Calling Black Lake

September 24, 2005 to February 19, 2006

The Calling Black Lake Exhibition and Educational Program were organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery in collaboration with the City of Regina, with the financial support of Government of Canada, through the Cultural Capitals of Canada, a program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, Centennial Initiatives Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and Centennial Funding through the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Calling Black Lake is an innovative and socially relevant, long-distance educational program connecting 13 Dené high school students from the remote fly-in community of Black Lake with 12 high school students from Regina. Strangely, it all began with a canoe trip on the Fond du Lac River in 2002. I was with a group of paddlers and along the way we encountered a man and his sons who were hunting for moose. The guide later informed us that across the lake was the Black Lake First Nation and that this was a Dené community. I remember that I was struck by how little I knew about the Dené Nation in Saskatchewan. When I return to the MacKenzie Art Gallery, where I work as an educator, to my amazement, I received a letter from Father Porte Memorial Dené School in Black Lake, by a teacher who was looking for educational resources. This remarkable coincidence inspired me to initiate a special collaboration with this remote Dené Community. Two years later the Calling Black Lake Project was implemented.

Calling Black Lake started quite simply as a small project in which two groups of students, one from Father Porte Memorial Dené School and one from Campbell Collegiate in Regina, would send visual art and photographs back and forth through the mail as an innovative way of getting to know each other. The merit of this program was recognized by funding agencies and we were awarded funds from the City of Regina Cultural Capital Fund, the Community Initiatives fund, and the Canada Council for the Arts. This support allowed us to expand the parameters of the project to include the feature exhibition, create the publication, and most importantly, engage artists. Art Instructors, Damon Heit and Blayne George, took key roles in administration and implementation and Artist, Sheila Orr, and Filmmaker, Gabriel Yahyahkeekoot became the resident artists.

The Calling Black Lake Project culminates in a feature exhibition and catalogue documenting the entire program of activities. This exhibition represents an opportunity to gain understanding around the issues faced by Aboriginal communities in Northern Saskatchewan and serves to bridge diverse communities. As a feature exhibition of the MacKenzie Art Gallery, the content of this extraordinary project has the potential to reach many people in our community and through the catalogue it can reach even further. In addition, we will be developing an educational program for schools that will present this material and encourage greater understanding of the Dené Nation.

Image Credit:
Calling Black Participants
Back row, from left: Sheila Orr, Katherine Boyer, J.B. Sandypoint, Jessica Robillard, Emily Yee, Whitney Valera, Erin Passmore, Vanessa Benson, Neal Adolph, Anna Righetti, Susy Sandypoint, Steve Herbison, Jacqueline Robillard, Maggie Broussie, Denny Bruno, Leona Alphonse, Vincent Boneleye, Jamie Boneleye
Front row, from left: Lorna Alphonse, Holly Martin, Sandra Donnard, Elizabeth Murphy

Calling Black Lake

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