Senapan Thunder earned her Bachelor of Education degree at University of Saskatchewan in 1992. (Submitted/ Senapan Thunder)

By Kenneth Cheung

CREE EDUCATION

‘I want to be able to contribute back’: Cree language keeper honoured with Sask. Order of Merit

Jun 7, 2025 | 12:33 PM

Senapan Thunder didn’t set out to win awards — she set out to honour those who came before her and to ensure that nêhiyawêwin, the Cree language, remains alive for future generations.

Now, the longtime educator and language champion from Thunderchild First Nation has been recognized with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, the province’s highest civilian honour.

“For many years I’ve been building my skills and trying to highlight the Cree language,” she said. “I was using different platforms to share the language and plus my resources for those who are learning the language.”

Thunder, who grew up speaking Cree as her first language, has spent decades teaching both the Plains and Woodland Cree dialects. Her work spans traditional classrooms and self-developed online tools, reaching learners across Saskatchewan and beyond.

“I was raised in my language… and then I learned English.”

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Today, her teaching includes a weekly Sunday morning language session on Zoom, a YouTube channel with mini-lessons, and an app developed in partnership with Montreal Lake Cree Nation. A Facebook group she started a few years ago has grown to more than 1,500 members.

“I have a language session every Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. where me and my partner have been working together for the past couple of years,” she said.

Much of her digital knowledge, she says, is self-taught.

“I’m self-taught in technology… I’ve used multiple platforms,” she said.

Thunder recently launched wicihsok.com — a website that means “help yourselves” in Cree. It hosts audio recordings, teaching materials, and cultural resources that reflect her approach to language revitalization. All of the voiceovers, she said, feature the voice of her mother, Gladys Wapass-Greyeyes.

The website. (screenshot)

“That is the foundation of my work — to prepare resources and the audio clips and recordings and the multimedia tools,” she said.

For Thunder, language learning isn’t just about pronunciation or grammar. Her lessons are rooted in Indigenous worldview and cultural knowledge, emphasizing the deep connection between language, land and identity.

“To explicitly teach how the language is tied to the land as well as to the people and the culture.”

In one session, she walks learners through colours that emerge from the prairie landscape. Twilight becomes a teaching moment. After the sun dips below the horizon, the sky turns a soft purple — a colour Cree speakers call nîpâmâyâtan.

“That purple space there, that’s nîpâmâyâtan… the space between the day and the night.”

She also points to the green of Saskatchewan summers. The word askīytakwāw means “the colour of the land,” derived from askiy, the Cree word for land. And in early summer, when rosehip flowers bloom, the pink shade is known as okinīwāpakwanīwonākwan, a word that evokes both the plant and its gentle hue.

By grounding her lessons in these familiar moments — sky, grass, blossoms — Thunder brings learners into a deeper relationship with Cree, and with the land itself.

“They’ll have access to the audio to learn how to say the words, to hear the words in context,” she added. “They’ll be able to draw those connections to the culture and also recognize those connections that are tied to the land.”

Thunder is also working on new projects to support learners of all ages. She’s begun producing audiobooks based on her own written stories.

“I wrote my own story and then I read it and I recorded it,” she said. “So I’m going to be working on producing audiobooks of these stories that I’ve written so that I could also provide that as a resource.”

Her passion for Cree language stems from childhood. She watched her mother, Wapass-Greyeyes, join a pioneering group of Indigenous educators in the 1970s who entered university to reclaim language education in schools.

“Back in 1972, my mother was one of the first to become teachers in order to teach their languages,” she said. “So it just sort of instilled the importance of language in me.”

Following in her footsteps, Thunder became a language teacher and received guidance from elders including Norman and Emma Sunchild, and Ed and Mo Kenny.

“I always say my teachers because they taught me how to look at the nêhiyaw language, as well as the nêhiyaw approach to understanding your space in this society or in this world,” she said. “I wanted to include the elders in the language education for the children.”

She still considers herself part of the movement her heroes began.

“I want to be able to contribute back to those people that worked so hard to build something for our language,” she said. “They’ve always been my heroes.”

Thunder is one of eight individuals named to the 2025 Saskatchewan Order of Merit. The other recipients are Dr. Ernest Barber of Saskatoon, Janet Carriere of Prince Albert, Brent Cotter, K.C., of Saskatoon, Dr. Haissam Haddad, O.C., of Saskatoon, Ann Phillips, K.C., of Regina, Ellen Remai, M.S.C., LL.D., of Saskatoon, and Robert Stromberg, K.C., also of Saskatoon.

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com