Water for Life and the Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation

2005-2015 is the Water for Life Decade. This morning at the Water for Life conference in Winnipeg, I met students from the Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation (Jackhead First Nation). Under the tutelage of their teachers including Len Van Roon, Anne Schuster and others at the Lawrence Sinclair Memorial School, the students are involved in project R.E.D. (Researching, Exploring and Discovering) the Red River Watershed. Kinonjeoshtegon is on Lake Winnipeg, and many in the community fish on the lake. This project is a spiral curriculum in which the students' "journey on the Red" is interwoven in various subjects. The students learn about the Red River and Lake Winnipeg in class, and are also engaged in physical activity (canoeing as an example) where they learn about the Red River and Lake Winnipeg first hand. In this photo you can see me with Darlene Thompson, Chaniece Patchinos, Nicole Thomas, Precious Muswagon and Tamara Osborne. Edward Ross and Mary Travers were also part of the team at the conference but are not in the picture. Above us is "the eagle and the fish". The students are excited about what they are doing, and as an added benefit, today and tomorrow they get to learn more from being at the Water for Life conference.

My greetings and congratulations to all those at the Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation. I have visited your community on more than one occasion, the last time being a number of years ago. I can attest to the fact that you live in a beautiful location on the shore of Lake Winnipeg.