By Colleen Flanagan, The Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows News
Hundreds of students at Eric Langton Elementary in Maple Ridge learned about Indigenous games as they celebrated National Indigenous Peoples Day on Friday.
This was the fifth annual Traditional Indigenous Games Day at the school where 465 students rotated through 18 stations, organized by leadership students at the school.
Stations included games like: double ball, lacrosse, the bone game, animal muk, bison run, spear throw, and one foot high kick.
Leadership students made up of students from the Grades 6/7 French immersion class and Grades 5/6 English class ran through the history of each game to the rotations of students, before teaching them how to play.
It’s a youth leadership initiative, an inquiry project where they researched Indigenous games from across Turtle Island, explained Katrina Haintz, a member of the Coast Salish Hwlitsum First Nation and Aboriginal support worker at the school. Turtle Island is an Indigenous reference to the continent of North America.