Land-based learning is strengthening relationships

April Bruyere sees land-based education as a way of reconnecting with teachings that were disrupted across generations and carrying them forward. 

"I wanted to participate in land-based learning because as an Anishinaabe person, our creation stories teach us that we are intrinsically linked to this land," shares Bruyere. 

"The land is a part of us, and we are a part of it."

Bruyere is from Sagkeeng First Nation on their father’s side with ties to Mi’kma’ki on their mother’s side, currently studying in the Faculty of Arts. They participated in a land-based camp this past year. They are also a UM Scaabe School participant, learning on the land and in ceremony to support campus sweat lodges and other ceremonies on and off campus throughout the year. 

Through experiences like these, students are reconnecting with Indigenous ways of knowing and strengthening their relationships with the land. 

Supporting those opportunities is Nicki Ferland, Director of Land-Based Education and Indigenous Curriculum. Her educational background in human rights and land-based education, combined with experience leading Indigenous and community-based research, informs her approach to the role. 

It’s also work that is close to her heart.

Growing up in a rural community, Ferland felt deeply connected to the land. That connection was disrupted when she moved to the city as a tween, impacting her sense of belonging. 

Today, she is passionate about facilitating land-based learning opportunities for students and says she remains a student of the land.

"Land-based education is about building relationships and understanding your responsibilities to the land rather than simply acquiring knowledge," she says. "It's not something that begins and ends within a semester."

"Every day is a new message. Every time I hear a story, it means something different. It's not just that the land is changing. I'm changing too."

Ferland makes it clear that while learning may take place on the land, it is not simply moving a lesson outdoors.

Challenging familiar ideas of post-secondary education

Rather than positioning knowledge with a single expert at the front of a classroom, land-based learning recognizes the land itself as the teacher.

That perspective reveals the limitations of colonial education systems. 

"[Land-based education] is grounded in specific Indigenous knowledge systems, ways of knowing, being and doing that have long connected Indigenous people to place, community and their responsibilities to the land," says Ferland.

For Bruyere, this way of learning transformed their understanding of what education can be.

"Land-based education has enriched my experience as a learner in ways that the western education system has not been able to," says Bruyere.

In conventional classroom settings, they often felt that success was measured by their ability to perform within the expectations of western knowledge systems.

Land-based learning offered something different.

"I am not afraid to fail when I am learning from the land," they said. "Everything that I embody as a student and steward of the land is an opportunity for growth and knowledge."

Bruyere says they have learned to slow down, listen carefully and approach learning with humility, patience and reciprocity.

Opportunities for reconnection 

Three of Bruyere’s grandparents attended residential school. Their grandmother and grandfather later moved to Winnipeg to ensure their children would not have to attend.

They understand how those experiences affected what knowledge could be shared across generations.

"Having the opportunity to learn from the land and grow as a learner through the lens of Indigenous pedagogies is not something that I take lightly," they said.

Bruyere describes this as a responsibility to reconnect with teachings and relationships that colonial systems sought to disrupt.

"There is a relational aspect to land-based learning that I have never felt in western academia," they said. "I feel in my heart and in my spirit that I have a responsibility to the ones who came before me."

Knowledge is responsibility

At its core, land-based learning invites students to understand knowledge not as something to acquire, but as something to carry, nurture and share.

Ferland says learners often become more attentive to the land around them, develop stronger stewardship mindsets, and reflect on how they relate to the world beyond the classroom.

"The purpose is building relationship and understanding responsibility to land, and you do that while situating the learning within a subject," says Ferland.

This approach can be woven into many different disciplines, from science and history to business and technology. 

She emphasizes that the work must remain Indigenous-led, because land-based learning is inherently tied to Indigenous pedagogies and relationships with the land.

Moving beyond colonial approaches to education

At UM, land-based learning is currently offered through a range of courses, programs and community-engaged initiatives.

The establishment of the Director of Land-Based Education and Indigenous Curriculum position within the L’offis Wiichihihwahk — Office of the Vice-President (Indigenous) reflects a broader commitment to advancing this work across the institution.

"Land-based knowledge systems have a place in higher learning," says Ferland. "Not as something separate, but as something that can shape how we understand learning itself."

Ferland is supporting the development of a broader institutional framework and building UM’s capacity to teach on the land, describing the momentum as an early but significant part of a longer-term shift in how Indigenous knowledge systems and pedagogies are understood and applied within post-secondary education.

Informed by the University of Manitoba’s Elders-in-Residence and a Steering Committee of Indigenous Elders, faculty, students, staff, senior administrators and land-based educators, the framework sets out goals for land-based learning at UM. It will be accompanied by resources supporting the shift toward teaching and learning on the land.

"If we want to [value Indigenous knowledges in practice], we have to make room for it within the institution."

For Bruyere, they see the future of land-based learning as deeply connected to future generations.

They hope to become a land-based educator themself one day, carrying forward the teachings they continue to receive from the land.

"Land-based learning has taught me that my education is not separate from who I am or where I come from," they said. "It is ancestral, it is ceremonial and it is life-giving."