Embedded Files
Le partage des savoirs/Sharing knowledge
River Women Collective
Photo Story Exhibits
River Women Collective
Photo Story Exhibits
My research continues to be inspired by being a part of the River Women Collective. In June 2024, we launched a photo story exhibit in collaboration with Parks Canada at the Métis Homelands of Batoche, Saskatchewan. The exhibit features the River Women Collective experience of hosting Walking with Our Sisters. The final closing ceremony honours Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women.
A second collaborative storied exhibit was launched in Batoche June 2025. It features my children's story book, The Giggle Tent, reflecting our Michif women's ways of leading inspired by the River women collective, while also uplifting illustrations created by Jennifer Brown, Metis artist.
There are two exhibits woven together in the entrance of Parks telling a story of Metis women's lives today, and our kinship systems and language in this specific place of Batoche.
River Women
Film Creation
River Women
Film Creation
Alongside Dr. Cheryl Troupe and the River Women Collective, we have produced and have been stewarding our experiences of hosting the final ceremony of Walking With Our Sisters held in Batoche, Saskatchewan. Since June 2024, we have been stewarding this film, a story meant to enrich community life and conversations of right action and responsibility in support kinship heath and wellbeing.
To arrange for a screening in your community reach out to Cindy Gaudet.
French and Spanish subtitles have recently been added to expand our knowledge mobilization.
Children's Literature
Children's Literature
As part of my Canada Research Chair, it is a joy to collaborate with community in Lii Faam Michif Children’s Book Collection Series, Storytelling and Visiting with Lii Mataant pii Lii Zaanfaan. The inspiration comes from all of you, from life experiences themselves, and from all those little human beings in our lives that teach us and/or ask something of us, something new. Stories shape our identity, including how we think, see, be, relate, and live. Sometimes it's the medicine we need to lift up our spirits and to interrupt the harmful myths about us as Michif Faam. SILR, Supporting Indigenous Language Revitalization, has invested in this community of all generations initiative, and place-based Michif, which is still spoken in Batoche, St. Louis, and Duck Lake, SK and other places we live.
The Giggle Tent
The Giggle Tent
Publication Forthcoming
The Giggle Tent was inspired by my experience of co-leading with Lii Faam Michif, Christine Tournier, Angela Rancourt and Cheryl Troupe.
In the way of looking after ourselves, we, four co-leads created a safe and loving physical space that we named “The Giggle Tent”. The story and art celebrates our Michif way of being and doing, and interrupts anything inferior about who we are.
Willa in the City
Willa in the City
Publication Forthcoming
A story of auntie and niece love of visiting with one another. An exchange of mutual respect and honest dialogue as they walk about in the city. it reflects the lived reality of Métis families living and being in relation in many spaces.
Moon Time Prayer
Moon Time Prayer
Published 2018
What stories are girls told of womanhood? Written for young girls and women of all ages, Moon Time Prayer invites readers alongside young Sparrow as her Auntie and Grandmother share the sacred teachings of women's Moon Time.
$15.99 on Amazon
Lii Kaart aen Michif
A St. Louis Michif Language Learning and Teaching Resource
Lii Kaart aen Michif
A St. Louis Michif Language Learning and Teaching Resource
This tiny but mighty bundle of Lii Kaart aen Michif has been a gift that keeps on giving. For the past few years, alongside Doris McDougall, one of the four team members (Angela Rancourt, Marlene Vandale and Cindy) have been sharing these resources to political organizations, schools, and at community events with community partners like SS River Design and the Batoche local at Back to Batoche days. This project was launched in 2018 and funded by the University of Alberta and Campus Saint-Jean special projects creative funding.
Presenting our Presence Podcast
Presenting our Presence Podcast
Presenting Our Presence — or POP — is a monthly vodcast and podcast that amplifies the voices and visibility of the Indigenous knowledge-holders, learners and change-makers who enliven the University of Alberta community. POP’s Indigenous-led protocols and ethics centre knowledge holders' sovereignty as stewards of their own stories.
Watch POP on YouTube, or listen to POP on Spotify or SoundCloud
Florence Glanfield, Vice-Provost (Indigenous Programming & Research), and Cindy Gaudet (assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Métis Relations & Land-based Wellness, Campus Saint-Jean) discuss how POP emerged from Florence’s weekly Virtual Teas during the pandemic. They share why being present to one another supports their living experiences and interrupts colonial erasure. Their conversation recognizes generations of Indigenous knowledge holders, collaborative leadership and community care.
Métis Women's Stories Video Series
Métis Women's Stories Video Series
Métis Women's Stories is a youtube channel I co-created with Elder Sophie McDougall, and videographer Marcel Petit in 2000 as part of the CIHR funding grant to amplified Metis women's approaches to health and wellbeing. It shares a series of vignettes that carry wisdom, stories, and experiences as told and remembered by Sophie McDougall. In conversation with her grand-daughter, Crystal Lee Harris, we learn of Métis values, ways of life, history, knowledge about a specific place, kinship and wellness practices. Tune and listen closely to Métis Women's Stories, and our late and beloved Sophie who lives with us.
Métis Women's Stories is a youtube channel I co-created with Elder Sophie McDougall, and videographer Marcel Petit in 2000 as part of the CIHR funding grant to amplified Metis women's approaches to health and wellbeing. It shares a series of vignettes that carry wisdom, stories, and experiences as told and remembered by Sophie McDougall. In conversation with her grand-daughter, Crystal Lee Harris, we learn of Métis values, ways of life, history, knowledge about a specific place, kinship and wellness practices. Tune and listen closely to Métis Women's Stories, and our late and beloved Sophie who lives with us.
Sophie McDougall, Métis Elder
Sophie McDougall, Métis Elder
Sophie was born to Robert James Boyer and Mary Leona McDougall on December 22, 1928, in St. Louis, Saskatchewan (an original Métis community) situated on south banks of the beautiful South Saskatchewan River.
Sophie was born to Robert James Boyer and Mary Leona McDougall on December 22, 1928, in St. Louis, Saskatchewan (an original Métis community) situated on south banks of the beautiful South Saskatchewan River.
Special acknowledgements to Sophie and Crystal, to your families, to the research team and St. Louis community partners, to Marcel Petit and the Canadian Institute for Health Research for helping make this happen.
Special acknowledgements to Sophie and Crystal, to your families, to the research team and St. Louis community partners, to Marcel Petit and the Canadian Institute for Health Research for helping make this happen.
Photo: Sophie McDougall, Daughter of Mary Leona McDougall and Robert James Boyer, at the River Road Festival in 2018 at the launch of Lii Kaart aen Michif.
Elder and Auntie Sophie McDougall is commemorated for her dedication in sharing her knowledge of her Métis culture and Michif language with generations of students and community members over her life. Canada will know every royal everyday Michif Faam through Sophie. I am reminded of the Michif women we love and know who work tirelessly, lovingly and invisibly for the health and wellbeing of Family and Community.
Sophie, you're a star in my eyes, and a spark in my heart.
"Keep going, my girl", she'd often say. Indeed, we are keeping going! - Cindy
Read more:
Plant Medicines & Métis Identity Video Series
Plant Medicines & Métis Identity Video Series
2020 AIM-HI Research Grant
In collaboration with Métis scholar Hannah Bouvier and several Métis Elders, we co-created an exploration of Métis plants and identity. Interviews visiting with the Métis Elders allowed us to co-create 3 digital stories, the medicine of dandelion jelly, document family knowledge, and the creation of pedagogical learning tools for correlating it with Métis wellness and medicines.
The project entails "a knowledge translation element of the wellness work we commenced last year on Plant medicines and Métis women's identity. This summer [2020], we will grow/deepen the project to include a community-engaged experiential learning with a possible summer land-based learning camp with Métis youth and women. Through this, we will engage in the process of loving our land and changing our perceptions of dandelions."
AIM-HI PowerPoint.pdfAIM newsletter.pdfLearning Videos Forthcoming
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