Tsuk Ekanam: Water Stories is the 2013 Reporting in Indigenous Communities class’s final project. For a full term, 12 first year students immersed themselves in several First Nations communities in B.C.’s Lower Mainland to explore water-related issues. The final project consisted of six multimedia stories.
The stories explored Squamish Nation’s canoeing traditions, the fight for compensation over a drained lake in Sto:lo Nation, the relationship between environmental groups and the Tseil-Waututh Nation, water pollution in sacred sites in Sto:lo Tribal Council, the healing power of sweat lodges in the urban Aboriginal community and cross-border fishing rights at Tsawwassen First Nation.
The students’ reporting was not only featured on the website, but in a week-long CBC Radio series that aired across the province and in a one-hour episode of the national CBC Radio program, In The Field.
Adjunct professor and award-winning CBC-TV reporter Duncan McCue teaches the course. Professor McCue is Anishinaabe, from the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation.