Alicia J. M. Colson

To provide and inform the world (Outsiders) by drawing on centuries of lived experience, speaking Oji-Cree, how to apply the animist Insider (emic) worldview and to understanding of their environment, Boreal Forest, to be able to explain their view of their world (etic) to the wider world. George Kenny (an Anishinaabe Knowledge Keeper from Lac Seul FN) invited Alicia to join his teaching circle: Dr Adar Charleton, Michael Auksi, and Mary McPherson to understand a pictograph site created by George’s father as an apprentice shaman on Route Lake. The circle co-authored an academic article and presented a paper at Cambridge University (UK). This established mutual trust and working relationship. After a year’s consultations of two hours each week on zoom Alicia was mandated to recruit three ‘Outsiders’ with accredited skills in botany, biology, medicine, anthropology, archaeology, ethnohistory, history, digital humanities, and project management. George and the Elders, in their 70s and 80s, will teach this new group by experiencing a ‘shaking tent ceremony’, building and experience a sweat lodge, identify and process healing plants, collection and storage of fruits and berries, building a fish weir, making a drum, understanding the solar system and being immersed in their ‘world view’.