In November at Wildflower Nelson we dove deep into Indigenous Veterans Day and Métis Awareness month. We started our month learning about legendary Canadian Indigenous Athlete, Tom Longboat and his connection to Indigenous Veterans Day.

Tom had many accomplishments, such as:

1. he was one of the first celebrity athletes in Canada
2. is the first Indigenous person to win the Boston Marathon
3. pioneered training methods that are still used today 
4. won many marathons in record breaking time
5. helped establish marathon running as an international sport
6. competed in the 1908 Olympic games
7. was inducted into both Ontario and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame
8. served in World War I delivering messages and orders between units, he also continued to race, winning several inter-battalion sporting contests

In the latter half of the month students learned about Louis Riel and his impact and importance to Métis people. We read “Storm at Batoche” and discussed differing  opinions and perspectives of Louis Riel depending on your background. Students learned about his advocacy and passion for preserving Métis land rights. We looked at different aspects of Métis culture: sashes, spoons, foods, music, jigging, historical transportation and hunting.

We love games at Wildflower and students had a chance to try 2 new stick games this month! Students learned how to play Hubbub, a traditional game of chance played by many different nations. In this game you need to match specific patterns of rocks/playing chips to win points which are represented by sticks. Students chant “HUB HUB HUB” to try to distract the other team while they shake their rocks or counters and then we check for combinations. 5 of a kind is 4 points, 4 of a kind is 1 point, and all other combinations are 0.

Students also learned how to play Stick Catch, a fun Métis game to end our Louis Riel lessons. The object of stick catch is to work in teams, starting with 1 stick balanced on the back of someone’s hand. The student then needs to drop the stick by pulling out their hand, and then try to catch it with the same hand. If the student is successful, the next student in line moves up to 2 sticks, and so on and so forth. The object of the game is to catch as many sticks as possible until the pile of sticks is gone. Students had a blast!