In the Words of Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard: X̱aad Kíl and the Resurgence of Haida Language
X̱aad Kast: Haida Language, Memory, and Resurgence
In this episode of The Blue Hour, I introduce Gyaahlaang G̱udee, an episode from X̱aad Kast, the podcast of Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard.
This is not a live interview, but rather an opportunity to listen to Dr. Bedard in her own words: her reflections, research, and teaching on X̱aad Kíl, the Old Massett / Northern Haida language.
You can listen to the episode on CiTR 101.9 FM, or find it on Apple Podcasts.
Dr. Bedard is a Haida language educator and advocate from G̱aw Tlagée, Massett, Haida Gwaii. She is an Assistant Professor in the Indigenous Languages Program in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University.
Her work focuses on Indigenous language revitalization, X̱aad Kíl, immersion, pedagogy, translation, and language learning guided by Haida community, laws, and values.
The episode is titled Gyaahlaang G̱udee, with Dr. J. The title means “Radio” in X̱aad Kíl.
This episode is drawn mostly from Chapters 3 and 4 of Dr. Bedard’s 2025 dissertation, A Haida Research Framework for Learning X̱aad Kíl.
Dr. Bedard will join The Blue Hour in person in the fall, and I very much look forward to that conversation.
For now, I am grateful to be able to share this episode of X̱aad Kast with listeners of The Blue Hour.
Transcript
Introduction by Farha Guerrero
Hello, my name is Farha Guerrero. You are listening to The Blue Hour on CiTR 101.9 FM in Vancouver. Before we begin today's episode, I would like to acknowledge that this program airs from UBC's Point Grey campus located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
Today's program brings us into the world of X̱aad Kíl, the Old Massett Northern Haida language of Haida Gwaii. Just under two months ago, I was in Haida Gwaii and it was one of the most special trips in my life. I have been thinking about it ever since: the land, the ocean, the forest, the poles, the people, and the feeling that language, place, memory, and community are all deeply connected.
There is also a meaningful connection here at the University of British Columbia. On Musqueam territory stands Reconciliation Pole, carved by 7idansuu, James Hart, Haida hereditary chief and master carver. The pole was raised according to Haida tradition, and more recently Musqueam master carver qiyəplenəxʷ Richard Campbell created new work acknowledging that the pole stands on Musqueam ancestral territory. So today, as we listen to a program about X̱aad Kíl, I want to hold that relationship carefully: Haida language, Haida resurgence spoken about here on Musqueam land.
Today's program features an episode from the X̱aad Kíl podcast of Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard. Dr. Bedard is a Haida language educator, an advocate from G̱aaw, Old Massett, Haida Gwaii. She's an assistant professor in the Indigenous Languages Program in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University. Her work focuses on Indigenous language revitalization, immersion pedagogy, translation, and language learning guided by Haida community laws and values.
The episode we are airing today is from her “X̱aad kast” titled Gyáahlaang G̱udée with Dr. J. The title means radio in X̱aad Kíl. This episode is drawn mostly from chapters three and four of Dr. Bedard's 2025 PhD dissertation, A Haida Research Framework for Learning X̱aad Kíl. Dr. Bedard will be joining The Blue Hour in person this fall and I very much look forward to that conversation. But today, while I'm away, I am grateful to be able to share this podcast episode that she has produced herself.
One of the remarkable things about this work is that the language learning is presented not simply as academic study or as something that lives only on a page, but rather as a living entity carried by memory, repetition, listening, speaking, and sharing. I am thinking here too of something that master carver James Hart has said, that the artist's journey takes about 10,000 years, or perhaps any of his great works can take that long to make. Language is similar. It is passed on. It lives through the people who carry it, through the great teachers of the past and present, and through those who are learning and speaking it right now.
The Haida language is often described by linguists as a language isolate. That means that no genetic relationship to another language family has been proven. It is sometimes loosely compared to Basque in that one respect, which reminds us that some languages hold histories that do not fit neatly into the way we classify the world. So today's episode is about X̱aad Kíl, but it is also about continuity, memory, community, and resurgence. Let's tune in now here on The Blue Hour on CiTR 101.9 FM and hear Gyáahlaang G̱udée with Dr. J, Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard.
Gyáahlaang G̱udée with Dr. J
Podcast episode by Dr. Jasḵwaan Bedard
[Haida singing]. Áajii “Gyáahlaang G̱udée ahl Dr. J” episode hlG̱unahl uu iijang. Welcome to episode three of Gyáahlaang G̱udée with Dr. J. Jasḵwaan hánuu díi kyáang. My name is Jasḵwaan, X̱aad Kíl G̱idéed Hl guusuuangḵasaang. In this episode, I will talk all about learning the Haida language. I ask the question, what does it mean to learn your ancestral language as a second language?
My first language, like many Haida of my generation, was yáats' x̱aadee kíl, otherwise known as English. I heard many Haida words and songs growing up, but I was never surrounded by the language. My experience is common in my generation, as we are the children of those forbidden to speak their Indigenous languages. My memories of childhood visiting Haida Gwaii are defined by my Náanii Skil Jáadee, Phyllis Bedard, speaking X̱aad Kíl with her awa, my náan ḵ’ayaas Sáandlanee, my great-grandmother Emma Matthews. However, they passed away before I was 10 years old.
I did learn many Haida songs when I was growing up in Prince Rupert as a member of the Kwe Unglis Haida dance group led by the late Náanii Connie Spence and her daughter Náanii Margaret Atkins. I am forever grateful for their dance group connecting me to culture, songs, and protocols even though we were a ferry ride away from Haida Gwaii.
X̱aaydaa Gwáay saahlgangs dluu, X̱aad Kíhlga Hl gyuulanggan. It was coming back to Haida Gwaii as a university student many years ago, working as a guide at the remote cultural camp Haida Gwaii Rediscovery at T’alaan Stl’ang, I began to learn more words in X̱aad Kíl. However, it wasn't until I was pregnant with our first daughter Haana, now almost 23 years old, that I and her father began learning our language in earnest.
To come to know your own language after the tides of colonialism have washed up onto your shores is akin to stepping into the sea, the ocean of northern Haida Gwaii during the fall or winter months. As you step in, you experience a shock to the system as your body and mind adjust to the cold, as your senses are awakened to the world around you in a brighter and more intense way. After the initial discomfort, you find the courage to immerse yourself fully, forcing yourself to acclimatize and become stronger and healthier each time you take that plunge.
Language is expression. Language is worldview. Language is an ongoing continuum of thought since time immemorial. Language is a way of knowing the world around you. Language provides the tools to construct imagery and communicate ideas big and small. One of my late teachers, Sk’adada ‘Léeyga, otherwise known as Tsinii Stephen Brown, taught us gin nang dáng sḵ’adáas dluu, gudáng’ang G̱íi tla sG̱aslang - that when you learn something, put your whole mind to it. In X̱aad Kíl, the sG̱aslang means literally a wave-shaped object in the present tense and conceptually means to carry on the thought as an action that goes on and on. So if you could imagine a thought that extends like a rope, a pathway of understanding that goes on and on. The sG̱a part of the word indicates that shape, and shape classifiers are a unique function of the Haida language and a way of expressing thought that is indicative of Haida semantics.
To create imagery, shapes and aspect so precisely in the minds of listeners is, in my view, a special and unique function of the Haida language. Knowing how to speak to one another in the Haida language is a way for Haida people to connect to community through family, geography, culture, history, and worldview. When Haida speakers introduce themselves or speak to another speaker of the language, they automatically identify their relationship to each other through clan and lineage and the inevitable relationship through shared relatives that Haidas have with each other.
Haida speakers immediately locate themselves on the map of Haida Gwaii as their dialect, tone, cadence, and word choice identify the speaker's origin, as their dialect locates them to one of dozen Haida clans that belong to the dozen[s of] villages that encircle Haida Gwaii. Each clan from either the Raven or Eagle moiety have their own rights to crests, songs, places, and dialect.
Knowing the Haida language is to know the unique land and environment of Haida Gwaii. There are many sounds in X̱aad Kíl that emulate the birds of the island, predominantly Yáahl, or Raven, within our creation stories. Yáahl, Raven, is known as Nang Kílslaas, one whose voice is obeyed. Nang Kílslaas is a major player in the creation of the Haida world. Like listening to Yáahl, Raven, listening to, learning, and speaking X̱aad Kíl is a beautiful experience.
X̱aad Kíl reminds us of our connection to each other, to our land, to our history, and to the life which we share Haida Gwaii with, such as Yáahl, Raven. I feel privileged to be a part of the X̱aad Kíl world. It is communicating in a language that surrounds us on Haida Gwaii. It is mimicking and paying yahguudang - respect to the sounds of the wind and waters, the raven and eagle. Aspects of our minds, hearts, and spirits are activated as we speak our language.
With Canada's historical colonization of Haida people and territories, just like they conducted throughout what is now Canada, the health and vitality of the Haida language has been impacted severely throughout the many veins of colonization. Although scales of language endangerment are fundamentally harmful in that they situate Indigenous languages on a pathway to extinction, they have been used to raise the alarm in communities to activate language strengthening. I like to use language strengthening as opposed to language revitalization. I believe that our languages have always been living. I am often reminded that language comes from the land.
With the heavy weight of colonialism, in the same way Haidas were prohibited access to our lands and territories through colonial policy like the Indian Act, Haida access to hear, learn, and speak our language was also severely limited by this same policy. This is very similar to Indigenous groups across what is now Canada. As with land and rights protection, language strengthening requires returning to our protocols and laws to guide actions within an obscure colonial landscape.
Any conversation of our ways of being and knowledge in this modern day requires that we consider the broader conversation of Indigenous rights globally. Within the complex narrative of Indigenous ways of knowing, it is necessary that Indigenous knowledge seekers and language learners ground ourselves in story, tradition, and protocols of our lands and territories.
I reflect often on my own journey of X̱aad Kíl unsádeelang, coming to know the Haida language. As I mentioned, I heard X̱aad Kíl spoken around me in my formative years by my náanalang, my grandmothers [, but we only visited them a few times a year]. I remember long speeches from my grandparents, many community dinners hosted in their living room, the cadence of the language as each speaker stood up to say their speeches, drew sound pictures in my mind. I heard kindness, I heard power, I heard care, I heard love, as my náanalang grandmothers spoke. Learning my language now reminds me of being whole as I knew only love and acceptance from my grandmothers.
When I embarked on learning X̱aad Kíl in community as a young adult, my feelings associated with X̱aad Kíl shifted and transformed. This transformation and shift were not immediate, but rather over time as circumstances around the language became more stressful and complex. As my X̱aad Kíl learning and involvement intensified, rather than feeling loved, included, and comforted by the language, I began to feel anxious, incompetent, and like I did not belong. Instead of hearing about how I was connected to the speakers of the language, like how I learned through my grandmothers and relatives, I was instead reminded about how separated and different I was than my elder teachers with my inability to correctly make sounds of X̱aad Kíl or to retain meaning outside of my English thinking.
Wounds carried through generations inflicted throughout the colonial era of forceful removal of language resurfaced during my X̱aad Kíl learning journey in community. And this is just yet another example of deliberate and calculated colonial attempts to separate love from Indigenous lives and experiences.
I have been privileged to have been taught by a wide range of teachers over the years and along with that a wide range of learning experiences. My most significant learning was with my late mentor Primrose Adams. She was of the same clan as my grandmother's, the Yahgu 'laanas Raven clan. Most all of my language teachers who I was privileged to learn from are no longer with us. Dr. Dolores Churchill continues to teach. I am so thankful to my teachers, [past and present for their] patience and care.
Even though my own experience, as I mentioned earlier, shifted and changed, that wasn't because of the individual teachers or their feelings towards me. It was because of this universal experience we as Indigenous people have in this colonial landscape. Some experiences learning provided immense joy and pride. Other experiences, however, evoked sadness, hurt, and intense isolation.
I have spent a considerable amount of time processing and coming to an understanding about the ways in which awakening Indigenous languages amplifies the ongoing community need to heal and can potentially bring a multitude of unprocessed grief and anger out for us all to experience and manage and ultimately heal from. I have come to understand through my own research and writing, and by the way, this here is an excerpt from my dissertation called X̱aad Kíhlga Tla Gúusuugiigaangsaang, a Haida Research Framework for Learning X̱aad Kíl, that it is the language itself that guides healing amongst us, bringing forth ability to connect with the world around us in a unique and powerful way.
My X̱aad Kíl language journey truly began in 2004, 22 years ago, as we took our oldest daughter, Hana, to X̱aad Kíl Gwaaygangée, the language nest. Throughout that time, I took many adult language learning classes through Simon Fraser University's Indigenous Languages Program. However, my most significant learning happened with my mentor Primrose Adams in the Mentor-Apprentice Program [MAP] run by First Peoples’ Cultural Council. This was a pivotal experience for my X̱aad Kíl learning.
Náanii Primrose Adams was Yahgu 'laanas from Dáadens, the same clan as my late father Kwiiyaans and my paternal grandmothers and great-grandmothers. My experience with the Mentor-Apprentice program represents a shift in not only my understanding and ability in X̱aad Kíl but also my understanding of what it means to be a X̱aads Jáad, a Haida woman. The intertwined nature of language learning and personal development exemplifies the Haida protocol gin ‘wáadluwaan gud ahl kwaagiidang, everything is connected to everything else. My experience learning my language from Náani Bibsy [Primrose] also gave me an opportunity to learn and embody yahguudang, a Haida way of being defined by respect for self, others, and all that surrounds you.
So, the Mentor-Apprentice Program is a method for Indigenous language learning. I learned about it early in my X̱aad Kíl learning journey. I was gifted Leanne Hinton's book, How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Common Sense Approach to One-on-One Language Learning. Hinton, a linguist based out of the University of California, is guided in her work by Indigenous knowledge holders and language champions from the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, AICLS, on efforts to reclaim their languages. Hinton developed the “Master Apprentice” learning method of one-on-one language learning pairing a fluent speaker, a master, with a learner, an apprentice, and centers around her 10 points to successful language learning that she developed in her language strengthening work.
So Náanii Bibsy and I applied for and were successful applicants for the Mentor-Apprentice training program. First Peoples’ Cultural Council is an Indigenous-led Crown agency that supports language, arts, and cultural heritage revitalization in what is now British Columbia. And they adapted Hinton's master apprentice method in 2008. With Hinton's guidance, FPCC developed a Mentor-Apprentice program, FPCC MAP, based on Hinton's book and strategy, with the aim to tailor a program suited to the diverse and numerous Indigenous languages in what is now British Columbia.
For sure, British Columbia holds 60% of the Indigenous languages in what is now Canada. X̱aad Kíl, my dialect, the G̱aw or Old Massett dialect of the Haida language, is one dialect of the over 30 Indigenous languages and 90 Indigenous dialects First Peoples’ Cultural Council aims to service with their language programming.
So between the years of 2004 and 2012, I was involved, as I mentioned, in multiple capacities with the X̱aad Kíl language learning initiative X̱aad Kíl Gwáaygangee, which translates to Haida language family and was the name for the language nest program. Náanii Bibsy was one of the elders who worked in the program. X̱aad Kíl Gwáaygangee represents my introduction to sustained X̱aad Kíl learning participation. It operated four days a week, four hours a day.
My involvement was my introduction to learning X̱aad Kíl formally. This involved recording statements from the elders who would participate, writing them down as best we could using our modern orthography, and then memorizing baby talk, phrases we could use around the babies and toddlers who participated in the program with their families, developing resources for families to take home and have language reminders after the program ended and use and strengthen the language in their homes.
We were committed to the program. We carried our notebooks around. We would ask Elders how to say something. We would repeat it over and over again and we would write it down to the best of our ability. We would sometimes take those statements to another Elder and try them out. And often they would look at us in puzzlement, not being able to decipher what it was we were trying to say because X̱aad Kíl is a tonal language. And we weren't really taught that. We were more encouraged just to memorize whatever we could, mimicking the Elders during that time.
But our English influence as our first language would creep out and we would ask for confirmation of things that we were saying with a little tone at the end of the sentence to check and see if perhaps we were saying it right, like how are you in English, that's quite common when we're asking affirmation if what we're saying is correct. In X̱aad Kíl, it changes the meaning of what we're saying. So, over the years, we just could not figure out why was it that no matter how hard we tried, we were rarely understood by first language speakers when we kind of ventured out of the canned statements that everybody knew.
I drew on my previous second language learning experience to assist me learn X̱aad Kíl. I did learn another language as an exchange student after high school. I traveled to northeastern Mexico where I lived in Hermosillo, Sonora for eight months. During that time, I became somewhat proficient in Mexican Spanish. For the first time, I managed to learn, speak, and even think in another language. As I started my X̱aad Kíl learning journey, I believed that my experience learning Spanish would better my chances to learn X̱aad Kíl. However, the two experiences represent vastly different language learning circumstances that are difficult to compare.
Learning Mexican Spanish involved a set of circumstances not available to learn X̱aad Kíl. In Mexico, to be fully immersed in Spanish all day, every day was completely accessible. I could watch movies and TV shows in the language while reading the subtitles in English and use that tool as a way to learn and comprehend the language. I was exposed to multiple speakers of the language of all ages. I rarely would find myself in a situation where I could only speak English. The circumstances that allowed me to reach proficiency in Spanish in such a short time seemed to be impossible to replicate in the Haida language.
With only a few speakers of the language remaining, when I first began to learn X̱aad Kíl, it seemed I rarely heard fluent speakers converse naturally amongst themselves like I did when I was very young with my náanalang. So, it wasn't as though I could just absorb information about the language in multiple contexts. And although there were dedicated Elders who participated in our language nest, it was usually two or three fluent speakers and not having similar clans or age groups or genders. It wasn't as though they would just launch into uninterrupted conversation. They would usually just answer our questions as we asked a question in English. How do you say this and this and this in X̱aad Kíl? They would answer, repeat. We would write it down, repeat. So, it wasn't the same as my experience in Mexico.
To be clear, it was the limited vocabulary and ways of knowing of myself as a student that prohibited a flow of X̱aad Kíl from elder speakers in the program. Nothing to do with them and their ability. One of the Elders from X̱aad Kíl Gwáaygangee was the late X̱aad Kíl Sḵ’adada ‘Léeygaa Tsinii Stephen Brown. He became close with their family, especially Ḵaaydgudaang - Jaalen, my children's father. Tsinii Stephen was an exceptional teacher. He was constantly reminding us that there was an old Haida way of saying things and it was quite different than what he called modern Haida.
Jaalen and I have had many conversations about Tsinii Stephen’s teachings over the years and what he was deciphering with the old and modern determiners was the modern Haida was coming from an English perspective. We would ask how to say things that just wouldn't really be said in Haida language from our Haida worldview. But because our first language was English, we would be asking from that perspective and the language would shift and change as Elders translated, trying to accommodate us learners and say things that would be understood by us.
So this was a source of frustration for the late Tsinii Stephen, and because he saw this in the many learning domains that he participated in, he spent his evenings creating his own corpus of lessons, a series of more than 25 60- to 90-minute tapes where he recorded Haida lessons from his Haida worldview perspective. “X̱aad Kil uu tl’ sḵ’adeesaang….They're going to learn the Haida language.”
At the end of X̱aad Kíl Gwaaygangée's program life, it was only Náanii Bibsy and Tsinii Stephen who were teaching us the language [as well as Náanii Merle Anderson and Nánii Leona Clow]. After Tsinii Stephen passed away in 2012, the language nest was no longer in existence. There was just no way to sustain it with only one speaker. I had been running the program for a number of years. And after my son was born in 2012, the same year that Tsinii Stephen passed away, I had to take an extended leave due to my son's medical needs. This meant that the fundraising for grants to sustain the program was also on pause and unfortunately the doors have yet to be open again in the 14 years since they closed.
Náani Bibsy, however, was still willing to teach the language and she invited me to her home to continue teaching X̱aad Kíl to me and I was so privileged for this invitation. I would visit. I would bring my notebook. I would ask my questions. I would write down what she translated for me in X̱aad Kíl. However, we didn't just sit and speak the language. It was this methodology that we in the language nest had all followed. Ask, write, say. Ask, write, say. This sort of led to frustration for both of us. And this is when we heard about the First Peoples’ Cultural Council Mentor-Apprentice Program. I applied in 2013 and we were successful applicants and we traveled to the training and we were one of 12 teams across the province.
I'm very proud to say that I continue to work with First Peoples’ Cultural Council and I'm now a trainer of first-year Mentor-Apprentice teams, and since the program began in 2008 there have been more than 600 Mentor-Apprentice teams complete the Mentor-Apprentice programs. I participated in the program between 2013 and 2017 and we completed over 1,000 hours of immersion. The program is very special. Its principles include leaving English behind, focusing on oral communication, focusing on full sentences. There is no reading and writing. We live our lives in the language. And believe me, this was very hard at first. I was so used to carrying that notebook around, jotting things down and memorizing words and statements and repeating them. This is not really a natural way to communicate.
As many of you know, the Mentor-Apprentice Program focuses on a little “mini immersion” between the apprentice and the mentor. We were so fortunate and grateful to learn about the program from Aliana Parker, the then language coordinator for First Peoples’ Cultural Council, and Dr. Suzanne Gessner. And I'm so thankful that Náanii Bibsy agreed to go on that journey with me. We would travel to Richmond and Vancouver for the trainings once a year while we were part of the program. And every 100 hours, I would present my learning to a panel of X̱aad Kíl speakers and knowers to show them the progress I was making through the Mentor-Apprentice program.
However, there were many times in my Mentor-Apprentice X̱aad Kíl learning journey that I was challenged. I had to learn to adjust my own expectations of myself. I had to train myself to take a step back, slow down, and alter my expectations to the reality of what was possible during our time together. We spent in general between eight and 10 hours a week working on X̱aad Kíl through the method. At the beginning, it was difficult to realize that despite the extensive Mentor-Apprentice training and First Peoples’ Cultural Council program support, we were still in the same position as before the training. Náanii would ask, "What are we working on today?" And I would ask a series of questions in English. I simply did not have the X̱aad Kíl competency to carry on conversation or lead activities purely in the language.
The Mentor-Apprentice method relies on a lot of repetition so that the learner will eventually understand and come to learn the context, tenses, and intricacies of the language. It took many times for me to hear a phrase or word to be able to repeat it back and be understood. This is where I'm thankful for the recordings of our sessions together. I did come to learn yahguudang for myself through coming to know the language from Primrose. The MAP training gave multiple ideas for ways we could spend our sessions to learn and speak X̱aad Kíl together and leave English behind. And some of them worked. [X̱aad Kíl speaking between Jasḵwaan and Primrose].
I slowly recognized that we would not have instant measurable success with the Mentor-Apprentice method that I had anticipated. But I needed to acknowledge and celebrate the small victories as they came along. I eventually learned to change my thinking and focus on what did work for our Mentor-Apprentice relationship instead of what did not work. Over time, we settled into a routine that worked for us. When our time in the program came to an end and we did go through a graduation to celebrate our more than 1,000 hours of Mentor-Apprentice immersion together.
I still continued to visit Náani Bibsy, as her friend, and we would often do the same things we did together during the Mentor-Apprentice Program, because it does encourage you to just live your life in the language. We would sit and visit, have tea and cheese toast, her famous cheese toast. We'd go for a drive. I'd do her shopping with her, check the mail, and speak what Haida language we could while we were together.
With great sadness, I had to say goodbye to my late mentor in 2020 when she passed away just before the COVID-19 epidemic hit. I'm forever grateful for her teaching me the language through the method, believing in me, having patience with me, and carrying me through the difficult journey of learning my language word by word, phrase by phrase, lesson by lesson. At the same time, teaching me the protocols of being a Haida woman. It has really allowed me to be a better teacher in the language.
My language ability is only because of the teachers that came before me and what they taught me. I have taught multiple adult second language learners through Indigenous language classes in my position as assistant professor in the Indigenous Languages Program at SFU. I have taught one-on-one with other community members who've asked me to be their mentor, and I now co-instruct our immersion program with Jaasaljuus Yakgujanaas in G̱aw Tlagée, Massett, where we follow a slightly different method of teaching as it is a cohort of multiple students. The method is called Where Are Your Keys, where we combine techniques and hand signs with language learning and was developed by the group called Where Are Your Keys.
But the legacy left by our Elders and knowledge holders before us is steeped in love. The love for our language has been demonstrated by our Ancestors and Elder teachers and echoes in decisions made in the Haida language material left behind. I only know what I know because of those that came before me and the hard heavy lifting work that they have done for our community and our language. I'm so thankful to them as I am thankful to Náani Bibsy - Primrose Adams and her family, and First Peoples’ Cultural Council and the Mentor-Apprentice Program.
Out of love for future generations, our Elders left a legacy of language resources. There are recordings of interviews, stories, lessons, their videos and audio recordings, including cassette tapes, and various written work for us to continue to learn from well after they have left this world. We remember that love that brought our Haida knowledge to our hearts. And we can channel that to ourselves and to each other as we embark on knowing and strengthening our language in íitl’ kuníisii stáasil the wake of our ancestors. Showing our children a world that emulates the love of iitl’ náanalang, our grandmothers, and iitl’ Tsinalang, our grandfathers.
[Haida singing “Yáahl Kíhlga Áyaagaa – Master Raven Speaker”]