Nobody planned the fisheries documentary.
We were at Netamisakomik Centre for Education in Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg, Northern Ontario, working on a school-wide songwriting project. The students knew about Save Our Lake. They knew White Lake was in trouble and they knew their community was fighting for it. What they didn't know was that someone would hand them a camera and say: go film it.
They did. And what they came back with wasn't footage. It was a film.
That's the thing that keeps happening when you put professional tools in the hands of Indigenous youth and trust them with a real story. They don't need much direction. They already know what matters.
The Drop the Pop Song
At Chief Sunrise Education Centre in K'atl'odeeche First Nation in the Northwest Territories, a group of students wanted to write a song about something practical. Their school had a campaign running called Drop the Pop, encouraging students to drink water instead of sugary drinks.
So that's what the song was about.
Working with their Dene Yatie language teacher Diane Tourangeau, students wove traditional language into the lyrics. The song they wrote, Tu Segha Nezų (Clean Water in Dene Yatie), turned a school health initiative into something that will outlast the poster on the gymnasium wall. It's a song. It travels. It gets sung at home.
That's the difference between a program and a residency. One ends when the facilitator leaves. The other keeps going.
The Sports Team That Never Had a Team
At another Dene community school, a group of students wanted to tell a story about their school's first-ever sports team. They'd never had one before. The first season, the first practices, the first time any of them played on a team representing their school.
We taught them to film themselves. Slow motion. Narration. Music. Editing. They built the whole thing.
The video they made wasn't a school project. It was a record. It was proof that it happened, told by the people who were there.
What This Looks Like in Your School
Every residency is different because every community is different. But the pattern holds: give students real tools, real creative freedom, and a story worth telling, and they will tell it better than you expect.
If you're a principal or education director wondering whether something like this could work in your school, the honest answer is: it almost certainly can. The students are ready. They usually just need someone to show up and take them seriously.
That's what we do.