Ideas - A School that Feels like Home: Mi’kmaq Language Revitalization in Cape Breton

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

In 1997, the Mi’kmaq Nation took over on-reserve education in Nova Scotia. It was the first time in Canadian history that jurisdiction for education was transferred from the federal government to a First Nation. One year later, Eskasoni First Nation high school opened, and since then, the school has become an epicentre for Mi’kmaq language revitalization. This episode is the second in a two-part series on language revitalization.  

This is Michael Bublé, host of the Junos, Canada's biggest night in music. And trust me, this lineup is going to be everything. With performances by Akela, Baby No Money, Josh Ross, Nemesis, Snoddy Nose Rez Kids, a special final performance by Sum 41, and Michael Bublé. Now that's what I call a party. Don't miss the Junos, live March 30th at 8 Eastern on CBC and CBC Gem. And you're all invited.

This is a CBC podcast. And there's Darren. There's our guidance counselor here. Hello guys. My name is Darren Stevenson. I'm the guidance counselor and welcome to the high school and we've been open since 1998-99. That's more than 25 years, right?

We're happy to have a high school here in Escozoni. It means a lot to us. In fact, we're just building another high school here. It'll be ready in a couple years to be our high school. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayad. And welcome to the high school in Eskazoni First Nation in Eastern Cape Breton. It's the largest Mi'kmaq community in the world and an epicenter for language revitalization. Having a high school here means everything to Darren Stevens. He's part of a generation who grew up attending federal day school on the reserve run by the

Roman Catholic Church. Then they were bused to Sydney for high school. It was 45 minutes away, according to one way of calculating distance, and a whole world away by another. When you're out of the reserve, you don't hear your language. So you're in a foreign place. That's how you feel. You know, you feel you don't belong in that environment. In those days, very few students from Eskazoni graduated from high school. There was like three schools that students attended in Sydney. Including all of those schools, maybe we would graduate about, yeah, like maybe six or seven

students. When this school opened, my God, we graduated about our biggest class of the 70 plus. There's a spot in the high school that's especially dear to Darren's heart, a sun-filled hallway lined with graduation photos. Right here, this is a wall of sort of like a wall of fame, I guess, you know, this is the past graduates. When you look at this wall and you think about, you know, what it used to be when you were growing up and people leaving the community,

and then you look at all these people who have graduated from this high school, what goes through you? I just get the chills. I'm just so proud of our Native students here in Yaskazoni and what they accomplished. And it just brings me great joy. And me, just being part of that, helping

students, you know, directing them to the right areas and sending their transcripts to universities and all. I'm just very proud. But as you look at these photos, I mean, you must know every single face here. Yes, I do. Those faces now have become parents. Their children are here in the school. So that's how it's coming around, you know. All of my children have graduated here, so I'm so proud. Here in Escozonia, you feel really comfortable. Comfortable to express your language without anybody telling you, hey, hey, you know, speak English. I mean, you know, we don't understand you. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Speaking the language, you know, it's just, you know,

you just feel like you're at home. This is A School That Feels Like Home. It's the second in a two-part series on Indigenous language revitalization. IDEAS producer Pauline Holdsworth brings us this documentary from Cape Breton. Yeah, we're happy for you guys to be here and I'll show you around if you don't mind. Fantastic.

Come on, man. All right. All right, guys, clap. The bell here is ringing. Everyone to clap. And I'll show you around if you don't mind. Right after the first bell, I set off through the halls of Allison Bernard Memorial High School with Darren. As we roam the halls, Darren flags down teachers to ask if they're interested in an interview, often in Mi'kmaq. CBC, I was interviewing all of you, what's going on with you? W.L.O.K.O. School. Here's something I want to talk about.

No, I don't want to talk about it. Sorry guys. I wasn't ready to talk this morning. I play music in the community. I'm always in front of the microphone. What do you play? I sing and I play harmonica the community. I'm always in front of the microphone. What do you play? I sing and I play harmonica and acoustic guitar.

I play in a band called The Relatives. We're local here in the community. We've been playing since, oh my God, like 38 years already. We just came up with a gig last night over at the Eskasoni Cultural Center to celebrate the Treaty Day. And just the night before, we were in Halifax at the Eskasoni Cultural Center to celebrate the treaty day. And just night before we were in Halifax at the Pier 21, they had also a get together with the True Ten Record Reconciliation Day. And we sing in Mi'kmaq also. What's some of your favorite songs that you sing in Mi'kmaq? Oh, Guèjí Du'ó is one of our favorites. We love the song. It's an old, 200-year-old song that was called the Gojuwa. It's sort

of like a two-step dance. You go around in a circle. Music is big in Eskizoni, and it's become a crucial vehicle for language revitalization. Darren points out a poster on the wall, a collage of photos that spell, We Shall Remain. This is a project that was done a couple years ago. It originated from I Lost My Talk by Rita Jo. Renowned Mi'kmaq poet Rita Jo spent most of her life in Eskisoni. Her poem, I Lost My Talk, is a searing description of how residential schools

and federal day schools took language away and how stealing someone's language alters the way they think. The poem begins, I lost my talk, the talk you took away when I was a little girl at Shuba Nakedie school. You snatched it away. I speak like you. I think like you. I create like you. But now, students here learn to speak, think, and create like themselves. In 2017, they created a song inspired by Rita Jo. It tells the story of what happened after the talk was taken away.

The community took it back. This is a song, We Shall Remain, was recorded here by Carter and Collin Johnson. Beautiful song. We show me It kind of really hit me when I was around 16, how important it was and I made more of a conscious effort to learn Mi'kmaq and to speak Mi'kmaq because my family is Mi'kmaq, my school is Mi'kmaq, my friends are Mi'kmaq they don't really speak it that much but we still like, I understand Mi'kmaq because my family's Mi'kmaq, my school is Mi'kmaq, my friends are Mi'kmaq, they don't really speak it that much, but we still like, I understand Mi'kmaq. And over the past year or two, I've been actually speaking Mi'kmaq,

and I told my parents, hey, speak Mi'kmaq to me. Like, don't just like speak it towards each other, like speak it and like tell me about it and like teach me it. It's really important at school because outside of school, you know day-to-day life, I don't hear Mi'kmaq and I don't hear it in Sydney, I don't hear it anywhere else really. It's only really here for me in the school.

So it's really important that my teachers know it, they speak it. We have Mi'kmaq classes and we always have events and stuff with traditional things like basket making and it's just important for me to know those kind of things and know different words in Mi'kmaq. It's not like English if that makes sense. It's really its own kind of like kind of more diverse way of speaking where there's so much

like possibility in what you're saying that that's good, if that makes sense. It is so much words that they all can really collide in each other. Like, I've seen, there's posters in Jonathan's room of certain moons and certain seasons, like sigogus, and like there's one, I don't really know what it was. It was like toad-croaking moon, and it's like such a specific word for it that you know exists, and someone will use because it's like, it is packed.

The Mi'kmaq language is packed. There's so much words for actually everything that we could ever talk about. My name is Bethany, Bethany Denny. I'm Jaina Jo. And I'm Louis Ball. And I understand so that you have not just the high school, but then there's the elementary school

with the language immersion. Absolutely. Can you tell me about that high school, but then there's the elementary school with the language immersion Can you tell me about that and about you know, what what a kid growing up in Eskasoni today? Like what is the system they go through? Oh my god The kid growing up now they they have a choice parents have a choice now to send their children to immersion school or just a regular school here which is taught in English and Mi'kmaq and there's at the Eskasoni Elementary Middle School there's also Mi'kmaq teachers there that support our kids that you know interact with them in the language so you know I seen this year there's just few students

that I remember that they were you know, originated from the Skizzoni immersion school. And I'm so proud of it. And my wife is a primary teacher over there. And I'm just also proud of what she does also. How much of the classes here at Allison Bernard are taught in Mi'kmaq? Well, we have a half of the staff is Mi'kmaq speaking. So there's a couple of language classes here in the school.

The Mi'kmaq language, 10, 11, chairs, solo boy. OK, guys, Seba Iloogadook of Mi'kmaq Project. Doing Ne'emoy on the 11th, October 10th. Imtin, your guys' Mi'kmaq body parts. Igin moloqabahan, piece of paper, sepai. Grade 9A, most of you guys learned the body parts. Mi'kmaq de'etimo, you guys were learning each subject, but we only learned Imtin as in body.

We didn't learn the three concepts of it. Of Niin will be me. Gil will be you, right? Ach Negel means him or her, right? Gijin gesay, your tongue hurts, right? I'm talking about you. Wukjigin, jileg wukjigin, meaning their tongue is hurt, right? It's because I'm talking about he or she or her. Our mad teacher, Kia Paul, is also in Mi'kmaq,

so she teaches, you know, using the language all the time. So same with Rita Gould and several other teachers here. Here's one of our... Hi, Kia. These guys are from CBC. They're trying to... They're just touring the school and finding out more information about the school, the culture, the language and how, you know, what a difference that

we've made to have a high school here in Eskazonia rather than just being out there, you know. Like the bus rides we used to take to Riverview leaving at 7 o'clock, 7.30 in the morning. Yeah. This is much better. The Lewis and Kia, Paul, Leo, Escazoni, I can now am way, the Lewis and Matt, the new to my kitchen kway. Kia is fluent in the Mi'kmaq language too, that helps with the students, you know, to understand more.

She can teach, you know, different ways, using the language also. When a person teaches you something in the language, you fully understand it more as compared in English. You'll be like, oh, okay, what is she saying? All right. I find kids when you say, goy was kwee-ah, what's left over?

What's the difference? They get it right away. And the adding parts. So as far as multiplication, I don't know of any words yet. I hope that pretty soon that we'll be able to teach these courses entirely in our language. Kia is one of several math teachers at this high school who teaches enigma. I'm not quite sure if it's Carol Ann's. Oh, okay. This is Carol Ann. This is Carol Ann Jidor. She teaches grade 9 math and she's fluent

in MIGMA and she conducts the class in MIGMA also. We're kind of proud to have her. The other way around, four squared. When you have an exponent of 2, it's called the squared number. So anything to the power of 2 is squared. Let me do one more. If I have an exponent of 3, it's called the cubed number. So whenever I told the area, I told the area, I told the area, I told the area, it makes 2. It makes squares. If I have this, then I'm making cubes.

Depending on the student, I will always try to translate, even if they don't understand, if I could use words that are math related in Mi'kmaq, then I'll say, oh, there's no Mi'kmaq words for today or something. There's always something I could say to them, always. What kind of words do you use? Now, if I knew I was getting interviewed, I would have told you that. We just did fractions. Numerator would be found at the top store.

When I went off, it would be like at the top and then at the bottom would be anistic like maybe words that we can they're not actually the words that are used but something that they'd be able to understand or maybe there'll be words that they'll learn too eventually. Okay, are two to the power of five and five to the power of two are they equal to the power of 2, are they equal to the same thing? No. But, go ahead, mess them up. Go ahead, go ahead. That's 25. That's not 25. What does 2 to the power of 5 mean? 22.

Okay. Go ahead, 5 squared. 25. So are they interchangeable? They're not. But there is one example that is interchangeable. And I want you to find it right now. And you're like, what? Hey, Dick.

Can you help this? Is it one? Besides one to the power of one? No, that's not going to do it. No, you're not going to do that to me. There's an easy, jokey feeling in Carol Ann's math class, and in the halls. I felt it especially when we met a student named Dom. My name is Dominic, and people refer to me as Dirty Dom. I love everyone that goes here.

I love everyone because they're very accepting, very nice. I'll just walk through the halls and they'll be like, oh, what's up, Dom? They'll ask me about how my day is and kind of out of nowhere. I love everyone really. They're all nice to be. I don't get bullied or nothing. It's something I actually look forward to most people somewhere else. They'd be like, Oh, I hate school, but God, I love school really. So you're in grade 11 now. Have you thought, uh, started thinking at all about, you know, like life after grade 12? Maybe medical school.

If I can't be like a doctor somewhere in a hospital, maybe in Sydney, I want to try maybe being like a counselor or a therapist in somewhere near Eskasoni so I can help the community out if they ever need like mental health needs. Like many students here, he's obsessed with music. Me and my friend covered a few Metallica songs. I think For Whom the Bell Tolls and we're trying to work on another one. Enter Sandman.

Can you imagine someday you having like a Metallica cover in MIGMA? Frig yeah. I love that. I might even feel that idea. I'm going to call Aiden up and tell him to maybe work up on a MIGMA version of Metallica. Well, maybe in five years we'll hear the first all MIGMA Metallica cover album from Dirty Dom. From Dirty Dom! Dumb from Dirty Dumb. From Dirty Dumb. The feeling of warmth at Allison Bernard isn't accidental.

It's been built carefully and lovingly by a generation of Mi'kmaq educators who once experienced the polar opposite. Carol Anne, Kia, and Darren all grew up in Eskisoni in the era of federal day schools, as did the principal. My name is Noelle Johnson. I am from Eskisoni First Nation. I am the principal at Allison Bernard Memorial High School. When I started school here in Eskisoni, it was on reserve.

It was the Indian Day School, they call it, but it was three different schools I went to, three different locations. From kindergarten to grade one, I went to the little school, that's what they called it. And then in grade two, I went to school in a little portable. There's a school next to the church. There was a trailer. I went to the trailer for grade two.

Grade three, I did the school next to the church where there was a graveyard. And it wasn't until grade four that I actually moved to the elementary middle school, which is just next door to us. And then I stayed there until grade nine. And then grade 10 to 12, I went off reserve to Riverview High School. So we didn't have a choice. We had to like leave the community. And I tell the kids all the time, you guys are so lucky.

We had to leave like before 730 in the morning. And here they're like complaining about being here at nine o'clock. And I'm like, oh, I don't know how good you have it. You don't. Darren was saying that you remember going to school outside of the community. It was like visiting a foreign country or another place. What do you remember about that? It was a culture shock.

For me, just to process things, what they were saying, it took us a little bit longer for us to process it along with the confidence. You had the confidence coming out of the community, being with your peers from K to nine, and then all of a sudden you're immersed in a totally different world. It was pretty isolating because I remember there was a lot of racism, a lot of discrimination, and I guess a lot of injustice that wasn't dealt with. And I don't know if they knew how to deal with it at the time. And some of us didn't speak up.

Some of us just wanted to shut it down and be quiet. And I remember there was a business building, and that's where we would hang out on the second floor. The business building was where all the First Nation students just pretty much had their lunch, and that's where they, it was a safe space for us. They didn't know who you are. If you didn't make trouble, they didn't know who you were. They never knew. The principal never knew who I was. Nobody knew who I was except for the people that I grew up with. That's it. You were never really included. I was never,

I never felt included. You feel like you don't belong. It's sad, but it's true. At Alistair and Bernard, the principal knows everyone and everyone knows her. And students call their teachers by their first name. There's still respect. You don't have to call me Miss Paul or because if they call me Miss Paul, I'm not going to respond because I'm like, who's that? You know, call me Miss Paula, I'm not going to respond because I'm like, who's that? You know, call me by my name, you know? A lot of these kids are my cousins.

I taught two of my other daughters. They've graduated from here and moved on. They called me mom, because that's what they call me at home. In a way, this school has now become an extension of home rather than a separation from it. That's especially resonant for teachers like Kia, who grew up never learning about the history

of their community in the formal school system. Instead, they learned about it at the kitchen table. Like you spoke with Carol Ann Jador, my first cousin. And for the longest time, people thought that residential schools didn't happen or that it was not a big deal. And they thought it was almost a myth. People didn't believe us. And then when the survivors would say, you know what, there are children that have gone missing and that never made it back home. We knew about all of this because of Carol Ann's mom at the kitchen table. We called her Elizabeth Ryan Paul, and she would

tell us about her experiences and we couldn't believe what she went through. You know how if they didn't like the food and they were fed like spoiled food, they didn't eat them. If they didn't like the food and they were fed like spoiled food, they didn't eat them. If they threw up, they had to clean it up by eating their vomit. They knew that children were beaten in front of them. And there were some kids that went missing unexplained. We just were in disbelief young children hearing about this. And how we knew about all, like our culture and things was through, you know, not formal schooling, but at the kitchen table.

Another thing about the United Nations, how Saugage Henderson and Russell Barsh had gone to the UN to, and along with our, um, G-C our, she kept in Ellic Denny, how they would go and, you know, look for a seat in the United Nations for Mi'kmaq people and how it was struck down by Canada and the US. Everybody else agreed to it, but except those two neighboring countries. It seems almost like you've brought the kitchen table into the classroom, like those kind of conversations that you were having with adults. Now you're able to have that in the formal school system.

Absolutely. And it's a wonderful thing because education is not just in the walls of a building like this. It's out there in nature. It's out there when you take a walk to describe what you're seeing. It's in the language. When I say kitchen table, I mean like the comfort of our homes, right? I think that because it's in the comfort of your home and you're having this conversation

with adults who feel it's important that this knowledge you need to know. Like I said earlier, we feel at home, like, you know, and that's where our language starts, right? It has to start at home. On Ideas, you're listening to A School That Feels Like Home. It's the second of a two-part series on Indigenous language revitalization. You can hear ideas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America, on U.S. Public Radio and SiriusXM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca. Find us on the CBC News app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. Tequila, Baby No Money, Josh Ross, Nemesis, Snoddy Nose Rez Kids, a special final performance by Sum 41, and Michael Buble.

Now that's what I call a party. Don't miss the Junos live March 30th at 8 Eastern on CBC and CBC Gem. And you're all invited. ["The New York Times"] In 1997, the federal government transferred jurisdiction for on-reserve education in Nova Scotia to the Mi'kmaq Nation. It was the first such transfer in Canadian history. One year later, a new high school opened in Eskasoni First Nation, on the shores of Bradore

Lake in eastern Cape Breton. What did it mean to you when this school opened here? Oh my God. I was so excited, so hopeful, and happy for these students. And I knew that my future children, when it opened, I was pregnant with my first child and I was teaching grade eight at the middle school and I was so excited for my daughter that she would be experiencing to be able to graduate from her own community. It was the beginning of a new era in Mi'kmaq-led education.

Producer Pauline Holdsworth brings us this documentary from Cape Breton, a school that feels like home. Here's high school principal, Newell Johnson. When this school first opened in 1998-99 was the first year that the doors opened for First Nations students, I remember I was in my BED program, my first year in my BED program, and I was really, really intrigued by the school that was being built here. And then so when I was in my BED, I asked them if I could do my practicum here for my second year, which I did. It was a different experience because a lot of the students that were coming from Sydney, who were normally transported to Sydney, were transplanted from

there to here. And just having them, listening to them and having them celebrate who they were and their language and having teachers who spoke their language, because when I did my practicum, 90% of the time I taught in Megham and it was math and science that I taught. It was all new to us at first, so everything was really new, even like just having the opportunity to have a graduation was all new and having prom and having all those ceremonies was all new to us. And not having to struggle with going anywhere for lunch or packing a lunch. I know that was one of the issues that they struggled with going off for survey. I know I did because a lot of times I had to go to school without food or lunch money. And so they had the opportunity to go home at lunch.

Like they're still bussed home. Students are bussed home for lunch so that they have an opportunity to go home halfway through the day, maybe get a recharge and see family. And if they have younger siblings, get their hugs and their snuggles and whatever it is that they need to reset, get some food in them and they come back for the half day,

rest of the day in the afternoon. When Noelle was going to high school in Sydney, she was often the only Mi'kmaq student in her science classes. At the new high school in Eskisoni, she could help design a new kind of science class from the ground up. I took them to muskrat trapping. And when we would capture some muskrats, we would dissect those. So a lot of times it was stuff that we would harvest anyway, and just to put it into perspective in terms of dissection and looking at the organs and how the systems work. And my dad,

I grew up as a Trapper's daughter, so I grew up skinning and doing a lot of that work in my childhood. And just bringing that into my own teaching really fostered a lot of that growth, I guess, in our learning and in my teaching. So having that permission, I guess, to do those things in my early years of teaching, I guess, really ignited and sparked that interest for more land-based learning. So today we take kids beaver trapping, We take kids beaver trapping, muskrat hunting, we skin hides in the back over here. We have all the tools to do all that stuff. They make their own drums. We cooked the beaver last month and we ate it in the school. Those are the things that we do, but it's not... I don't know how to say this, but it's not something we plan for extensively.

It's something that just happens. It's natural. Like, for all I know, somebody could be out there doing something that's land-based that we're not aware of, because it's part of what they do. It's just natural, and it's what they do. It's just natural and it's what we do. Are there any particular moments that really stand in your memory from these last years of where you really felt like, you know, what we're doing here is really working? I don't know, but I do think about one particular student. I'm thinking about a lot, but this one particular student who graduated three years ago, when

he first came to high school, he struggled a lot. He struggled academically. He was really into culture and he was into fishing and trapping and skinning. He was very involved in the cultural part of our lives. School in a building with four walls was not the space for him, but there was a lot of support in the school that we were able to do a lot of land-based learning for him, like take him outside and incorporate a lot of the stuff that he would do while he was on his hunting and trapping, like making videos and doing interviews with elders. So we incorporated a lot of that into his academics. And he graduated about

three years ago. And now he is doing so much stuff for the community in terms of land-based education. the community in terms of land-based education. He is a mentor, still doing a lot of gardening, a lot of plant-based learning and land-based learning. And when I think about him and the path that he had to go through in his journey, it makes me feel like that we're doing something right. Noelle loved teaching math and science so much, she had to be convinced over and over again to become the principal. Finally it got to a point where when the job actually came out, I applied and I got the job as principal. But before even that, I missed teaching so much because I love teaching. I love teaching math, love teaching science. And I missed it so much that I put in my letter of resignation twice. And twice it came back denied. Yeah, yeah.

But the approach to math and science to help develop still thrives in this school. Hello! Hi, Jonathan. Sorry to interrupt, but we have CBC touring the school and they're, you know, just finding out what information, what we teach here and... We're teaching Geology 12 here now, and I also teach Science 10, Oceans 11, and Nendigalimp 12, which is a new integrative science course with Providence of Nova Scotia. Can you tell us more about that new class?

Well, I was one of the pilot teachers last year, so the course tries to basically explain and highlight the Indigenous and Mi'kmaq approach to science. We also try to combine Western approaches with science and how those approaches are being used together with Mi'kmaq people. There's a really respected elder and community member here in Eskazoni who's been really important in developing the idea of two-eyed seeing. Can you tell me more about him and about that?

So that's Albert Marshall and together with his late wife, Merdina Marshall, developed this concept of two-eyed seeing and at a Wapdaman, which is looking at the earth as not necessarily a resource, but as being one with the earth. And that's what Mi'kmaq historically believe. And if we take a step back, it doesn't matter what ethnicity you are, that's what's important for everyone. There has to be this relationship with the earth and has to be respectful. It's not that we can't utilize the earth, but it has to be respectful for generations to come.

Well, Jonathan, just one more. How long have you been working here in the community? So this is my 27th year teaching Eskazonian. So I graduated with my BED in May of 1997. I started working in August, September of 1997. So I've been here for a very long time. I understand more Mi'kmaq than I actually speak. But yeah, it's funny.

I was saying to Darren one time last week that I actually woke up dreaming in Mi'kmaq one time, a few times. So it's very part of who I become and I'm very active with the Eskazonian Teachers Union to Darren one time last week that I actually woke up dreaming in Mi'kmaq one time, a few times. So it's very part of who I've become and I'm very active with Yes, there's only a teacher's union and I've got my pins on here, my orange shirt, my red dress pin and the Mo'en campaign, the Moose Hide campaign. Thank you. Not Mo'en, Dion.

Dion, yeah. Which is Moose. Moose in Mi'kmaq. Not Mooin, Dionne. Dionne, yeah. Which is Moose. Moose and Big Maw. Ah. Yeah, got my words mixed up there. Yeah. Duran takes me to the music wing on the second floor. It's something this school has become famous for, and a shining example of language revitalization

and cultural resurgence. Under the direction of lead music teacher Carter Chiasen in the school. So that's awesome. Yeah. We were listening as we were driving down to the brand new song that came out on September 30th. Is that right?

Okay. Yeah. Which song is that? This is Voice of the Earth. It opens with Darren speaking in Mi'kmaq. So, it's a moksi. So, I'm going to sing this moksi. I like it. I just never had a chance to listen to the song yet. Brand new. That's awesome. I can't wait to hear it.

Yes. You're going to film that video? Yes. But I never heard the final product. Okay, okay. We'll have to never heard the final product. Okay, okay. We'll have to do something out of here. That's cool. Okay, cool.

The song was created in honor of the international decade of Indigenous languages, and it features Mi'kmaq singer-songwriter Emma Stevens, who graduated from this high school. Hi, my name is Emma Stevens and I'm from Eskasoni First Nation in Cape Breton. And there goes my earring. And I am a singer-songwriter, and I also am here to empower youth in Eskasoni. My house was a fluent-speaking household, so I was speaking Mi'kmaq my whole life. I actually didn't know how to speak English

until I was around four, when I entered the school system. But I've been speaking it my whole life. I actually didn't know how to speak English until I was around four when I entered the school system. But I've been speaking it my whole life and I still speak it now. What's the feeling that you get walking into this building and walking these halls? My dad was a janitor here, so I've been in this school for most of my life. So it wasn't anything new, but it was a little different seeing like different type of teachers, like having my cousin as my math teacher. That was like, oh, that's pretty weird. But I knew almost all the teachers here beforehand. So that was a lot easier for me to navigate. And when was it that music started being part of your life? Was that also from And so that was a lot easier for me to navigate. And when was it that music started being part of your life?

Was that also from very, very early? Yeah, my dad was very big into like ACDC and Guns N' Roses and all these big artists. And he introduced me to music through the car and hanging out with him. And I've just been obsessed with it ever since he put on Dolly Parton. In 2019, when she was 16 years old, Emma went viral for a MIGMA cover of Blackbird recorded at this school. It now has almost 2 million views on YouTube. Ready, Em?

Yeah. So many of them. I love that song. I don't at the same time. What song? I love that song. I don't at the same time. Singing it over and over again when the register is so low is hard because I started singing that when I was a kid. I was very young and my vocal range was not that great. So now singing it, it really hurts my throat but we can't really bring it up because then it kind of starts an issue with this isn't the same version and I don't want to start that.

Me and Carter were trying to think of ideas on what to do for a new song because we didn't really have enough time to write a brand new song after My Una Maggi and we were kind of just thinking around and then Carter was like, alright cool. And then he was like, let's do a Beatles cover. And I was like, oh I know most of those songs, I'm good. And then he popped out Blackbird and I was like, never heard of it. We brought Kitani Jillian in and her goli dada and we started to sit down and write and they were able to translate it and she was there for me every step of the translation process trying to help me pronounce words as best as I can.

And then everything exploded. We went everywhere. It was crazy. And it was like my life was so standstill. And then I was on the go every single second and I got really tired. Since 2019, Emma has performed all over the world, from Germany to Dubai. The big message that I tend to give out and still do give out is that we're still here. And we are stronger than we were before. And we are going to make sure that our language is still here, that our values are still here. And I want all these children to realize that the more you speak your language and the more

that you are intuned into your culture, the more that you are entuned into your culture, the more that you'll feel like yourself. Emma has become a role model for a new generation of students at Allison Bernard. Several times throughout the day, I heard students playing Blackbird on the guitar. ["Blackbird"] Sorry.

Okay. There's many children in here that absolutely love music and I see it on a day-to-day basis, especially with Sydney, who's no longer here, and Suri Paul, who's actually in the video. Suri Paul is in grade 11. She plays guitar and fiddle and sings in English and Mi'kmaq. Did you grow up in Eskazoni? Yeah, born in Nice. How old were you when you started learning the language?

Well when I was not even walking, my family would always just speak Mi'kmaq to me, even if I wasn't talking yet. So they just tell me like easy things like mi'kjasi, which means eat or like basi, sit down and like all those types of things. And my grandma was really fluent in Mi'kmaq and she always spoke it to us and always taught us the words we didn't know. One thing I've been asking a bunch of people today is about the relationship between music and language. What do you think makes music such a kind of cool space for language revitalization?

Well, for me, because our language is who we are, and I think that it's cool that we get to add that into our music. Not only are we listening to the music, but we're also hearing our language as well. It's a big learning curve too, because not a lot of the words that are used in songs are like said, like just in conversations. The first time I sang here was for Remembrance Day, my first year of high school. Me and Carter, we sang Danny Boy, and Iigi nakh inu, Il nu ii div nek,

Wen gechi dak tan tu tu, Sake salulik,gidem uleg gizneg au gelni eg O Canada, Anguille, Kisa. Mahamigaw, West Walukwik. O Canada, enkwe yuwe gisa. O Canada, enkwe yuwe gisa. Lisa. Have you started to think about post-grade 12, what you might like your life to be? I did want to become a music teacher for a really long time. So that's like one of my options. Like I'm really strong in music. I like connect to music so, and I just enjoy it.

What's the feeling that you get when you're playing music or singing? I just feel like I'm in a different space. It's just so comforting. No matter how my day is, if I play my guitar at the end of the day, it's just so comforting. So At the end of the day, I got to see another kind of music making, the girls drum group. I can't do that one. No matter how many times you sing it, it builds up so much saliva in my mouth. I feel like a bulldog. Yeah. It's a good song.

It is a good song. It is a good song. That's the water song? Yeah. Water song. Yeah. It's starting to water. Yeah.

You don't have to do it the way I did, but just find what's comfortable for you. I remember our first practice so vividly. We all had to face away from each other because it was just so funny. We looked at each other and we couldn't stop laughing. And so we came up with the thing of get the giggles out before we start singing so you laugh before and then you can take it seriously but we couldn't take it seriously so we had to turn away from each other and look at the wall it helped a little. You get the uts before practice you get the uts before events because like it means like when you're nervous so I'm like oh I got the uts.

We all get the oots. What do you guys think is the connection between music and language? Music is a universal language. Everyone understands that. So at my time at my summer job, there was a lot of tours coming in. Everyone understood the vibe, but they didn't understand the lyrics, obviously. But they knew what it meant. And even if I explained, they were like, no, like I know. And a lot of the songs have meanings behind them.

They have stories behind them. They all have different vibes to them. So like with the sweet grass song, you can hear it go up and down and up and down and my mom when we went to a naming ceremony She didn't know what it was. She was like when you guys were singing that one song I had a vision of just trees going I've had a vision of tall grass going up and down and just going around and I was like that's the sweet grass song So it's sung on the water song. It goes slow, then fast, then slow again,

because that's, it's always constantly moving. And then, think. And then there's like the snake song, which is very vivid. I love the snake song, it's my favorite. He's gonna sing it. We don't join her, but we repeat after her at some points. So, when I go,

you a hey, you a hey, he go, you a hey, you a hey, you go, you a hey, you a hey. When you're like at a gathering or at a powwow, there's usually a leader and then all the participants form a snake and you have to hang on to the person in front of you and the person behind you is hanging on to you and you just have to keep up with the music

and wherever the snake goes, you follow and you try not to break the chain and it's fun for kids it's fun for adults it's fun for me so i enjoy i enjoy it yeah it was also banned from powahs because of it because it's too fast so we're trying to like sneak it in somewhere, but it's too fast. Everyone's tripping and tumbling everywhere. So it's banned. It was the first Mi'kmaq song where I almost got emotional because I seen it first time being played at the powwow at the middle school. And I was just watching everyone have fun and I was like, like this was what we've been doing for years, for hundreds of years. We were just doing stuff. This was the song that I've seen where we all just

were all together. I was like oh my god this is beautiful I never knew this could happen so I was like really emotional seeing it for the first time. I'm proud of you all. Legit. Like I'm so proud. I feel like a Facebook mom every time I see them sing. But like I could go like that if I want like Kris Jenner. I can't stop myself from smiling every time I hear the girls sing. It's just like, like, oh, I'm so proud. The same smile is echoed on Noelle Johnson's face

as she sits in the corner watching the girls practice. Do you remember when this girl started? I do. That was two years ago, right? We had no idea what we were doing. We were looking at YouTube. We were YouTubing it. For the lyrics.

Once we found out and realized that we had interest within our school, the ones that began, they just flourished and they're beyond us now. I'm now an observer. I am no longer needed. And get to listen to these beautiful voices. You're still needed. I'm always needed. On Ideas, you're listening to A School That Feels Like Home.

It's the second in a two-part series on language revitalization. Wait. Yes! Yes, yes! [♪ drumming and singing in Spanish and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's chorus and singing in Spanish with the band's Laca. Thank you to everyone at Allison Bernard Memorial High School and CBC Cape Breton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our technical producer is Danielle Duval. Our senior producer is Nikola Lukcic. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly. And I'm Nala Ayed. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,