Brock University: Strengthening Community Ties Through Indigenous Recreation
A Brock University summer course focused on the historical and current realities of Indigenous leisure activities will connect recreation and reconciliation while providing students with an outdoor field experience in a First Nation community.
Indigenous Communities and Recreation (RECL 2P94) will examine the impact of colonization on Indigenous forms of leisure, compare mainstream recreation programming with Indigenous activities, and equip learners with the knowledge and resources to offer programming that meets the needs of Indigenous communities.
The course will be taught by sessional instructors Jodi Johnston (BRLS ’05), a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation, and Kory Snache, a member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation.
“Folks don’t often have opportunities to work with Indigenous people or communities within recreation and leisure studies,” says Johnston. “This course offers opportunities for students to think not only about the history of Indigenous people, but also what reconciliation looks like in the context of outdoor education or recreation therapy.”
Most of Canada’s parks exist on Indigenous lands, for example, and the people were removed to provide opportunities for others, says Johnston.
“How, in turn, are we now looking at programming that supports Indigenous people on those landscapes?” she says.
Activities now classified as recreation have been long connected to Indigenous Peoples’ subsistence lifestyle. Spear fishing and paddling, for example, were once essential to survival.
“We target land-based cultural opportunities and spiritual activities as recreation, and there’s always greater learning embedded within it,” says Snache. “Ceremony is sometimes also seen as recreation. You can sign up to attend a sweat lodge and feast like you could with other recreation programs, for example, but there’s also advance work you have to put into it to attend.”
This is the fifth year Johnston and Snache will be teaching the course, which is being offered in a blended format this summer.
Classes will take place online for five weeks on Tuesday evenings from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. beginning Tuesday, July 16. Final lessons will take place in person outside at Black River Wilderness Park from Friday, Aug. 16 to Sunday, Aug. 18. The family campground is owned and operated by Snache’s home community, the Chippewas of Rama First Nation.
“Rama is very fortunate. They’re one of the only First Nations communities in Canada that has an active recreation department,” says Snache. “Students will have the opportunity to be involved with its programs and see first-hand how it incorporates both Indigenous and mainstream programs and practices to meet its participants needs.”
During the weekend field experience, Johnston and Snache will share their knowledge of the land and their perspectives on outdoor recreation as a healing practice. Students will meet with community leaders and will be guided through a visit to Chief Island on Lake Couchiching, which is a sacred site for the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and a popular site for summer recreational boaters.
Students will also participate in an Indigenous history class while floating in an inner tube down the Black River. While floating, they will learn about the history of the area and river, and the types of recreational programs the river supports.
As a final assignment for the course, students will examine a current recreational program and analyze how it could be better structured to engage and meet the needs of Indigenous Peoples or build a new recreation and leisure program to be inclusive of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants.
The course is open to Recreation and Leisure Studies students and any Brock student interested in taking it as an elective. Recreational practitioners interested in a professional development opportunity may enrol in the course under the University’s Open Studies pathway, which allows people of all ages and educational backgrounds to take individual Brock courses on a part-time basis without registering for a full certificate or degree.