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First Nation schools and organizations are invited to contact Peter Andre Globensky in Thunder Bay at 683.0585 or by email at basa.tb@tbaytel.net to arrange a special event with Tomson Highway during his stay in Thunder Bay.

Project press release ... 

Tomson Highway brings unique talents to Thunder Bay - First-ever Artist-in-Residence at Negahneewin College & Lakehead University

29 September 2008 - Thunder Bay, Ontario

Tomson Highway, the internationally renowned and award-winning Canadian playwright and author from the land of the Cree in northern Manitoba is bringing his unique talents to Thunder Bay. As part of a larger project undertaken by Tomson and Negahneewin College entitled The Written Tradition – Literature, Literacy and Aboriginal Identity, Mr. Highway has agreed to become the first-ever shared Artist-in-Residence at Negahneewin College and Lakehead University through the Office of Aboriginal Initiatives, for the entire month of October this year.

“We are proud and delighted that Tomson Highway will be able to take time out from his busy touring and writing schedule to engage with us and the community of Thunder Bay,” said Dean Brenda Small of Negahneewin College.

In addition to providing guidance to students and faculty at both post-secondary institutions, Tomson will visit and meet with students from local high schools and will also be available for a number of community events. Magnus Theatre will be staging the play that started it all, Tomson’s The Rez Sisters (October 23rd to November 8th) during his tenure in Thunder Bay. He will also devote time to working with Magnus Theatre’s artistic director and actors. As well, Mr. Highway is working with the Thunder Bay Public Library to offer two free community readings of his works.

A gifted and classically trained pianist Tomson brings his musical cabaret to Thunder Bay, one that has played to sold-out houses in Europe and Latin America. Performed over two evenings on the 16th and 17th of October, Notes in the Key of Literacy showcases Tomson’s artistic abilities as both an accomplished playwright and a classically-trained pianist. With the generous support of Thunder Bay’s TBayTel and the Chronicle Journal, Tomson will be playing without fees and has expressly requested that all monies raised by the two evening cabarets support educational, literacy and cultural programs for Aboriginal students in northwestern Ontario through the Office of Aboriginal Initiatives at Lakehead University and the offices of Literacy Northwest, the two sponsors of the event. The two October cabarets constitute an important part of Tomson’s high-profile and energetic activities while he is with us in Thunder Bay.  Vice-Provost of Aboriginal Initiatives at Lakehead University, Beverly Sabourin affirmed that the “contribution this gifted artist is making to promoting the importance of education and literacy among Aboriginal students is profound, most helpful and greatly appreciated.”

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MEDIA: For general information or to arrange interviews with Mr. Highway, please contact the project coordinator of The Written Tradition – Literature, Literacy and Aboriginal Identity, Peter Andre Globensky in Thunder Bay at 683.0585 or by email at basa.tb@tbaytel.net

The Tomson Highway Literacy Initiative

Backgrounder

As the creative director of The Written Tradition – Literature, Literacy and Aboriginal Identity  undertaken and sponsored by Negahneewin College, Tomson has embarked upon of one of the most interesting and creative journeys in promoting literacy and education within Aboriginal communities ever undertaken by post-secondary institutions in Canada.  The twofold purpose of the umbrella project is to consider how Aboriginal literature has both informed and validated Aboriginal identity in Canada. His analysis and the annotated bibliographies of hundreds of works by Canadian Aboriginal authors will then form the basis of an exhaustive, camera-ready curriculum that can be used by Aboriginal education and literacy programs across the country.

Sometimes referred to as the Aboriginal version of Margaret Atwood’s Survival, the seminal work that thematically defined Canadian literature over 40 years ago, Tomson’s historic work on this initiative will result in an important and major contribution to keeping Aboriginal kids in school and providing adults with an opportunity to return to literacy programs in their communities.  The federal government’s Office of Literacy and Essential Skills has provided support for this stage of the project.

Tomson Highway is the son of legendary caribou hunter and world championship dogsled racer, Joe Highway. He was born in a tent pitched in a snow bank—in December!—in northwestern Manitoba where it meets Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan, and he now, for a living, writes novels, plays, and music. Of the many works he has written to date, his best known are his plays—The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing, Rose, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout—and the best-selling novel, Kiss Of The Fur Queen.  He has, as well, three children’s books to his credit, all written bilingually in Cree (his mother tongue) and English. He divides his year between a cottage in northern Ontario (near Sudbury) and an apartment in the south of France, at both of which locales he is currently hard at work on his second novel and on The Written Tradition. 

Peter Andre Globensky
Project Coordinator
The Written Tradition
807 683.0585
basa.tb@btaytel.net

Media Backgrounder

“The Written Tradition” - Literature, Literacy and Aboriginal Identity

Tomson Highway,
Negahneewin College of Academic and Community Development

Thunder Bay, Ontario
June 27th 2007

This initiative is made possible with the financial assistance of the National Office of Literacy and Learning (Human Resources Development Canada)

. . . . “There was nothing, that is to say, in those books to hold our interest. Even the history books said, in terms that were virtually black and white, that we didn’t count, that we had no history, no mythology, no culture, no language, and no worth. So what did we care? We dropped out, in huge numbers. . . . “        

- -  A Manifesto from Author and Playwright Tomson Highway

The general objective of this important literacy initiative is to create an accessible body of Aboriginal knowledge and literature which, once dispersed and made widely available, will entice and encourage Aboriginal students to explore their own identity through the written word of Aboriginal authors, thereby creating even greater opportunities for Aboriginal learners young and old to participate more fully in the learning process.

The specific goal of the project is to create a significant literacy curriculum tool, an analytical work with an annotated bibliography for use by educators, and literacy practitioners that will analyze and consider how literature created by Aboriginal authors has informed the evolution of Aboriginal identity in Canada today. The award-winning author and playwright, Tomson Highway who will serve as the Creative Director of the project and undertake the analysis is mining new ground with this initiative.

The initiative will collect and analyze a significant sample of Aboriginal literature in Canada with the intent of determining how this literature has impacted and helped shape the identity of Aboriginal people in Canada; will contribute to the vital connection between pride in identity and learning materials that reinforce, build and elaborate Aboriginal identity in Canada; will produce a superior analytical reference work with an annotated bibliography to serve as a vital component of Aboriginal education and literacy training; and will isolate the more important works in this connection between Aboriginal literature and Aboriginal identity and distribute them as key curriculum components of Aboriginal literacy curriculum and Aboriginal education. The primary outcome of the deliverables produced will be to reinforce and build upon the growing importance of pride-in-identity as an important motivation for learning – the concept being if a cultural group can rely increasingly on the creative products of its own citizens (literature, a sense of who we are and a sense of place), this will contribute to a pride of learning and will assist learners feel that their culturally-appropriate curriculum has both validity and is a crucial tool in their learning experience.

This important curriculum resource will, therefore, focus directly on the creation of new and exciting learning materials. This curriculum will be made available to literacy practitioners and learners in its final form and will be distributed to aboriginal literacy programs, Aboriginal education authorities and to Aboriginal educators in Canada. In terms of the resources currently available, the sponsors of the project, along with those anticipated (methodological expertise, etc.) we are confident that a superb and relevant curriculum tool can developed and distributed widely.