During our most recent staff reunion, we had the honour of being joined by Trina Moyan. Trina is nehiyaw iskwew (Plains Cree) from the Frog Lake First Nation in Northern Alberta, Treaty 6 medicine chest territory, and she led our team through an insightful, interactive, and moving session on Indigenous history and culture in the lead-up to National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
After participating in this training, our team reflected on the experience with gratitude and inspiration, leaving with a renewed commitment to ongoing learning and Indigenous allyship. This session forms part of our broader DEI initiatives, reinforcing our responsibility to foster inclusivity and to make a meaningful impact in the lives we design for.
Trina Moyan’s deep expertise made the session especially powerful. Based in Tkaronto (Toronto) for the past 16 years, she has built a career that spans writing and producing for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), co-producing the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards (now Indspire) for CBC, and co-founding Bell & Bernard, a First Nations consulting firm dedicated to Indigenous inclusion in urban planning. She is also a muralist, dancer, community activist, and alumna of the University of Toronto.
For those looking to continue their own learning, she recommended resources such as 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Robert P.C. Joseph, Residential Schools: Righting Canada’s Wrongs by Melanie Florence, Voices of the Land: Indigenous Design and Planning from the Prairies, and The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette Steeves, among others.
