The new experiential course immerses students in Haudenosaunee culture, reconciliation, and land-based learning through a ten-day canoe journey along the Grand River

This past summer, the Indigenous Studies Department ran for the first time a new course titled "Two Row on the Grand Paddle." Associate Professor Bonnie Freeman led this experiential learning opportunity, which was available to students for the first time.

The course aimed to deepen students' understanding of Haudenosaunee culture, treaty history, and reconciliation through hands-on participation in the annual "Two Row on the Grand Paddle" canoe journey.

Freeman, who is Algonquin Mohawk and a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, has been involved in the canoe journey for almost ten years. She sees the course as a chance for students to connect what they learn in the classroom with real-life experiences.

"It was important for me to show [students]… that when we learn from an academic perspective, these theories and experiences, it's so much different than when we put them into practice," said Freeman.

It was important for me to show [students]... that when we learn from an academic perspective, these theories and experiences, it's so much different than when we put them into practice.

Bonnie Freeman, Associate Professor
Indigenous Studies Department

She stressed that this course was not just an academic exercise but an immersive experience intended to build connections with Indigenous teachings, the land, and one another.

The "Two Row on the Grand" journey is based on the historical Two Row [Gaswéñdah] Wampum Treaty between the Haudenosaunee and Dutch settlers. During the course, students canoed along the Grand River, which is tied to the Haldimand Treaty lands. They had the opportunity to engage with traditional Indigenous teachings and cultural practices and participate in discussions regarding reconciliation throughout the ten day journey.

Freeman’s engagement with land-based Indigenous learning began during her university days. The idea for this course stemmed from those early experiences. "It was a spiritual journey, and I was immersed in the ceremony, with horses, on the land, and learning those teachings," said Freeman, reflecting on her first exposure to land-based learning. Her passion for integrating these life-changing experiences into academic programs has driven her commitment to making the canoe journey a part of the Indigenous Studies Department's course offerings.

According to Freeman, the course was received with great enthusiasm from the student. "They said it was completely life-changing for them," said Freeman. She added that students appreciated the opportunity to apply what they had been learning in classrooms in a meaningful and practical manner.

The course involved facing physical challenges like navigating rapids and developing paddling skills. It also focused on promoting reconciliation in a practical and community-based manner. The course highlighted the importance of establishing connections with the land and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Freeman recalled how some students reflected on the experience. "What was important... about reconciliation is the day-to-day living and the importance of having those relationships and establishing them," said Freeman.

The "Two Row on the Grand Paddle" course establishes a standard for expanding experiential learning within Indigenous studies as the Indigenous Studies Department expands its course offerings.

To enrol in Bonnie Freeman’s land-based learning course, students should review McMaster University’s offerings in Indigenous Studies or Social Work. Registration opens on the Two Row Paddle website in mid-March 2025, and the course is primarily aimed at third —and fourth-year students with relevant academic backgrounds. For detailed information and guidance, students are encouraged to consult academic advisors. As the course involves hands-on, experiential learning, it offers a unique opportunity to engage deeply with Indigenous knowledge and practices, fostering meaningful steps toward reconciliation.

Photo C/O Mush Hole Project

By: Drew Simpson

Without any lights on in L. R. Wilson’s Black Box theatre, it can be a dark void and clean slate waiting to be molded. Three school chairs sat staggered, two up front and one centered and backwards. On the attached desk were three dark-red bricks formed into a cross.

The chairs sat in front of three projector screens, one facing forward and the other two diagonally placed to enclose the space. A quote by John A. Macdonald calling for industrial boarding schools sat on the main screen. Projected images of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School portrayed different rooms onto the screens.

The Mush Hole performance is a reckoning to express the depths of tormented realities faced within the Mohawk Institute without traumatizing members of the audience with lived experience. The project aims to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action.

https://www.facebook.com/themushhole/photos/a.174140096671825/345453972873769/?type=3&permPage=1

Of the five characters, each represents a survivor’s story. They each have names, or as the Mohawk Institute identified children with, a number. Number 48 and 29 were Ernest and Mabel who met at the residential school and became father and mother respectively to number 34 and 17, Walter and Grace. The fifth character is number 11, the girl without a name or family, as she was a runaway from the Institute.

After some brief introductions by the director of Indigenous studies at McMaster and by Santee Smith, the artist producer of the Mush Hole Project, the lights that allowed the audience to find their seats dimmed into the darkness. And we, the audience, became part of the void as we watched their stories.

The show started with choking. Everyone was constantly choking because they were constantly silenced by the Institution. Another constant was starvation, as one scene clearly projected the mush they ate. At first it resembled oatmeal, but that breakfast dish does not call for maggots. The maggot-infested mush was all the children ate in the Institution, inspiring the name given to the institution by survivors as well as the title of the performance.  

While the characters were often all within the same room together, they moved in lonesome. Often the characters mimicked trying to hug each other but never being able to actually touch the other person as if a force field blocked them.

There was an incessant longing to comfort one another which sadly was retaliated with violence. This violence was conveyed upon themselves in the form of slapping their own hands away, scrubbing at themselves or even upon each other as the children fought.

https://www.facebook.com/themushhole/photos/a.189289978490170/352424558843377/?type=3&theater

Although the characters were dressed in 1950s school uniforms, their environment more accurately mimicked a prison. The children marched, they could not touch each other, they fought over things like apples, which they considered luxuries, they starved as they laboured to produce food, they constantly cleaned and the constant chain of locks being open and closed were haunting.

Smith explained that in such a prison-like atmosphere, survival and self-preservation become priorities over human connection. Agonizingly, all I could do was sit and watch siblings Water and Grace constantly reject each other’s tried comfort or condolences. Even when Walter needed it the most trapped inside a boiler room.

The introduction to Walter’s solo was a visual backdrop and sounds of steam and other sounds to set the tone of the boiler room. As every character had a solo in a specific room, this solo was gutting. He danced as if trying to escape and to stop whoever was stripping him. The solo was suggestive, but it was the fear, guilt and trauma in his eyes and his hands as they reached out during his dance that communicated he was being abused.

Every person suffered in the Institute. The girl labelled number 11, was lucky enough to run away, but it was suggested she did not fully escape. At the end of her solo, the screen showed her laid in the snow, her hair covering her face.

In another scene Mabel and Ernest sat at their kitchen table, playing popular 1950s music as Ernest drank and Mabel carefully pushed the chairs under the table, tapping at imaginary heads and smiling. Sometimes she motioned to spoon-feed the imaginaries in their seats. Ernest pulled and shoved the chairs away, urging Mabel to drink.

In the inescapable prison, Grace used her taught Christianity to cope. In one scene she loudly sang a gospel as number 11 and Walter rumbled and choked in their seats.

The show communicated multi-faceted torment, discussed the ideas of identity, self-hatred, inter-generational trauma, abuse and overall the effect of such a prison-like system that was the Mush Hole. Above all, it was conjoined stories of resilience for surviving every room and every lock and key.

[spacer height="20px"][thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]

Subscribe to our Mailing List

© 2025 The Silhouette. All Rights Reserved. McMaster University's Student Newspaper.
magnifiercrossmenu