As you may have noticed, the blogging has slowed down for the past little while. But don't worry! I'm back with a couple of great stories and lots of news to share. So get comfy, sit back, relax and keep reading.
Last Sunday night I got my bag packed and hopped on a plane of 15 seats for the wonderful land of Port Hardy. From there, to Port McNeil, and then an hour later I arrived by ferry in Alert Bay, BC. Back at the office, we had decided that we felt pretty disconnected from our community liaisons working in the three co-developing communities of Alert Bay, Chilliwack, and even Musqueam here in Vancouver. After a brief discussion last Friday, we decided to make strides in bringing together the liaisons and our home base - which amounted to my arrival in Alert Bay, 10:00pm last Sunday night. I was sent to give training on the site, answer questions and to meet face-to-face with everyone working for the RRN in Alert Bay. There are only a lucky few who get to go to a place like Alert Bay for work - and I am happy to brag!
Bright and early Monday morning, I met with our liaisons - Lawrence Isaac, David Houghton and Lillian Hunt in the back office of the U'mista Cultural Centre. U'mista, for those of you who may not know, is an amazing place. The cultural centre and the society have an extremely interesting background rooted in ideals of repatriation and language/culture revitalization. It is a museum and learning centre that has an amazing collection. It also sits right on the beach of Alert Bay with a spectacular view! But then again, what isn't on the beach in Alert Bay? I love the collection as a whole, but the highlight for me is the potlatch collection. My point being - it's a great place to go to work to in the morning and I was lucky to be there.
Me sitting outside U'mista - one of the last surviving photos from the trip!
All morning the four of us worked through the RRN, talking about it's history and development and the project's current situation. We also spoke a lot about how to provide outreach for the community. And then, at perhaps the most exciting part of the day (when I was working through a demo of the features on the site) the power went out. The power did not come back on. And of course, no power means zero Internet. Which means that the insightful demonstration I was in the middle of was, most definitely, not going to work. Minor technical difficulties.
However, it gave me some time to think. What was I going to do? Without the Internet the RRN doesn't exactly work. How could I help out Lillian, Lawrence and David without it? And, of course, how was I going to check my email! But, by midnight that night (when the power went back on), I already had plenty of ideas and inspiration. The next day, back at U'mista, we all realized that when our liaisons are travelling to remote places, or even doing a demonstration at the local school, there likely won't be an Internet connection. How can we demonstrate the RRN the way we need to without that?
The solution was pretty simple. We do it with PowerPoint and screenshots. I'm sure many people have already figured that one out, but it took me a little while to realize it. Now, up in Alert Bay our liaisons can properly demonstrate the RRN and get across all of it's features and collaborative values without an Internet connection. Still, to actually browse the RRN, an Internet connection is necessary, but hopefully now we can get the word out about this type of research.
Working in Alert Bay was a great experience, I thought it was absolutely necessary to visit our liaisons there if we are to work hard to engage in collaboration at all levels. And it was nice to get away to Alert Bay, of course. I'm fairly certain I made good friends with the Heron that sat on the deck of my hotel. Aside from the power outages, no Internet, and no camera (I dropped it in the pacific. All my pictures are of course ruined), it was a great trip.
On Wednesday, when I got back from Alert Bay, I headed straight up to Chilliwack for a meeting with our Sto:lo community liaisons. Herb Joe Jr, Darwin Douglas and Frank Andrew all had time to talk, so it was great meeting all of them. Hopefully sometime soon I'll put up short bios of all our liaisons. Now I'm back in the office - catching up on emails, and working on the help pages.
My phone takes fuzzy pictures. I'm sorry!
Left to Right: Lawrence, Dave and I at U'mista
Left to Right: Lawrence, Dave and I at U'mista
In other news, we have a new community liaison for Musqueam, June Sparrow! A big welcome from the team.
The next big trip on the list for everyone here is the big Steering Group meeting, held in Chilliwack this year. The best part - an all day Place Names tour. I can't wait. This meeting will also be a great opportunity to get all of the liaisons together for the first time.
I'll be updating later this week!
Cheers,
-Hannah
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