Professor Tracy Bear is a well-known researcher focusing on Indigenous knowledge, resilience and embedding research in true partnerships with communities. In 2021, she was appointed director of the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute.

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians got to know Professor Bear through her role as academic lead of “Indigenous Canada”—a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) designed to help Canadians understand the history of Indigenous Peoples. Since its inception in 2016, the course has grown from twenty thousand to more than four hundred and sixty thousand learners and has been named the most popular online course in Canada.

In our conversation Tracy talks about how Canadians need to face the uncomfortable truths of the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples. We also need to understand that the impacts of these uncomfortable truths continue to impact Indigenous families and communities to this day. 

Ultimately, you will hear that Tracy is optimistic that greater understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing will help us all move forward and enrich our lives.

If you’re someone affected by residential schools and you need help, the number for the National Indian Residential School Crisis Line is 1-866-925-4419.

About our guest:

Savage (Tracy) Bear is a rabble-rouser, Nehiyaw’iskwew (Cree woman) and member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation in northern Saskatchewan. She is the Director for the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute (MIRI) and an Assistant Professor for the Indigenous Studies Department at McMaster. She is also the new incoming National Director of Walls to Bridges (W2B) a prison education program in Canada. Before coming to McMaster, Bear worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, where she was the Director of the Indigenous Women & Youth Resilience Project and the Academic Lead on “Indigenous Canada,” a highly successful online course boasting over 450,000 learners.

Additional Links

Take the Indigenous Canada course https://www.coursera.org/learn/indigenous-canada

Explore the work of the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute (MIRI) https://miri.mcmaster.ca/   

Learn about Walls to Bridges http://wallstobridges.ca/ 

Learn more about reconciliation at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, https://nctr.ca/ 

Find our research on Indigenous and Northern communities here: https://conferenceboard.ca/focus-areas/indigenous-northern-communities 

Listen to our other podcasts at https://www.conferenceboard.ca/insights/podcasts 

You can find all of our research here: https://www.conferenceboard.ca/