Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Hay River Reserve (Nov 07/05) - Students on the Hay River Reserve will soon be learning in the bush.

Students and staff from Chief Sunrise Education Centre were cleaning up cabins at Sandy Creek, about eight kilometres down a bumpy woods road east of the reserve townsite.

The K'atlodeeche School of Traditional Knowledge is expected to be ready to open this week so students can stay there for extended periods.

Eight Grade 10-12 students will make up the core group at the camp, where they will learn traditional knowledge and maintain their regular school lessons.

Grade 11 student Cheryl Fabian thinks Sandy Creek will be a good place to learn.

"I hope to learn how to make peppermint tea and birch bark baskets," she says.

Cheryl is also looking forward to teaching young children what she has learned.

Grade 12 student Patricia Abel says working on the cabins has been good.

Asked what she hopes to learn at the bush school, she replies, "To build my own cabin."

Norman Fabian, a Grade 10 student, says it will be good for younger students to visit the bush camp.

Chief Sunrise principal Brian Johnson says the bush school is a pilot project he hopes will continue into the future.

The cabins were built in the 1980s as a youth camp by K'atlodeeche First Nation.

There are six cabins and a cookhouse at the site. All the buildings, except one of the cabins, are being renovated for the bush school.

The cabins need to be cleaned, the logs re-chinked and roofs repaired, plus fireplaces and chimneys will be installed in each cabin.

"It's no different than outfitting an exploration team for a bush camp," Johnson says.

Johnson says the students will be guided at the school by elders from the reserve and on-site teacher Mike Mitchell.

"They're going to be working on academics, while learning about traditional knowledge at the same time," Johnson says.

The students will help design and deliver the program, he adds.

Johnson says they will learn skills such as carpentry and snowmobile repair, which they can use elsewhere.

"It falls in line with the school's career development program."

After they learn about trapping, for example, they will help the elders teach the skill to younger students who will visit the camp for short periods.

"They'd be like camp counsellors for the younger kids," says Mitchell.

The principal also hopes the students will become leaders and role models to young students.

The bush school's financial supporters include K'atlodeeche First Nation, the South Slave Divisional Education Council, and people and businesses on the reserve and in Hay River.

"This was a homegrown effort really," Johnson says.

The project has about $50,000 in materials and supplies.