Description
Cathy Jean LeBlanc is a member of Acadia First Nation and a graduate of St. Thomas University. She is a Mi’kmaw cultural interpreter and Student Support Worker for Indigenous and African Nova Scotian youth. She lives in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. David Chapman is a physicist. Loretta Gould is a Mi'kmaw painter and quilter who loves bright, beautiful colours. A self-taught artist, she grew up in Waycobah First Nation and started painting in earnest in 2013.
A combination of science and natural history from a Mi’kmaw cultural perspective.
For thousands of years, the Mi’kmaq have been closely observing the natural world and the cycles of the moon and the stars to track the passage of time. Each full moon in an annual cycle was named by the Mi’kmaq to relate to a seasonal event, such as tomcod spawning, birds laying eggs or berry ripening.
For the past decade Mi’kmaw Elders and Knowledge Keepers have shared stories of the traditional night sky calendar with authors Cathy LeBlanc and David Chapman. In this book Cathy relays these stories in her role as Auntie to her young relation Holly.
Each moon’s story is richly illustrated with an evocative colour painting created for this book by the noted Mi’kmaw artist Loretta Gould. Alongside this presentation of the Mi’kmaw time-keeping traditions, this book offers a brief history of the modern Western calendar, and some basic astronomy facts about the moon’s phases and why the seasons change.
This two-eyed seeing approach takes young readers on a journey through one full year in Mi’kma’ki.
- The culmination of 10 years of work spent collecting stories
- Illustrated with 12 richly coloured artworks
- Written in simple but engaging language
- Mi’kmaw language translations and pronunciation guides
- Verified by Mi’kmaw knowledge keepers
A combination of science and natural history from a Mi’kmaw cultural perspective.
For thousands of years, the Mi’kmaq have been closely observing the natural world and the cycles of the moon and the stars to track the passage of time. Each full moon in an annual cycle was named by the Mi’kmaq to relate to a seasonal event, such as tomcod spawning, birds laying eggs or berry ripening.
For the past decade Mi’kmaw Elders and Knowledge Keepers have shared stories of the traditional night sky calendar with authors Cathy LeBlanc and David Chapman. In this book Cathy relays these stories in her role as Auntie to her young relation Holly.
Each moon’s story is richly illustrated with an evocative colour painting created for this book by the noted Mi’kmaw artist Loretta Gould. Alongside this presentation of the Mi’kmaw time-keeping traditions, this book offers a brief history of the modern Western calendar, and some basic astronomy facts about the moon’s phases and why the seasons change.
This two-eyed seeing approach takes young readers on a journey through one full year in Mi’kma’ki.
- The culmination of 10 years of work spent collecting stories
- Illustrated with 12 richly coloured artworks
- Written in simple but engaging language
- Mi’kmaw language translations and pronunciation guides
- Verified by Mi’kmaw knowledge keepers