Exploring Indigenous tool making, history, and crafts at the Chinook Library Climax Branch

Led by Ojibway Archaeologist and Museum of Saskatchewan’s Repatriation Liaison, Gabrielle Essaunce LaMarche, participants will explore the history of Indigenous artefacts from 3,000 to 5,000 years old.

Discover a new understanding of how Indigenous peoples lived, hunted and gathered on this land for centuries in this hands-on workshop about pre-contact Indigenous tool manufacturing techniques.

Grouped in a circle participants will pass around artifacts to examine and discuss their traditional use and to learn how ancient stone tools were made were constructed and tempered for maximum effect.

Participants will become aware of the sophistication and skill needed to shape and utilize stone tools. Not only does it require a deep understanding of stone material properties, but also knowledge of the animals being hunted; their physiology, ethology and bio-geography.

Gabriel will share knowledge of ancestral tools, based on the scientific study of archaeological sites and artifacts found in Saskatchewan and elsewhere in Canada.

He will invite collaborative input from other Indigenous Knowledge-Keepers, to flesh out a respectful detailed picture of ancestral crafting and tool use, including traditional harvesting activities and the knowledge system connecting the artifacts to the people and to the land will also be explored.

Each individual will be taught the basic fracturing techniques of flint-knapping, to make a point or knife for themselves and will come away with a new appreciation of the skill demonstrated by Indigenous tool makers.

- Enquiries or to register climaxcommunitymuseum@gmail.com or please call 1- 306-330-8520

- 1st come 1st serve. All materials are supplied free, but donations to museum welcome. Ages 14-adult

- Available for sale: the award-winning book Point of View; A Guide on Saskatchewan Projectile Points with Indigenous Perspectives. Faith Boser, Editor. Published by Saskatchewan Archaeological Society. Gabriel was a consultant on this book and it teaches how to identify projectile points by name, age range, geographical range.