Students in the Lloydminster Catholic School Division are learning the importance of the Aboriginal culture. On Tuesday, Holy Rosary High School (HRHS) participated in the week by setting up a smoker to show students how meat is prepared in indigenous culture.
Aboriginal Program Coordinator for LCSD Cynthia Young says there are various classes in the division coming to see and taste the smoked meat, as well as pluck geese.
“We have 32 different presentations happening, every hour a different class comes whether they come by bus or can walk over. We have all kinds of classes that are coming, they’re classes here from Holy Rosary or whether they’re from the elementary.”
Grade 4 student at St. Mary’s Elementary School Keegan Doyle was one of the student who tried the meat
“Right now I just had deer meat and moose meat and I think it was pretty good. I only had it once.”
The high school has also set up a tipi village for students to learn about storytelling in Aboriginal culture.
Doyle says it is good to learn about different types of people.
“I think it’s important because when you do this stuff you can take the knowledge and share it to other people”
There will also be a flag raising event happening at HRHS, where a Metis and Treaty Six flag will be raised. Young says the flag raising is part of the reconciliation happening in Lloydminster.
“We started it about a year and a half ago and we really wanted to make sure that people understood why we were hanging flags before we just hung flags. We’ve been into classrooms, we’ve had early dismissal days for staff meetings and we’ve had them participate in different cultural events.”
The flag raising will take place on Wednesday at 10 a.m.