By Lisa Dixon, 2nd year MDP student
I
am in the final week of my international field placement and it’s hard to
believe that in a few short days I will be leaving Inari. Reflecting on my time here, I can say that
while the placement was not without its challenges, overall it has been a great
experience and I’m grateful I was able to come here and meet many people who
allowed me to learn from them and ask unlimited questions!
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| L-R: Anna Morottaja, Lisa Dixon, Heli Huovinen, Suvi Kivela at the CASLE gathering |
As
I mentioned in my previous blog, my main project in Inari has been developing
the English website for the CASLE program.
The project will continue in the fall with development of several
documentaries and other video-based content. My partner and I wish we could of
have been involved with some of the video content but we were able to
accomplish quite a bit during the ten weeks.
My last night in Inari, we hosted a gathering that reunited students and
Language Masters from the CASLE program to give updates on what they were doing
since the program ended, in particular how they were using the Inari Sami
language in their everyday lives. It also gave Heli and I an opportunity to
showcase some of the work we had done on the website. Although the content was in English and many
of the Language Masters don’t speak any English, they seemed quite pleased to
have some of the documentaries made during the cultural courses on the
website. We also greatly expanded the
section on the Language Masters to include a biography, photograph, and an
edited audio clip of them speaking Inari Sami.
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| Mortensnes, Norway |
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| Lisa presenting at Sacred Sites conference |
Since
my last blog post, things have been very busy.
At the end of May, I was able to go to Norway for a two-day trip with the
Inari Sami Language Program. Inari is
not very far from the Norwegian border but it has an incredibly different
landscape, with mountains and water everywhere.
We went to museums and visited some beautiful sites on our whirlwind
trip!
Inari
was the host of a three-day conference on Sacred Sites and Culturally Important
Landscapes in the middle of June. There
were Indigenous peoples from Canada, the U.S., Finland, and Russia involved in
the conference as well as researchers from all over Europe. The conference was an amazing learning
experience and I was able to meet some great people doing some really important
work. I was also able to give a short
presentation on the topic of Indigenous language in Canada and our program and
the response was quite positive!
