The healing canoe project

Phillip Vannini used Research and Professional Development funds for a research project teaching students about indigenous history and culture through the building of a dugout canoe.

How can a place-based public school on Gabriola Island, in partnership with the surrounding community, honour and engage with local Indigenous histories and understandings of place and land? This project will contribute to building both theoretical and practical understanding of the process of reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and settler society across Canada. The project is guided by the principles of community-first, Land-centred research.
As part of this broader project, Coast Salish carver Beau Wagner has been carving a dugout canoe on the grounds of the Gabriola Elementary School since September 2021. As part of the carving process, he has been teaching school children about the canoe, about cedar, about ancestors, about Indigenous ecological Knowledge, and about the Land and our sacred relations with it.