‘To provide a sense of belonging’: Sweetgrass’s nearly $40M school now more than half complete

The school carries a price tag of nearly $40 million ($39,497,000). Most of the funding comes from ISC, with additional support from the federal Green and Inclusive Community Buildings program for daycare and early childhood spaces, and a contribution from the First Nation itself.

When finished, the school will accommodate 190 students — nearly double the current capacity of about 100. The original school, built in the late 1970s about 35 kilometres west of the Battlefords, went decades without replacement funding until 2022.

(Sweetgrass First Nation/Facebook)

A school for every stage of life

Whitecalf calls it a “life cycle school.”

Daycare and early learning spaces will stand alongside classrooms for students up to Grade 12. An Elders’ area will anchor the building, meant to meet a growing demand from youth “thirsting for our cultures and our language.”

A gymnasium with a walking track will serve both students and community members. Cree signage will guide children through the halls, while a prayer recited daily will be inscribed on the staircase.

Language is at the heart of the design. Whitecalf said the goal is to move beyond Cree being taught in a single classroom, and instead bring it into daily life. “To incorporate the Cree language in all of [the] classroom,” she said.

Plans include hiring more language speakers in classrooms, the daycare, early childhood spaces, and even the cafeteria, so students hear and use Cree throughout their day.

“That came from our youth, their thirst for our language, and then our elders … wanting to teach it, so they were the ones who suggested that, and we’re just listening to them,” Whitecalf said.

(Sweetgrass First Nation/Facebook)

Elders played a critical role in shaping the school’s design.

“Some of the Elders, they were residential school survivors, and they wanted open spaces. They didn’t want anything similar to the institutions they went to. So, that was really important to get their insight,” Whitecalf said.

A dedicated space for land-based learning will also be built on the school grounds. The extension will allow hunters and elders to bring students back from harvests and show them how to process animals on site.

For Whitecalf, the project is about identity as much as education.

“A basic human need is the need to belong,” she said.

“Just having those teachings, those rites of passage, and then just learning about our culture and our language is going to provide them that sense of belonging, like, ‘I belong to Sweetgrass.’”

She has already seen signs of that hunger, with cultural camps drawing hundreds of young people.

And as the walls rise, so does her gratitude.

“In this day and age with what’s going on in the world, it feels good to have something to celebrate and to be excited about,” she said.

“Our leadership, myself and the council and our elders, acknowledge all the former chiefs that started that work. I’m thankful that they started that work.”

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com

by Kenneth Cheung

‘To provide a sense of belonging’: Sweetgrass’s nearly $40M school now more than half complete

A school for every stage of life

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