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Northern
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 58 No. 16
Hard fought out victory for the Haisla women With ten minutes still remaining on the clock, the Haisla Senior Women’s basketball team were intent on closing their 10 point gap against their rivals in the finals, the Prince Rupert Thunder. For the entire game, the final in the women’s division in the Kitamaat Basketball tournament, the women kept up pace yet couldn’t squeeze the points gap as the seconds wound down. But as the team persevered the points gap grew narrower, and victory at least appeared possible. When the final buzzer sounded, the Haisla girls stood victorious, squeaked into victory by a narrow one point margin, 56-55. Women’s coach Mike Ridsdale said the team had a good mix of leadership and youthful energy, which combined to make for a good rotation of their bench, he said. “In the final game, [Prince] Rupert started by shooting a high percentage,” he said through email to the Sentinel. “Our game plan was to push the tempo, knowing with their short bench they would tire.” He said their early points gap closed because their full court press was effective, and they started making shots they weren’t hitting earlier in the game. Continued on page 2
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
1.30 INCLUDES TAX
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The Haisla Senior Women (in blue) earned a deserved win against the Prince Rupert Thunder in the women’s finals of the Kitamaat Basketball tournament.
Haisla culture leads to PhD for Green Cameron Orr Jacquie Louise Green comes across as a little modest when it comes to her achievement. When we say to her that her parents had brought in news to us that she had received her PhD, and is in fact the first person from Haisla territory to attain such a high educational distinction, she says that her parents might just be more excited than she is. Yet in the way she speaks about the process and the importance of her study you can hear her own excitement come through. Even more, you can tell that she knows that her work speaks well to the entirety of the Haisla culture. She said her PhD was an inter-disciplinary study through the University of Victoria, and her dissertation was called “Learning Haisla Nuuyum, through stories about traditional territory, feasting and lifestyle.” The word ‘nuuyum’ means way of life and laws, according to Green’s parents. Green said that the beginning of the process towards her PhD began when the oolichan stopped running in their territory.
“I was curious about how do we learn oolichan fishing teachings, and the idea also came because I was hearing a lot of cultural teachings from my great-grandmother Annie Paul. “All of my relatives talk about granny’s teachings, and they were very philosophical and theoretical knowledge she had.” Her dissertation, then, came from her life experiences and is all about the life teachings she received from her parents and grandparents, she said. “I was also curious to understand why the cultural teachings were important,” she said. Cultural teachings weren’t readily available growing up, despite the fact she grew up in Kitamaat Village around her relatives. It is one of the lingering effects of residential schools and other tools of colonization, where traditional knowledge was suppressed. Green’s parents Mary and Raymond lived through the residential school system and it affected how they taught their daughter. “They didn’t want me to be punished the same way
they were,” said Green, about why her parents didn’t want her learning First Nations studies. Mary Green points out that taking higher education wasn’t much of an option when she was Jacquie’s age. “Home was safer,” said Mary, also adding that transportation has improved just making the distances to postsecondary schools smaller. “Both my parents went to residential schools and both of them experienced the wrath of the school, so they were punished for being a Haisla person,” said Green. But the system isn’t the same anymore. When Green was set to defend her dissertation she and her supervisor managed the unthinkable; they brought her PhD committee to Kitamaat Village. Her dissertation on Haisla culture would be presented and defended among her own people. Green said that usually research by a student becomes owned by the university, but by having her research presented at home, it kept the ownership to the Haisla. “Coming home and defending it in front of the people and the feast hall, that ownership belongs to Haisla people.” Continued on page 3
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Boxers return from Quesnel ... page 9