The Story Team, led by storyteller and elder William Dumas, and Warren Cariou, the Director of the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba, is responsible for creating the cycle of stories based on the six seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak and set in the protocontact period. The team works with community members to identify specific, significant locations in Rocky Cree territory to be used as the story settings, and collaborates with knowledge keepers, archaeologists, and historians on cultural and historical accuracy.
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William Dumas
Team Leader
William Dumas is an asiniskaw īthiniw Knowledge Keeper and acclaimed storyteller from O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN). He has been an educator all his life and is passionate about Cree language and culture. He is Co-Leader of the Story Team for the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak project. Dumas is experienced as a Northern educator and administrator, having worked as a coordinator for the Culture and Language Program for Nisichawayasi Nehetho Culture and Education Authority, as a First Nations Language & Culture Specialist (Cree) at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre (MFNERC), Cree Language and Culture Consultant in the Mystery Lake and Frontier School Divisions, as the Director of Education for Fox Lake Education Authority in Nelson House, and as the Executive Director for Northern Nishnabe Education Council. Dumas is the author of the award-winning picture book Pīsim Finds Her Miskanow (2013), which is the first book in the Six Seasons of Asiniskaw Īthiniwak series. He is also the author of The Gift of the Little People (2022).
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Warren Cariou
Team Leader
Warren Cariou was born into a family of Métis and European ancestry in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. He has published works of fiction and memoir as well as critical writing about Indigenous storytelling, literature and environmental philosophy. He has also created two films about Indigenous communities in western Canada’s tar sands region, and he has written numerous articles, stories and poems about Indigeneity and petroleum. His visual art project, Petrography, uses tar sands bitumen as a photographic medium. He is a Professor of English at the University of Manitoba, where he directs the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture. He is a Co-Leader of the Story Team for the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak project.
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Melanie Belmore
Student
To come.
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Thamer Linklater
Student
Thamer Linklater is a member of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation and a survivor of the Child Welfare system in Manitoba. She recently graduated from the University of Winnipeg with a B.A. in English and is now working on her Master’s in Indigenous Studies at Trent University. She has worked in various teams for the Six Seasons Project. She has been involved with Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and is an active First Nations advocate. Thamer has recently started work on her collection of poems and hopes to publish them soon. In her free time, she enjoys reading novels, studying her culture, and painting. She has developed a passion for her culture and pursues any chance at learning more about her people.