An entirely separate MOOC course could be created and be brimming with examples of Indigenous music, writing, visual art, performance, and film of Indigenous artists. While we will have to limit this particular lesson to three outstanding examples of each category, we fully encourage you to check out the course notes, and explore the many exceptional Indigenous creatives engaged in innovative, inspiring, and powerful projects. Now, we would like you to take some time to go and look at some of the awesome contemporary musicians, artists, writers, and filmmakers. Choose at least one person or group from each category, linked in the next section, as well as in the course notes. Take some time. Listen to their music, read their words. We think that those artists have some powerful and significant contributions to the creative landscape. Think about connections you observed between different people and their expressions through art that you just experienced. What connections can you see between Buffy Sainte-Marie's social activism through song and A Tribe Called Red's music today? How do their individual or collective voices come out in their work? Did they make any comments about history, culture, or lived experiences that really stuck with you? Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater's collaborative film, composed of two silent films, called Modest Livelihood, first presented in 2013 as a remarkable example of how artists voices can inspire, and explore issues related to personal histories, cultural conditions, and current and relevant cultural events. Born in Fort St. John, British Columbia in 1970, Brian Jungen is a mix of European and Dane-zaa, and is from the Dane-zaa First Nation. Co-collaborator Duane Linklater is Omaskêko Cree, from Moose Cree First Nation, in Northern Ontario, and is currently based in North Bay, Ontario. Both Linklater and Jungen are internationally and critically acclaimed artists, and both are winners of the Sobey Art Award, for Canada's most prominent contemporary artists under 40, Jungen in 2002 and Linklater in 2013. These two silent films were exhibited simultaneously at the new Logan Centre for the Arts at the University of Chicago in 2013, under the title called Modest Livelihood. The larger project, a 50-minute film, in which we watch as the artists undertake two off season hunts in the late 2011, on Dane-zaa territory, is derived from the smaller of the two films named Lean. Lean was shot at the BAM Center in 2012. The film shows both artists hunting off-season on Treaty 8 territory. The piece, Modest Livelihood, offers no words from either hunter during the entire film. There aren't any artist statements that accompany the films, nor are there signs that would help an audience interpret the films. Others have critiqued the film for its silence, and have said that any controversial arguments or political statements are not heard. Audiences quietly watch the films, both devoid of conversation and sound. There are very few physical exchanges or gestures between the men. The action is too fragmented to pursue any kind of narrative. So, how does one interpret this film? And what understanding can we derive from these pieces? Perhaps we can take clues from the title however, Modest Livelihood. Remember when we discussed the Marshall Decision of 1999? Jungen and Linklater’s Modest Livelihood is a twist on the infamous notion of "a moderate livelihood". When the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the rights of Mik'maq fishermen, Donald Marshall Jr., affirming the treaty rights of First Nations to be able to provide for their families by hunting, fishing, gathering, and trading, they also said that First Nations could not pursue any more than a moderate livelihood. Jungen and Linklater attempt to answer the previously asked question. When living in extended family kinship systems, with values of accountability and sharing, where does moderation end and excess begin? There are powerful and compelling undertones in this documentary-like film. The title of Modest Livelihood relates to the legalese phrasing of moderate livelihood, that undermine the First Nations treaty rights to freely hunt, trap, and fish. Marshall could only sell enough to constitute a moderate livelihood, and this questionable term became precedent setting. It was a benchmark decision for resource management among First Nations. As Jungen and Linklater hunt, kill, and butcher a young moose, the audience follows along. As they carve up the flesh and bone of the moose, we see a large compressor, cables, and oil pipelines in the background. This scene is a strong reminder of the resource extraction and development that continues on traditional territories, often without the agreement of First Nations peoples. Why this experience for viewers? What are we supposed to learn as we travel, hunt, and butcher with the hunters? How does this speak to identity, to community and to our responsibilities? "It's a family thing," Jungen says, "I think for most Indian folks, hunting is really just going hiking, but with rifles." What viewers of Modest Livelihood begin to see is an unmistakable connection to the land for each hunter. Viewers watch as the hunters travel the land together in relative ease. We, as viewers, travel alongside the hunters, not participating, but observing the intimacy of the hunters interaction with each other and the land. Our viewer and hunter relationship starts as we progress to the end of the film, as Jungen and Linklater begin to clean, skin, and carve the moose. As Jungen and Linklater are connected with the land, so too are the viewers with the hunters. We are suspended and sustain closeness, and as such, witness the skill and respect needed for this venture. We were so close to the animal, as it is being dismembered and carved, that our perspective is almost intimate. As viewers travel and hunt with Jungen and Linklater, the film fosters a feeling of familiarity and connection. It communicates the idea of how Indigenous communities are deeply connected with the land, and demonstrates the interdependency that we all share with each other. "It appalls us that the West can claim ownership of our ways of knowing, our imagery, the things we create and produce, and then simultaneously seek to deny us further opportunities to be creators of our own culture. It angers us when practices linked to the last century, and the centuries before that, are still employed to deny the validity of Indigenous peoples' claim to forms of cultural knowledge." Well friends, we've reached the end of our time together. We hope that this course, Indigenous Canada, is not the end of your learning journey, but only the beginning. As you've learned, the Indigenous people of Canada are wonderfully diverse and varied, and there still remains so much to learn. In the four directions we've presented four groups, Kanien'keha:ka in the east, Haida in the west, Inuit in the north, and Nehiyawak in the south. We shared for instance some of their world views, language, histories, governance and political systems, and spiritual practices. We learned about Indigenous peoples interactions with each other, and their robust trading and traveling systems, prior to settler arrival. From the beginning and the end of the fur trade, the history of residential schools, the historical and modern day treaties, and contemporary Indigenous social issues, this course provided you with a different perspective of Canada. Our founding history as a land, as a country begins with Indigenous people. Today, in the midst of a settler colonial state, Indigenous people engage in issues such as sovereignty in land, and restitution, and reconciliation. Indigenous people are Canada's fastest growing population, and to move forward in improving the lives of all future generations, it's imperative that every Canadian have an understanding of these histories. For those of you new, and not so new, to the history of Indigenous people in Canada, we hope that this primer course has provided you with an introduction that is moving and thought provoking. We hope this space has successfully negotiated some of the complexities surrounding sovereignty, land, gender and sexuality without overgeneralizing or essentializing. We wish to thank everyone who has contributed in any way to this course. Any success that we've earned can be entirely attributed to them. Forgive any mistakes we've made, any inconsistencies, grammar, and pronunciation. Our team of scholars have also learned a lot along the way. It's been a pleasure and a great responsibility to present this Indigenous perspective. In closing, we hope you'll continue to reflect deeply on the lessons and teachings in this course, and reach out and strive to learn more. From everyone here at the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, on Treaty Six and Metis territory, we thank you very much. ekosi mâka.
