It may have taken a few years to complete but with the help of community members and elders, a group of grade 5 students made sure their community history is never forgotten.

The Treaty 4 Education Alliance (T4EA) had started a humming bird literacy program in which the students were given a writing project. They unveiled their finished project at the Treaty 4 governance Centre in which the students and community members celebrated their accomplishment.

Resident artist and project leader, Michael Lonechild, says that the students he worked with were at the age where they were enthusiastic about the project. “The program that the teachers came up with was based on the community. The kids would write the story, write it from the information they collected from the elders, and local history books,” said Lonechild.

The book, “Muskowekwan First Nation”, is the fourth installment in the “who we are and where we come from” book series published by the T4EA.

“It’s going to be a learning tool. They’re trying to get more of our own history in the way they teach the kids,” said Lonechild.

Lonechild mentions that there are still a few more schools left to do before the entire book is completed and published so that each school, each classroom will have their own copies.

Thirteen year-old Leroy Bigsky, who participated in the project, said he had asked Elder Johnny Bruce questions about the past. “How it was back then and all that,” said Bigsky. He said he painted a picture of, “the chief signing the treaty”.

Grade 5 Teacher Patti Fehr, said the students learned about how Muskowekwan was created.

The creation of this 24 page picture book is meant to be read at the middle and elementary level.

“There is a page of print and writing and a page of artwork beside it,” said Fehr.  

She said that there were so many stories that the people were telling that there was not enough room for everything. “What I’m really interested in doing is working on another book, not necessarily part of T4EA but just coming from our school, our community,” said Fehr.  They want to call it, “Muskowekwan: Stories of our Elders.”

“We have so many stories that so many people are telling us, and they’re just going to be lost if we don’t write them down somewhere,” she said.

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The students put in a lot of effort in this project and they learned things about the history of their community.  “There was only one person in our class who even knew Muskowekwan wasn’t the first chief of Muskowekwan,” she said.

Fehr and her students discovered that Chief Muskowekwan, the longest standing chief of 36 years, was the son of the Chief Ka-nee-na-wup, who had signed treaty four, before he became sick and died a year later.

They want the book to be biographical and the students who will now be heading into grade 7 and 8 in the fall want to finish writing the book before they leave the school for high school.