Time to Wonder Podcast
Time to Wonder Podcast is a place where kids ask questions about museums and we find the answers.
Time to Wonder Podcast
Episode 1: Were there museums before settlement ?
In this podcast our co-host Ava, a member of the Sqilxw Nation talks to Coralee Miller a docent at the Sncewips Heritage Museum. She asks the big question “Were there museums before settlement in what is now Canada?” Coralee explains why some things were saved and others weren't. Coralee also talks about why there are many First Nations museums today. In the Sncewips Museum, belongings come and go from the museum. We'll learn why. We'll also hear about belongings that are created for the museum.
As well as a docent at the museum, Coralee Miller is an accomplished visual artist.
See photos and more information at timetowonderpodcast.com
Meet the podcasters, read our blog and listen to our episodes at timetowonderpodcast.com
Episode 1 Were there museums before settlement in what we now call Canada?
Hi, I'm Ava.
Hi, I'm Leslie and I'm Sue.
Ava: This is a podcast where kids ask questions about museums
Lesley: And we find the answers.
Lesley: Welcome to the very first episode of Time to Wonder Podcast. Some First Nations people have been living here for over 14,000 years, which means Indigenous history spans thousands of years before settlers arrived. So, for our very first episode of Time to Wonder Podcast the big question is, “Were their museums before settlement in what is now Canada?”
Sue: There are more than 50 First Nations and 50 Indigenous languages spoken in Canada. Each Nation has its own culture. Our guest is from the sqilxw Nation in the Okanagan area of British Columbia. The answers she will be giving us today are based on sqilxw culture. If you are interested, you can find many First Nations museums online. Or, if you are traveling, visit, listen, ask questions, and learn.
Our very first guest is Coralee Miller. She's a member of the sqilxw Nation and is a docent at the Sncewips Heritage Museum. She books and leads tours for the museum, builds relationships with other museums, schools and businesses, assists her colleagues with their projects and even plunges toilets when necessary.
Lesley: Thanks for coming in seeing us today.
Coralee: Thanks for having us, Leslie. Thanks for having us, Sue. Thanks for having us Ava.
Ave: Are you ready for some questions?
Coralee: Heck yeah, bring ‘em on.
Lesley: Bring em on.
Ava: I like the confidence. But they’re dangerous questions. Did our people have museums?
Coralee: You know what? They didn't have brick and mortar museums. But I truly believe that the museum was in the mind. So, we have our elders. Our elders remember everything and so it's kind of like a living museum. We have landmarks that our people would return to all the time. And for us, I imagine heritage to be more than just an artifact. It's not just the arrowhead, but where did that arrowhead come from? And so, we have huge haematite deposits; we have huge flint deposits throughout our territory. So that in itself is like the type of museum. It's all about heritage, the story and the proof that are people have been here for since time in memorial.
Ava: Did our people keep belongings.
Coralee: Oh yeah, for sure. There are some little things that do make their way down from family to family, but what was customary for people was actually to either burn our things when we died or to pass them along to someone else. A lot of us would have like a favorite thing that we would take with us everywhere. But a lot of our stuff – you gotta remember it was never built to last. Like it was normal for things to kind of return back to the earth. So, if you had something that was really sturdy, then yeah, you would hang on to that and you would pass it on to the next generation. But when it came to, we didn't hang on to a lot of lot of things but really good stuff. We are a very utilitarian people.
Sue: Why would you burn things
Coralee: So, some believe that by burning things it helps the spirit to pass on. And if some things would not burn it's just to pass it on to the rest of the family. So we would do things like giveaways after someone has died. But my understanding was when we burned it kind of helped them sever those ties and then they can move peacefully on to the other side.
Ava: There are many First Nations museums today. Why
Coralee: 'Cause there's a lot of us. There are many different flavors of First Nation, from Anishnabe to Innuit Métis, or Ojibway to Okanagan, Nisga’a to name a few. We have a lot of similarities. But there are also many, many differences between one nation to another. So there's differences in language, there's differences in customs and social values, and there's differences in creation stories and dances and clothing. And so we can't have one mega museum that talks about us all you know, homogenously. We're all very distinctive and separate from one another.
Sue: Can I ask a question about why museums were formed for many First Nations in the first place?
Coralee: Oh OK so it was really believed that First Nation people wouldn't exist anymore. It was believed that we would go extinct, or we would completely lose our culture through assimilation and some folks thought “These people are going to be relics of the past and we need to preserve them. As something to look at later.” And that's not cool. Because we're still here and we're still doing the things that we have been doing for thousands of years despite efforts. And so when we create a First Nation museum, it's a way for our people to tell our story from our perspective. For too long, people have been telling our story for us and they're just not good at it.
Ava: I hear belongings in the museum don't necessarily stay permanently in the museum, but come and go.
Coralee: That's right. Not everything that comes into the museum, you know, disappears into the ether. A lot of the stuff that we bring in, it's community members that just need a safe place for them to keep their belongings. So there's (need correct word here) bundles there's fishing tools, there's digging tools. There are ceremony tools. And so we hang on to those things. And we’ve also got a big drum that gets taken out from time to time that the kids in the community practice on.
So we act as just a safe place to put stuff and so when the community needs it, it's there ready to go.
Sue: I hear someone had a baby recently in your family and something went out of the museum
Coralee:Tthat's right. So my favorite artifact, the Mxwal- or cradleboard. My cousin had a little baby girl, and that little baby girl needed a cradle board. So, they came to the museum and they they picked it up and I was like, “Goodbye.” So she put her baby in that and hasn’t returned it yet. Now I don’t think she will. But what did happen was another relation within the community she had her daughter and her daughters have outgrown her Mxwal so she donated hers. It's beautiful. It's yellow with little flowers on it. It's now my second favorite artifact.
Lesley: I love that cradleboard too. I thought it was really beautiful, yeah.
Ava: I also hear that sometimes things are created or constructed.
Coralee: That's right. So sometimes we do workshops within the community where we do pine needle baskets. We will do clay garden exhibit that we did where folks came in and they got to sculpt their favorite plant that they were learning about. Because we believe that if you're working with your hands, you just, you tend to remember things a little bit better. But also we will be doing some hide scraping and there's drum making that happens and then we're really hoping to learn how to work with birch bark. So that would be fantastic. My other favorite thing to do is I like to make rope using dogbane. That's one of the biggest exports that our people were well known for. Our paint and our rope.
Sue: Didn't someone also make your canoe for you?
Coralee: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, So we have a fairly it's not ancient itt was created in 2003 by Gordon Marchand and it's a black cottonwood canoe. And what’s special about this is that he was able to video record himself creating this canoe and when he passed away in 2006, the title of Master Carver then went on to a son, Frank Marchand. And so Frank every year without fail manages to make a canoe with the kids. Yeah, so it's really cool. And, you know, he just came back from Chile, so we need to see what kind of sculpting skills he's picked up from there.
Ava: Are there things about your museum you'd like kids and families to know?
Coralee: That we're open from Monday to Friday, 10 to 5, and we do lots of school tours. We have home school groups that come in and we can work with kids from kindergarten to university. So anytime someone comes in where we're friendly. We are safe space so you can ask any kind of question. We don't believe in a dumb question and we're definitely not going to make fun of you or get mad or anything. We want people to get to know us and learn about our culture and we want to make sure that people are comfortable when they come in.
Lesley: What have you learned from working in the museum that really surprised you, like from when you started?
Coralee: I used to be super shy. Used to be very shy. Very, very shy. First time I did a tour, it was with the kindergarten class and I choked. I start crying. My boss Jordan had to rescue me, but I think one of the things I really learned about the museum is the ability for compassion. And just how knowledge is power. When people come in and they learn our truth of history and have them realize that the issues are not over. A lot of the issues that First Nation people have been dealing with are still dealing with today and just that the monsters have taken on the different form.
Ava: limləmt
Coralee Hey limləmt.
Sue: Thank you Coralee
Lesley: Are you going to teach me how to say it?
(speaks in her own language)
Sue OK what did they just say.
Coralee: Goodbye and until next time.
Lesley: Ah good work, Ava. All Ava’s people at her school are really excited about this and we said that once we have our series that everyone at school is gonna listen.
Coralee: You’re doing a great job. You're going to be a fantastic host one day
Ava: I already am the host.
Coralee: Oh my bad.
Lesley: She already told us we work for her.
Sue: She was the star and we were the backup singers.
Coralee. Thata a girl.
Lesley: Once school’s out I’ll bring Ava over to the museum.
Coralee: Yes, fantastic. I’ll get your autograph.
Lesley: Thank you so much.
Ava: Get it while it’s hot.Bye
On our next episode, we're going to learn about the animals you see in museums.
Sue: I love looking at animals in museums. You know, the Natural History Museum in Dublin was built before Canada even became country.
Lesley: Wow.
Sue: Lesley, Ava it was fascinating seeing the hundreds of animals and birds they had on display, but kind of sad as well.
Lesley: Oh?
Sue: There were many, many animals I could see in that museum that are extinct. That means they no longer exist.
Ava: So the only way to see those animals and to study them was to see them in a museum. Lesley: That's right, Ava. In episode 2 called Is a Bear Real? you will hear our guest talk about Waffles, the grizzly bear you can see on display at the Kelowna Heritage Museum.
Ava: I don't think I'd like to get too close to a bear like that in the wild. I think it would be very scarey for me and for the bear.
Sue: That's why it's great to be able to see animals like Waffles in the museum. We can get very close to him, see how huge his paws are and how long his nails are.
Ava: Did you know that when a grizzly bear goes into hibernation in the fall, his claws are half the length they are when he comes out again in the spring?
Lesley: No, I didn't know that.
Ava: A bear uses its claws to dig in the earth, so over the spring and summer they wear their claws down. Then over the winter they grow again.
Lesley: Ava, How did you know that?
Ava: I read it in Time to Wonder: a kids guide to BC’s regional museums
Sue: You are one smart kid.
Ava: In a museum that has animals, we can learn all sorts of things about where the animals live, what they eat and how big their territory is and how we can help protect them.
Sue: That's really important stuff.
Lesley: Ava, aren’t grizzly bears, endangered.
Sue: They are listed on a “species of concern” list in Canada.
Ava: But isn't hunting grizzly bears illegal in British Columbia?
Sue: You're right Ava. Since 2017 only First Nations people have been allowed to hunt grizzlies. Ava: That probably really helped the Grizzlies, but I know these bears are threatened by lots of other things than hunting like loss of habitat. People like cities and farms and ranches. But every time a town or city grows or we make a farmer or ranch bigger, the Grizzlies are losing the places where they have lived.
Lesley: That's true Ava. And another thing that threatens grizzly bears is the vehicles we drive. Many bears are killed by cars, trucks and trains.
Sue: It's important for kids and adults to learn about the animals that share our provinces and how we can help keep their numbers healthy.
Ave: I’m looking forward to learning about animals in the museum on the next episode.
Thanks again to today's guests Are Music was written by Kevin McLeod and is licensed under Creative Commons. For complete information, see our blog post at time to wonderpodcast.com. For more information on this episode, visit time to wonderpodcast.com.
A special thank you to our producer, Danny Riendeau. Thank you, Danny.
If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe. Remember, next time you go to museum, look, listen and wonder.
Sue: Thanks again to today's guests. Our Music was written by Kevin McLeod and is licensed under Creative Commons. For complete information, see our blog post at timetowonderpodcast.com.
Lesley: For more information on this episode, visit timetowonderpodcast.com.
Ava: If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe. Remember, next time you go to museum, look, listen and wonder.