Michael William McDonald: Mi’kmaw people lived in permanent village settlements
Michael William McDonald: Despite what we were told, Mi’kmaw people lived in permanent village settlements.
Michael William McDonald: Sipekn’ Pipnaqn, traditional Mi’kmaq bread
Michael William McDonald looks into the domesticated use of the groundnut (Sipekne’) by Mi’kmaq people. “Elders in Sipekne’katik were still making bread using grounded Sipekne’ roots right up till the 1980’s. In 1984 Rebecca “Noel” Pictou stated that her Grandmother would save the largest rhizome bulbs she found and then replant them closer to their dwellings along the Shubenacadie River where they would allow them to grow and flower.”
Michael William McDonald: Clans of Sipekne’katik
Michael William McDonald’s extensive research into the Clans in the District of Sipekne’katik in the early 1700’s reveals the deep connection between the Mi’kmaq people and the landscape of Mi’kma’ki, the place the Mi’kmaq never ceded and have called home since time began.
Catholic Math: Truth and Reconciliation and the Catholic Church
What started out as $70 million in reparations for the suffering caused by Catholic residential schools was whittled down to $16 million by the Catholic Church. Michael William McDonald, a lawyer from Sipekne’katik explains how that happened. “Compensation must be sufficient to provide healing,” he writes, “perhaps then we can find the right path to reconciliation.”
History of Halifax, a Mi’kmaw perspective
Michael McDonald, a Mi’kmaq of Sipekne’katik First Nations, offers up a fascinating version of the history of Kjipuktuk, or Halifax, that is quite different from the one we usually hear. For one thing, it starts way before Cornwallis arrived.