Gibimishkaadimin 2019
In early 2020, an exuberant group of nine Indigenous & nine non-Indigenous youth arrived in Toronto for a four-day reunion. They were celebrating the successful completion of an eight-day Temagami adventure in August 2019 called Gibimishkaadimin. For those new to the Fairlawn community, Gibimishkaadimin is an Anishinaabemowin word representing “paddling together by boat”.
It’s the name of a five-year pilot project offering youth aged 14-18 from across the country the opportunity to develop relationships with one another and with the land on a wilderness canoe trip. The trip is delivered through an Indigenous lens and is led by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff. The project itself is directed by a six-person board (three of whom are Indigenous) and is supported by the United Church of Canada and by three Toronto area United churches Bloor Street, Rosedale, and Fairlawn. The reunion marked the completion of our third year of operation.
In hindsight, it’s remarkable that those participants returned home from the reunion just two days before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and just nine days before the government of Canada imposed the country’s first official lock-down. At the time, word of Gibimishkaadimin had been spreading, and the program for the summer of 2020 was already fully enrolled.
The good news is the program’s funding is secure and our commitment to completing the five-year pilot remains firm. In the meantime, the Gibimishkaadimin board is looking at ways we can provide individual development opportunities to some of the Indigenous youth who have taken leader-in-training roles over the course of the project first three years.
