This episode features Renee Linklater, a PhD who is a member of Rainy River First Nations in Northwestern Ontario. She has over 25 years of experience working with Indigenous healing agencies and First Nation communities. Renee has worked across the health and education sectors as a frontline worker, program evaluator, curriculum developer, educator/trainer, and researcher. She is an international speaker on trauma and healing and is the author of Decolonizing trauma work: Indigenous stories and strategies and editor of Connected in Creation: A Collection of Lived Experience through Cultural Expression. Renee is the Senior Director of Shkaabe Makwa - Centre for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Wellness at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and is actively involved in several system level initiatives across the province.

Renee’s Book:

Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies

http://amshealthcare.ca/

This episode features Isaac Murdoch, also known by his Ojibwe name Manzinapkinegego’anaabe / Bombgiizhik, who hails from the Fish Clan and belongs to the Serpent River First Nation. Raised in the traditional lifestyle of hunting, fishing, and trapping, he dedicated many years to learning from Elders in the northern regions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Isaac is highly regarded as a storyteller and custodian of traditional knowledge.

Over the years, he has taken a leading role in organizing workshops and cultural camps, with a particular focus on passing down wisdom to the younger generation. His expertise extends to various areas, including traditional Ojibwe paint, imagery and symbolism, harvesting, medicine walks, ceremonial knowledge, cultural camps, Anishinaabeg oral history, birch bark canoe making, birch bark scrolls, and facilitating Youth & Elders workshops. Isaac has devoted his life to preserving Anishinaabe cultural practices, investing significant time in direct learning from Elders.

https://isaacmurdoch.com/

www.amshealthcare.com

This episode features Dr. Wendy Makoons Geniusz, who hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has ancestral roots in the Cree community of Manitoba. Currently serving as a professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Dr. Geniusz has been actively involved in projects aimed at revitalizing Ojibwe language and culture in Indigenous communities across the Great Lakes Region.

All of Dr. Geniusz's publications and research are dedicated to developing tools for the decolonization of Indigenous language and culture, with a particular emphasis on the revitalization efforts. She is the author of "Our Knowledge is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings," the editor of "Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do is Ask" (by Mary Siisip Geniusz), and the author of the Ojibwe plant name glossary featured in the latter publication. Additionally, she serves as the co-editor, alongside Brendan Fairbanks, of "Chi-mewinzha: Ojibwe Stories from Leech Lake" (by Dorothy Dora Whipple).

Books:

Our Knowledge Is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Botanical Anishinaabe Teachings

Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings by Mary Siisip Geniusz

Chi-mewinzha: Ojibwe Stories from Leech Lake

www.amshealthcare.ca