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MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Maples Collegiate students hammer in pegs to hold down the canvas of the tipi. Indigenous youth from Maples Collegiate learn to put up and take down a tipi Thursday morning at Ozhaawashkwaa Animikii-Bineshi Aki Onji Kinimaagae’ Inun, Seven Oaks School Division’s land-based learning centre. There’s ever-growing demand for land-based learning and recognition of their important place across the province's public school system. Teachers have increasingly sought elders’ expertise and planned field trips to sites such as Ozhaawashkwaa Animikii-Bineshi Aki Onji Kinimaagae’ Inun (Blue Thunderbird Land-based Teachings Learning Centre), also known as the Aki Centre. The Aki Centre spans 50 acres, much of which is undergoing restoration so the over-farmed grounds return to their original state as a tallgrass prairie and wetland, in West St. Paul. The Seven Oaks School Division has facilitated rabbit snaring, moose and deer hyde tanning, and the harvesting of sage, sweetgrass and tobacco, since opening it in 2019. More than 5,000 visitors stopped by the Grassmere Road site that houses vegetable and medicine gardens, a sweat lodge and a greenhouse in 2023-24. In doing so, they learned about ecosystems, treaties, conservation and other related topics. Reporter: Maggie Macintosh 241031 - Thursday, October 31, 2024.