Syilx Teachers Fostering Students’ Connection to Waterways and Salmon

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British Columbia, Cooking, Eating, Elementary school (K-6), Hands-on food literacy, Indigenous Culture, Indigenous foodways, Local food

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Ecole Peter Greer Elementary (PGE), Lake Country, BC
Grant term, 2024-2025

Ecole Peter Greer Elementary (PGE) is located in the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territory of the Syilx Okanagan People and is surrounded by many different waterways. This project seeks to build off “understanding eagles through Syilx art and captikʷł” (Artist in the Classroom Grant 2023) to deepen our collective responsibility to tmixʷ/all living things and enlarge our understanding of siwlɬkʷ/water.

There are more than 380 students from K-6. This grant has been so important in helping us to bring together our Syilx chef and different community members to instill a sense of responsibility in restoring the waterways to prepare for the return of the salmon.

All students took part in a week-long learning with and alongside a Syilx chef, an Okanagan Nation Alliance Biologist, and an Okanagan Nation Alliance Fish Culturalist. The students also had the opportunity to learn from “How Coyote Brought the Salmon Back” captikʷł.

In their week-long learning, students moved from different stations that included:

Okanagan Nation Alliance (education and snkʼlip ɬə cxʷuysts iʔ qaqxʷəlʼx How
Coyote Brought the Salmon)
Unfueled Salmon Cooking and the importance of salmon to the Syilx people. Students learned with and alongside Syilx Chef Telle (Chantelle Eustache). She demonstrated unfueled salmon cooking over an open fire. She also answered students’ questions about salmon, cooking and the importance of taking care of the land so that the salmon return.
Experiential learning (taste of salmon). Students had an opportunity to taste different salmon dishes through 5 food tastings.
Film/Reflection (resources shared from the Pacific Salmon Foundation website)
This week-long learning was so important to set the groundwork to welcome the salmon
into the school.

Working alongside Chef Chantelle, the students got to learn about the Syilx relationship with local products. Students prepared salmon over the fire and got the opportunity to taste salmon. For many students, it was the first time tasting salmon, and for some, it was also their first time sitting around a fire.