New archive featuring interviews with Mi'kmaw elders launches online, aims to expand
CBC
Pam Glode-Desrochers says hearing the voice of a deceased Mi'kmaw elder on tape is indescribable — and incredibly necessary.
"These are opportunities for young people in our communities to actually sit and listen and to learn from people who are no longer here," the executive director of the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre in Halifax told CBC Radio's Mainstreet earlier this month.
"Each time I listen, I learn something and it moves me to the core because these could have been easily lost if this kind of project didn't happen."
That project is a new online archive that holds hours and hours of audio and video featuring Mi'kmaw elders relating memories and history, participating in cultural activities and sharing their knowledge about language, residential schools and politics, among other topics.
The archive has been years in the making.
"I do believe that these archives are a start of something wonderful, something beautiful," Glode-Desrochers said.
In 2018, Glode-Desrochers teamed up with Trudy Sable, the director of Aboriginal and northern research at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, to establish an archive based on Sable's personal collection.
