By: Alex Chu

On June 23, Canadian students graduated from John J. Sark Memorial School in P.E.I. These grade 6 students have been learning about Mi’kmaw culture such as drumming, smudging and sweetgrass weaving. Learning about Mi’kmaw culture has been a formative experience for these kids because they come from Mi’kmaw cultural backgrounds.

For 11-year-old Anabella Lewis of Lennox Island First Nation in Prince Edward Island, leaving her elementary school feels like leaving her safe place. “It’s like, when you’ve gone somewhere and then when you come all together, like with your family, you feel like home. That’s what my school feels like,” she told CBC Kids News. She and other students at John J. Sark Memorial have spent years learning Mi’kmaw, their ancestral language, along with other traditional practices like drumming, smudging and sweetgrass weaving. They’ll be transitioning to a public school outside their First Nation, where those practices aren’t baked into the school climate.

Very recently in the mid-1980s, teaching Mi’kmaw culture was illegal. Now, they celebrate what they love to do most: drumming, sweetgrass weaving, smudging, and braiding.