Presenter Biographies:

Priscilla Settee

Priscilla Settee is member of Cumberland House Swampy Cree First Nations and a Professor of Indigenous Studies and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She has won recognition nationally and internationally as an award winning professor and as a global educator/activist.  She is the author of two books Pimatisiwin, Global Indigenous Knowledge Systems(2013) that looks at global Indigenous Knowledge Systems and The Strength of Women, Ahkameyimohk(2011) that examines the role of Indigenous women’s stories in establishing truth, reconciliation and social change.  Dr. Settee is working on her third book on Indigenous Food Sovereignty. Her research includes the impact of climate change on Indigenous communities and inner city Indigenous gang-exiting processes and healing.  She is a kohkum to Nya Lily and Lola Rose.

Peter Cardinal

Peter Cardinal is a Metis father and grandfather and a member resident of the Kikino Metis Settlement in north eastern Alberta.  He is an entrepreneur and lives on a Buffalo ranch with his wife Brenda. He had worked most of his adult life in the Oil industry and now works part time with an Aboriginal family services and operates their businesses.

He always had a passion for the food industry after growing up on a cattle ranch and always dreamed of having his own Buffalo ranch which they finally built in 2004. During his final years in the oil industry he started researching ways to achieve food Sovereignty for the Aboriginal people of Canada. He believes that having the ability to feed their people should be a prerequisite to claiming self government.

His research revealed the connection between health and food and also ways to take advantage of the business opportunities available to our aboriginal communities and entrepreneurs. He is passionate about sharing this information with people who are looking for ways to help feed their people healthier food.

Tanya Kappo

Tanya Kappo is from the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in the territory of Treaty No. 8.

She is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba. She also completed International Law at the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was called to the Alberta Bar in 2014.

She was one of the lead editors of the Kino-nda-niimi Collective for the book, “The Winter We Danced: Voices From the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement”. She is also a member of the National Collective for Walking With Our Sisters.

Tanya is a mother of three children, and the grandmother of one.

Cowboy Smithx

Cowboy Smithx is an Indigenous filmmaker of Blackfoot Ancestry from the Piikani and Kainai tribes of Southern Alberta, Canada. Cowboy is the founder and curator of the highly acclaimed International Indigenous speaker series REDx Talks. Cowboy writes, directs and produces film works in documentary,narrative, music video and experimental. He was the youngest person to ever receive a Blackfoot Arts Award for his decades of work in the performing arts. Cowboy hosts the critically acclaimed podcast “The Silent X”.

Elder Mike Beaver

Coming Soon…..

Treaty 8 Grand Chief

Coming Soon

Glenda Abbott

Glenda Abbott is nehiyaw from Pelican Lake First Nation and a University of Saskatchewan graduate with a Bachelor of Education (with Distinction) from Prince Albert SUNTEP. She has dedicated much of her time learning from knowledge keepers to revitalize and reclaim Indigenous knowledge systems. Glenda has worked on many indigenous led community projects and cultural revitalization initiatives related to women’s teachings, traditional medicine, ethnobotany-food sovereignty and land based education curriculum development.  She has also spent time connecting with many indigenous communities and educational opportunities from Alaska to Argentina. Some of the projects include: Revitalizing Indigenous Agriculture Project (RIAP), Askiy Maskihkiy (Earth Medicine-traditional medicine keeper), Peace and Dignity Journeys, Walking with Our Sisters, Oondaadizikewin traditional Indigenous lay midwifery, Indigenous Full Spectrum Doula Training and the Manitoba Indigenous Doula initiative.

Climate Change and the Role of Women

This session will explore an indigenous women’s journey to reclaim a women’s ‘traditional’ role in rapidly changing times. Glenda will share some of her learnings that she has gained from her work with knowledge keepers, as a traditional birth attendant, traditional plant knowledge, and from travelling extensively through Indigenous communities from Saskatchewan to Panama. This will include migration stories and prophecies that are currently leading many conversations in indigenous communities throughout the western hemisphere.

Elder Jane Dragon

Mrs. Jane Dragon, is a Chipewyan Dene woman, originally from northern Saskatchewan. At 77, she has lived in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, since she was 10 years old. She and her husband David, had celebrated 53 years of marriage when he passed in April, 2012. Together, they raised 6 children and now her family includes 13 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

Setsuné (grandmother in Chipewyan) has been a life long volunteer and contributor to her community receiving all three of the Queen Medals for Service.  She was recently inducted to the Education Hall of Fame in the NWT having shared traditional cultural tradition with young and old over the decades.  Mrs Dragon is a talented seamstress; sewing with furs and hides for most of her life. Her handiworks are enjoyed by people from around the world and Setsuné continues to sew her own unique creative pieces to this day.  Her favorite greeting is tThá Huná ~ May you live a long time!