(Indigenous Curriculum Project)
The goal of this project is to produce a map showing approximately 150 traditional land use sites of the Minto Flats Athabascan people, from the early 1900’s and on. Students and Elders from Minto, in conjunction with the Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN) and the Cultural Heritage and Education Institute (CHEI), have been working on this map for 10 years now and it is coming along, but there is still much work to be done before completion. The project will include a physical map, guidebook of sites, interactive CD-ROM and web page.
Guidebook
Each of the sites’ cultural, historical, and spiritual significance will be illuminated in an accompanying guidebook. The guidebook will be based on interviews conducted with twelve Elders of Minto, including Peter John, the traditional chief who is nearly 100 years old.
CD-ROM & Web Page
An interactive CD-ROM and web page will also be produced by the Minto high school students, showing each site and its’ historical significance. Tape recorded messages and footage of Elders as well as written descriptions will accompany some sites. The CD-ROM will have two separate curricula to be followed, the first being created for the people of Minto Flats to use as an educational aid to their ancestry. The second part of the CD-ROM will be a "How-To Curriculum" created to aid other Alaskan communities in similar audio-visual documentary projects.
Since the conception of this idea, this project has fostered individual pride and cultural identity in the students and Elders working on it. It has also become a model project for other communities, as is seen so far in the mapping projects of St. George Island and the Lower Tanana River Valley Basin between Fairbanks and Nenana.
