Signup now for a special hike where you can learn how the indigenous People have cared for nature, plants and wildlife and what we can learn from working together. On Saturday May 6th Alan Colley of Toronto Aboriginal Eco Tours will be sharing his knowledge and culture out on the Toronto section of the Bruce Trail. The hike is on the BTC hike calendar please register for the hike; numbers are limited. https://hikes.brucetrail.org/
It is a car hike. There will be parking at the Silver Creek Outdoor School. The hike is starting at 10:00am and will be a gentle walk through the Silver Creek area with lots of stops and learning.
A bit more about the leader: Alan Colley also known as Whooping Crane, is a member of the Wolf clan. The Toronto Aboriginal Eco Tours’ mission is to develop relationships with the land for generations to come. They intend on accomplishing this goal by providing educational experiences on local Aboriginal cultures and history, ecosystems and the environment through guided activities and tours.
As creator of Toronto Aboriginal Eco Tours, Alan has coordinated, supervised and facilitated youth and fundraising staff in culturally based workshops; self-improvement, motivation, and goal setting in a corporate environment, and has conducted teaching circles in Native American arts and crafts, drum making and medicine wheel teachings. You can contact Alan for details about the services he is able to provide at: alancolley.taet@gmail.com
The Bruce Trail Conservancy has been developing partnerships and working relationships with some of the indigenous communities along length of the trail. During Covid-19 when most of us were staying connected by zoom, the BTC hosted a really interesting webinar: “Gchi Bimadinaadinaa The Great Cliff that Runs Along.“ You can listen to the speakers and their thoughts about cultural values and land management. This was through Plenty Canada and was talking about some of the projects along the trail and indigenous values of the land.
Some of the members of the TBTC biodiversity team were on this webinar and asked how indigenous theme hikes could be organized. The result is the first of what is hoped to be a series of indigenous-led hikes. This hike has been sponsored by private donors, (no fee to hikers but donations will be more than welcome to help offset the fee for our guest leader for the next hike in this series). Information about donations will be provided the day of the hike.
Please come out and share this hike with hike leaders, Lynn McFerran and Janet Patterson.