On Feb. 28, Brian Rice, a professor in the faculty of kinesiology and recreation management, led an Indigenous history walk from Upper Fort Garry to St. Boniface, connecting students to the history of the land on which we live.
Rice, who is Mohawk and part Scandinavian, explained that he has been teaching Indigenous courses at universities for 30 years, before assuming his current role as a land-based educator for the faculty. Though he is a university professor, he believes there is much to be learned outside the classroom.
“I have a PhD in traditional knowledges, and I’ve never really been able to apply some of that knowledge into outdoor settings or such, because we’re always confined to a classroom,” he said, “And I didn’t want to be a professor who was stuck talking about the Indian Act all the time. And so what I did for my dissertation is I walked about 700 miles through my own territory, knowing all the stories and everything else.”
While many might think of physical activity as purely training the body, Rice highlighted that it can also be a powerful way to educate the mind — especially on local histories. He often takes his students on long walks, introducing them to historically significant sites in the city.
“We might start at Polo Park [and] go down to the Assiniboine residential school. There’s an Indigenous burial ground close by that nobody knows about, and I’ll bring them there, talk about it. [Then we will] walk through Wolseley.”
He explained that many influential English, Scottish and Irish Métis lived along Wolseley and up St. Andrews, and in 1870, there were about 4,500 of them — just 1,000 shy of the more well-known French Métis. They spoke Bungee, which is an amalgamation of Gaelic, English, Anishinaabe and Cree.
“There’s so many things that we can do in this city and we can learn about because this was really, in a sense, a focal point, a middle ground for all of Canada […] Winnipeg is such an influential point of our Canadian history, so I try and bring that aspect,” said Rice.
Rice also mentioned that physical activity plays a key role in transmitting Indigenous traditions, and students have the opportunity to take part in them. For example, Rice incorporates traditional lacrosse, also known as tewaaraton, as well as Indigenous song and dance into his classes.
Although colonization has tried to erase much of Indigenous culture, Rice believes this is a promising time for amplifying Indigenous voices and perspectives. For instance, when he first started teaching, disciplines such as anthropology and history were separate from Indigenous studies and had histories of appropriating Indigenous knowledge.
“But now we have an opportunity to use all of these disciplines and bring them together. So, if we study a little bit about archaeology when we’re missing a piece from the historical part, we can combine them together, and we can bring a broader picture to our own native perspectives and everything else,” Rice added.
“I think we’re in a very good place for learning now. As long as our institutions are open to us learning in different ways and not simply just going into a classroom or something. I think we have an advantage there now.”
