and humans as part of the natural world. They called for land-based teaching, language revival and hands-on training for educators. For educators, understanding a community's history and following its Elders' guidance are where land-based learning begins.