Bison skull discovery on Manitoba property to be used as teaching tool
CBC
A man who found a bison skull on his property in Manitoba that is estimated to be at least hundreds of years old plans on using it as a teaching aid with students in his region.
"It's one of those amazing opportunities for me to bridge that gap between our history and contemporary times and allow children to actually touch them," said Shawn Charlebois.
On Oct. 23, Charlebois was out harvesting materials on his property near Swan River, Man., about 380 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, for a land-based education workshop when he noticed parts of a skull sticking out of a river bank.
He ran home to get some help digging it out and asked his 15-year-old son Coleman Charlebois to video record the discovery.
"We didn't know what kind of skull it was," said Charlebois, who identifies as non-status Indian from Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation in New Brunswick.
"It was almost set up perfectly where that horn was embedded away from where we were excavating, when we pulled it. It was at that last moment that you could identify what it was."
Charlebois, who owns Red Road Compass, an Indigenous land-based education program, said he has found other animal skulls and even bison vertebrae in the past, but nothing this deeply buried.
"We're looking at about two to two and a half feet [60-76 centimetres] underneath the riverbank," said Charlebois.
"It was far down and . . . it was situated in a place where it was very compact, so it hasn't been disturbed for an incredibly long time."
After Charlebois found the skull, it didn't take long for it to end up in a "show and tell" inside a classroom.
His wife is a Grade 5-6 school teacher in the community and has already taken it to show to her students.
"It hasn't even been cleaned yet," said Charlebois.
"I love education and I love celebrating our Indigenous culture and making sure that kids have the opportunity to be out there."
Gary Wowchuck, who is the board chair for the Swan Valley School Division, said over 40 per cent of the student population in the region self-identifies as Indigenous, and that the skull is a great learning tool.
Whoever becomes attorney-general — the top lawyer — in Susan Holt's new Liberal government will face piles of lawsuits, along with decisions about how quickly to clear some of them away.
A video obtained by CBC Toronto shows a violent arrest by Peel Regional Police in Mississauga on Monday in which a Black man appears to get knocked unconscious.
Community members in Cote-des-Neiges are asking what comes next for students of an elementary school that has been at the centre of a political and media firestorm.
A personal care home in Winkler, Man., has been forced to close 26 desperately needed beds after its elevator became unstable, and petitioned the provincial government for months before Shared Health finally committed to fund the repair.
Josh Peterson knows gunshot wounds. He says he expected the worst when he showed up in the hospital emergency room to check on his 66-year-old dad.
Four years ago, the P.E.I. government said it had ordered a corporation owned by a member of the Irving family, Red Fox Acres, to get rid of some of its land because of a contravention of P.E.I.'s Lands Protection Act.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Edmonton, as counted by Homeward Trust, has increased by nearly 2,000 in the past year, up to 4,697 in September.
You've probably done a double take walking by some of your neighbours' yards this Halloween season, as sets of spooky skeletal eyes stare back at you.
A senior official at the Niagara Detention Centre (NDC) told the inquest into the deaths of five men that there can be tension between managing inmate health care and securing the jail.
Except on a few special days a year, Windsorites aren't allowed to buy or set off fireworks. But as the city's South Asian community prepares to celebrate Diwali, two local business owners say the Festival of Lights should be added to the list of holidays.
Calgary's rental market has gone through a major shift in recent years.