Reconciliation about reclaiming language, culture – Campeau – The North Bay Nugget

‘A lot of resources were used to take it away. Help us get it back’

Learning about your own history is “incredibly empowering.”

Ian Campeau, a co-founder and former member of the group A Tribe Called Red, has been learning the language and culture of the Indigenous people who have called Nipissing home for thousands of years.

And learning those things, he says, benefits both the Indigenous people and the descendants of the settlers who came to this land.

For example, he said, Nipissing, Ontario, Canada, Ottawa and Quebec are all names derived from the Indigenous people, and there are four different definitions for Nipissing.

“They all explain things about the place that otherwise you wouldn’t understand,” Campeau said Wednesday at Nipissing University as he prepared for a talk and a Skype chat as part of his Ian Calls program where he links up with people he knows from his time in the music industry.

Read More: https://www.nugget.ca/news/local-news/reconciliation-about-reclaiming-language-culture-campeau