Case Study | Land and Water: Indigenous Land-Based Education Program
Leading Organization
University of Manitoba’s Community Engaged Learning
Location
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Overview
Students at the University of Manitoba have many extra-curricular opportunities to build community connections thanks to the university’s Community Engaged Learning department (CEL), which facilitates volunteer and other learning opportunities on campus and beyond. Among these initiatives is CEL’s Land and Water: Land-Based Education program, launched in 2018. Free for Indigenous students at the university—as well as for urban Indigenous youth not enrolled at the university—the program brings participants together with Indigenous youth, community members, knowledge carriers and elders to participate in immersive, urban land-based experiences and discussions.
From guided plant medicine walks through local parks to traditional crafting workshops, the program takes its students through themes like Indigenous interventions to climate change, land-based ways of life through a seasonal lens, building relationships with land, and much more. Through these immersive, monthly, in-person activities, the program aims to foster a sense of belonging and place for urban Indigenous learners in Winnipeg, to “re-story” the land as Métis (there is shared jurisdiction with Anishinaabe in this area), and to challenge settler origin stories and narratives of urban Indigenous inauthenticity—that is, the idea that land and people in the city are less authentically Indigenous than their rural and reserve counterparts.
“There has been a lot of erasure and forgetting of Indigenous histories and relationships with the land, especially in urban areas. Land and Water restores and re-stories the land as Indigenous, and helps learners develop a strong sense of belonging in the urban environment.”
— Meghan Young, Land and Water Program Coordinator, University of Manitoba
Engagement and Solutions
The program’s focus can vary from year to year. In 2024–2025, for example, it is exploring Indigenous relationships with waterways and the species that live within and depend upon them. Students are ice fishing, tanning fish hides and learning other cultural skills and knowledges amid discussions of pollution, climate change and microplastics.
The program engages Indigenous elders, knowledge carriers, artists and cultural teachers to lead its discussions and workshops. The program’s two Métis coordinators, one of whom holds a Master of Education in Indigenous land-based education, work with these experts to use traditional ways of learning, including storytelling, experiential, relational and place-based approaches to help students connect with each other, the land and the community.
Past activities have included building a sweat lodge, moccasin beading and rattle-making, and Indigenous winter games.
Although participation in CEL’s September to May land and water program is typically by application, there are also some spots set aside for drop-in learners, and the program is fully drop-in from June to August.
Outcomes and Future Vision
CEL’s land and water program has lasting impacts on its participants. It affirms students’ cultural connections and place in the urban environment and on the university campus, builds relationships between participants, program leaders and the land, and helps participants understand the important role that a land-based approach to climate change education can play in lifelong learning for change.