My Top 5 Presentations in Northern Environments

Hey,

As a final blog for this years northern environment class I thought it would be a good idea to go through my top 5 Presentations of the course and follow up with some of my likes and dislikes of presenting techniques.

... in no particular order....

1. Tourism in Churchill

http://www.bon-voyage.co.uk/
destinations/churchill_holidays/

This presentation really opened up my already interested curiosity on travelling up North in Manitoba. The biggest pull for me, aside from seeing the polar bears, would be the chance to swim with the beluga whales! I talked about swimming with humpback whales in Tonga in one of my earlier posts and believe I would take the opportunities again in a second to jump back into the water to swim with such graceful animals.


Check out this great website on tourism in Churchill for more information! http://everythingchurchill.com/

2. Inuit Mythology & The Inuit Spirit

These two presentations both touched on different areas of the same subject. What I felt really caught my interest was the use of storytelling in both presentations that really helped to catch our attention. I enjoyed the comparisons to Christianity and the ability to look beyond what it had changed into and to understand why things have changes over the time. I do believe Ill forever be afraid of Mahaha, who will tickle me to death with a large grinning smile on his face.

3. Northern Towns

We had a couple opportunities to look at more remore Northern North American towns from Rebecca and Paxton. I thought this was a great way to experience and learn about towns we normally wouldn't take a glance at.  I've learnt through many of my travels that these remote locations can often host some of the most genuine, interesting people and create some of the most memorable experiences to a traveler. I was proud to hear about places like Pond Inlet that are doing their best to adopt with the modern world and finding ways to overcome their new found difficulties.

4. Grey Wolves, Tourism and Zoo's

http://travelmanitoba.com/default.asp?page=200690

One of the best ingredients to a successful presentation is the ability to pull from personal experiences. Karlyn's presentation on the grey wolves was a perfect example how she can use her own travels up north and apply them into her presentation. This is something I try to acheive throug my work as well. I attribute most of my success to the places that I have been to and what I have experienced. For example, my presentation on storytelling I actually pulled a photo of my own backpack and used it to describe a different type of story rather than traditional written stories.
Another aspect that gave her a great presentation was the thought provoking replies and discussion that sprouted from her presentation. Everyone had something to say about animals in zoo's after her presentation.


5. Invertebrates

Jessica reminded us not to forget our smallest living creates up North. She was very successful with the use of humor and a well researched topic to introduce us to the most common and diverse biodiversity in the arctic. She told the class about a subject that no one really knew anything about, and had us all leaving the room wanting to learn more.

Best and Worst Techniques

http://wallpaperswide.com/dreamcatcher-wallpapers.html

Powerful images was key to a good presentation. Everyone can still remember the video of the arctic fox slowly listening under the snow and gracefully diving head first to attack its prey.  Madison's choice of topic left everyone remembering the giant images or ice arches in the form of a hotel which makes an aesthetically pleasing architectural wonder.  Dominic's dream catcher project also became an image shaped into everyone's mind. He also had the advantage of taking a piece of culture that most people in Manitoba know a little about and might even have hanging around the house to pull in our curiosity.

Some of the worst presentations in this class were mostly due to laziness.  Creating excuses is the worst way to begin a presentation, I don't want to hear about how you stayed up till 5 o'clock last night getting everything ready, you should have had it done before hand.   We all knew starting the presentations that we would have active learning exercises.  I'm a little disappointed that I went first and took the quiz idea.  There wasn't too much deviation for most learning exercises, and I don't think the active learning really helped anyone but created more awkward situations.  The last thing I'll tell you about that I didn't like about the presentations was the weeks topics. We went through at the beginning of the class and chose different themes for the weeks, and for the most part these themes were ignored. This became pretty annoying after we learned about different animals week after week.

To end on a positive note, I feel like everyone in the class enjoyed the atmosphere in which we were all learning. I feel like this is one of the classes that most people take a little more pride into, and can learn in a different way. It has also taken my interest in doing more presentations. It would be interesting to use the skills that I've learnt in this course and apply them in different situations.


Thanks for reading my blogs! Hope you enjoyed them.

- Ben

Relationships in the North

 The Two Spirited People of the North
After discussing how far north is Northern Environments with the class in our early lectures we decided it was up to our choosing.  This week was suppose to be focused on relationships in the North. We got to learn about women in the North, family relations, and about northern communities.

Not discussed in our lectures was a more important issue hitting our own city here in Manitoba. Just reading the paper recently, homophobia has taken a center stage in our media. From the opposition of Bill 18 in Steinbach, to business owners being run out of town in Morris, to homes being vandalized in Winnipeg.

http://www.dancingtoeagle
spiritsociety.org/twospirit.php

What type of relationship do we have here in Manitoba with the LGBTTQ community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Two-Spirited and Queer)?

If we look back into our history, we have taken a backwards approach to this community in regards to gay rights (or human rights). An identity that many people don't know the meaning of in todays culture is a two-spirited person. People who identify themselves as two-spirited were put into cross gender roles. Men would take on the responsibilities of women, and women the responsibilities of men.  Men would marry other men, and women to other women. These people were believed to have two spirits, that of a man and that of a woman.

 In Native american culture, before European settlement, a two-spirited person was regarded as gifted, and as a teacher.  In over 155 different tribes across North America cross gender identity has been recorded and were accepted by their community, honoured and revered. They were treated as visionaries, healers, medicine people, nannies of orphans, and caregivers. They were given the respect that any human deserves.

Since European colonization we have taken a backwards approach with our spirited people of North America. They have been alienated from their aboriginal identity being viewed as perverted, nontraditional  and untrustworthy loosing their place in society.

(To learn more about the Two - Spirited people in North America, go to http://www.dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org/twospirit.php.)

Canada has been one of the worlds front runners in regards to gay rights having same sex activity legal since 1969, recognition of same sex unions, nationwide same sex marriage accepted, adoption, able to serve openly in the military, and bans against all anti gay discrimination. But recently our society has not been as accepting as what is written on our human rights act.

If you want to learn more about Gay Rights in Canada, e-mail me for a PDF of a paper I wrote on the subject for an international development project.  

I can only hope that our children learn to become more accepting and can learn from traditional views of two - spirited people in our communities so stories such as a 14 year old boy being bullied in his school for trying to develop a resource center for homosexual people can stop.  So families are no longer being run out of town due to homophobia and so that hate slurs will no longer be accepted to be written on someones home. Relationships of acceptance of others are what we need to be building in today's society, and we can use and learn from our past to develop this.