My name is Kyla Judge. I’m from Shawanaga First Nation.

On a word in Anishinaabemowin that is meaningful

A word from Anishinaabemowin that I really think of a lot and that resonates with me is the word oshkinigig. Oshkinigig is the name of our wiigwaas jiimaan, our birchbark canoe. Oshkinigig, if you pull it apart, oshki means to be something new, something shiny. Nigig refers to typically like an otter, but in Anishinaabek stories we think of the otter as young and youthful and playful and energetic. So the name oshkinigig carries a long story about the history of the wiigwaas jiimaan, but also, with regards to the nature of how intricately connected language is to the land, to culture and to us as Anishinaabe.

As part of my role, the work that I do with the Georgian Bay Mnidoo Gamii Biosphere and the Georgian Bay Anishinaabek youth, we built a birchbark canoe in 2019. The name oshkinigig brings back so many stories — so many good stories — and so many good memories of the learning experience of building a wiigwaas jiimaan in our territory, a practice that has been very much impacted by the legacy of residential schools and the the continuing impacts of colonization.  

On the hope for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages 

The International Decade of Indigenous Languages brings a lot of hope for me. I think a lot about the work that I do within the Georgian Bay Mnidoo Gamii Biosphere and my role with the Indigenous youth group that I run. But I really think about how this is a challenge, and I think about it personally: how can I really bring home and practice my language throughout this decade? 

I think about my hopes and goals and dreams for my life, and that I want to be able to think in Anishinaabemowin. I want to be able to think in my language. When we talk about Anishinaabemowin, our language is intricately interconnected into the places we come from. Anishinaabemowin cannot be replicated or duplicated anywhere else in the world because it’s so intricately connected to the geography of the land that we come from. And so for me, Anishinaabemowin comes from the Great Lakes — it comes from that woodland region — and so when I think about how important it is for me to be able to think in Anishinaabemowin, it also reinforces the notion that I need to become fluent. It reinforces the importance of having that language as the foundation of my knowledge base, because without language, we don’t have culture and vice versa.