“Atik and Innu at Nitassinan: The Innu and Caribou in a Shared Landscape - Innu Culture and challenges facing Innu Nitassinan (traditional ancestral territory)”


 
Our guests will share Innu culture and traditional knowledge. They will bring Innu clothes, tools from caribou in order to explain the utility and legends connected with caribou, and animal which is central to the culture of the Innu people. You will be made to taste bannick (traditonal Innu bread) and berries from the Subarctic. There would be also storytelling and Innu dances.

In addition, Thora and her Innu guests will discuss the situation of the Innu First Nation, the current and future challenges regarding culture, land rights, indigenous rights, education, and health. They will tell us about the impacts of mining and climatic and socio-environmental change on the land and the Innu, about the caribou crisis and how it affects First Nations, as well as about the (non)-recognition of sacred sites.

After visiting Rovaniemi and Arctic Centre, our Innu guests depart to Inari to meet SAKK students and staff and learn more about the Sámi culture.
 
Prof. Thora Herrmann and researcher Leena Heinämäki will take up some of the themes of the Tuesday meeting in their presentation on "Protecting the Sacred: Recognition of Sacred Natural Sites as important means for sustaining nature and culture" during the Friday afternoon Coffee Chat 14.00 on 28th September 2012 in the same Thule meeting room, Arktikum House. You are also warmly welcome!