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Archive Project At NNBY Shows Interesting Results

Monday, 12 August 2019 15:36

Kara Lepine (left) and Karly Leonard (right) working in the archives

The project involves creating a database of the old recordings from NNBY. The recordings vary on subject and contain everything from stories told by elders, music and oral history.

A project in the archives of Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon (NNBY) is turning up some interesting results.

The project involves creating a database of the old recordings from NNBY. The recordings vary on subject and contain everything from stories told by elders, music and oral history. Some of the recordings are decades old.

The archivists on the project are attempting to preserve and conserve the old recordings, particularly since in some cases there is only one remaining copy.

NNBY Project Archivist Kara Lepine feels the project is important for First Nations peoples. She says "It's an important thing. We went through the residential schools, and we are losing our heritage, losing our culture, and  losing who we are. So to have some of this audio, it can bring back stories and it can bring back languages. There's languages in there that are sleeping basically"

Lepine says the goal is to help First Nations communities regain parts of their heritage and culture that may have been lost, saying "Everybody wants their culture. They want their culture back. They want their stories back. They want their language back. So if we can help them in some sort of way, that's what we want to do."

As these recordings range in age, many contain audio of elders who have since passed away. Lepine hopes that this project can help people reconnect with their elders or educate young children on their family history.

 "We're finding recordings of elders who are no longer with us. So these could be the only recordings of maybe that specific story they're telling, a song they're singing, or anything like that. So it's important that we're working to get these digitized so we can put it out to the communities, and put it out to the families of these elders".

Lepine says they've completed the audio portion of the project and will be moving on to video archives next.

This project is funded by Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DHCP).

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