Here are some ideas for oral history themes:
- Special celebrations: Christmas or Easter, the first kill, qaggiit, feasts, seasonal
transitions. How did people celebrate in the past?
- Stories of survival: surviving a difficult or dangerous situation, great acts of
bravery.
- Memorable stories: memorable hunting trips, times of great joy.
- Life stories: Elders’ stories of what they feel is important or significant about
their lives.
- Skills: detailed information about hunting techniques, how to create a tool,
a dwelling, a means of transportation or prepare skins and sew an article of
clothing.
- Information from Elders about what they believe are the most important
values or insights that they can pass on to the next generations.
- Saviours, heroes or leaders – memories of special people
- Memories from a specific place or time:
- People who lived in a particular area.
- People who worked for the Hudson Bay Company, the Anglican or Roman
Catholic Church or the RCMP.
- People who were involved with whaling.
- People who spent time in hospitals for TB.
- Transitions:
- Moving from the land into a town.
- From a traditional lifestyle to a community-based lifestyle.
- From a small community to a large one.
- Community Mapping: Make a map of your community now; create a map of
your community as it was in 1965. Then compare the two.
- Firsts:
- First time to see a qallunaq, a plane, an orange, ice cream, movies
- First time to go to school.
- First hunting trip.
- First time to make something – sew a piece of clothing, make an iglu.
- First time to live in a southern-style house.
- Childrearing:
- What values were important traditionally?
- How did children learn to be part of society?
- How were children molded into responsible adults?
- How were roles defined – mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, other
relatives?
- How did families deal with difficult issues?
- Weather:
- Reading the weather.
- Changes in weather from the past to the present.