‘We’re all treaty people’: Lloydminster students paddle 348 kilometres and learn beyond the classroom

“We all went swimming together in the Battle River, and we just sat in the water and watched the sunset,” Holden recalled. “That was a really beautiful moment.”

The journey itself was demanding.

On the final day, Holden and his fellow paddlers found themselves pushing against strong winds. Earlier in the trip, they repeatedly climbed from their canoes to guide them across shallow sandbars.

Still, the challenges became part of what made the experience memorable.

“Every day was really rewarding because you just like you were sore, but you felt like you had accomplished something that you shouldn’t be able to accomplish.”

(Image Credit: Lloydminster Public School Division)

(Image Credit: Treaty 6 150/Facebook)

The voyage unfolded over eight days and three stages.

Students from Lloydminster Comprehensive High School and Avery Outreach School launched from Fort Pitt and paddled to Paynton Ferry. Students from E.S. Laird Middle School continued to Glenburn Regional Park, while students from Bishop Lloyd Middle School and College Park School completed the final leg to Fort Carlton.

The route was chosen for a reason.

Earlier this year, schools within the Lloydminster Public School Division were challenged to create projects recognizing the 150th anniversary of Treaty 6. For Luke Maw, principal of E.S. Laird Middle School, the answer was found on the river.

An avid paddler who has spent years learning about Indigenous culture and ways of knowing, Maw proposed retracing the route between Fort Pitt and Fort Carlton, where Treaty 6 was signed in 1876.

“We would paddle from the one signing site to the other signing site, work to include as many of our schools in our division as possible, and work to kind of build connections with one another and others in our community.”

For Maw, the trip was never just about getting from one destination to the other.

“I would just want to suggest that it was far more than that, it was about all of the things in between.”

Those lessons emerged as students spent days paddling, camping and working together.

“They faced adversity together. They learned how to do difficult things and support one another through it.”

The experience also opened the door to conversations about Treaty 6 and the responsibilities shared by those who live on treaty land.

“We’re all treaty people,” Maw said.

“Students really learned the meaning of that, and learned that we each have a responsibility to one another to respect one another’s differences and support one another in how we continue to move forward.”

For Holden, those conversations gave the trip a meaning that stretched beyond the kilometres travelled.

“It means a lot to me to be picked for this trip, because it’s truth and reconciliation in action, and we need more of that,” he said.

The experience, he added, offered “the reconciliation, the learnings, and the teachings, and everything that we may not be able to experience in the classroom.”

Some of Maw’s strongest memories came at the beginning and end of the journey.

At Fort Pitt, Elders and members of Onion Lake Cree Nation gathered to help send the students on their way. A pipe ceremony marked the start of the trip.

Watching the canoe finally leave shore remains one of the most emotional moments of the experience for him.

“I can remember myself telling our coordinator of Indigenous Education here in Lloyd Public, Clint Chocan… ‘See you in Carlton,’” he recalled.

“That chokes me up a little bit, just even saying that now.”

Days later, when the students arrived at Fort Carlton, some of the same people who helped send them off were there to welcome them back.

“It again just speaks to that level of relationship and those connections that we’ve created from this initiative.”

The canoes have since been pulled from the water and the camps packed away.

But Maw believes the journey itself is still unfolding.

“The trip is far from over. We’ve only really just begun.”

The river carried students from Fort Pitt to Fort Carlton. Maw hopes the lessons they discovered between those two points continue traveling long after the water has settled behind them.

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com

by Kenneth Cheung

‘We’re all treaty people’: Lloydminster students paddle 348 kilometres and learn beyond the classroom

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