When Kanani Davis started her degree program at Memorial University’s St. John’s campus, she was a single parent and a long way from home.

In a new city, she juggled school and family life without the support network she would normally have had in her hometown of Sheshatshiu.

Her first language is Innu-aimun, and though there were English as a Second Language courses offered on campus, the seats were reserved for international students, and she had to persist to be accepted into a course.

She rushed home between classes and worked hard to complete course work and write essays in a second language.

On nights when her children couldn’t sleep, she would gather pillows and blankets and drive them to Signal Hill to see the city lights and then let them fall asleep in the car.

In 2008, she became the first Innu to earn a bachelor of Education degree at Memorial.

Now she’s the chief executive officer of Mamu Tshishkutamashutau, serving as the director of education for the Innu of Labrador.

Mamu Tshishkutamashutau is the Innu school board founded in 2009 when the Innu Nation gained control of their education system. The organization serves the Innu Nation in Labrador, particularly schools in Sheshatshiu and Natuaushish.

The schools follow the provincial curriculum, but now there is a greater emphasis on Innu traditions and language. There are classes in Innu-aimun, and students learn skills from Elders. And they spend days on the land, living in Innu tents while learning how to hunt and fish.

 

Kanani Davis (B. Ed ’08) with her parents, Elder Francis Penashue and Dr. Elder Elizabeth Penashue, on graduation day. Photo courtesy Kanani Davis.

 

Ms. Davis also continues to work with her alma mater as a member of the Academic Council for the School of Arctic and Subarctic Studies at Labrador Campus.

The council governs academic programming and includes faculty, students, staff and representatives from Indigenous governments in Labrador. Ms. Davis represents the Innu Nation and has brought her vision to help build and maintain programming that is Northern led and Northern focused.

In 2019, the Innu Language Project, a continuing partnership between Dr. Marguerite Mackenzie of Memorial’s Department of Linguistics and Ms. Davis, representing Mamu Tshishkutamashutau, received Memorial University’s President’s Award for Public Engagement.

The primary goal of the project is to maintain Innu-aimun as a living language passed on from generation to generation. Younger speakers are mentored by Elders, Indigenous students are hired as research assistants and graduate students are trained in how to work respectfully with Indigenous communities.

The project has helped create a four-volume, 27,000-item trilingual pan-Innu dictionary and contributed to an award-winning website documenting traditional Innu Nation place names.

Ms. Davis has recognized the need for more Innu educational resources and has used her specialized training in linguistics to provide standardized spelling for children’s books published in Innu-aimun.

She has brought Mamu Tshishkutamashutau into a publishing partnership with Running the Goat Books and Broadsides to produce books for Innu children, including the first book ever published in both the Mushuau Innu dialect and the Sheshatshiu dialect simultaneously.

For years now, Ms. Davis's voice has helped lead Memorial’s work towards Indigenization and reconciliation. In her efforts to develop Innu-informed and Innu-led education in Labrador, she has been a driving force in the creation of a stronger Memorial and stronger communities.

Though she’s no longer bundling children into a car at night to look out over the sparkling city lights, she can rest assured that thanks in great part to her vision and steadfast efforts, she can look out into a brighter future – a future built by the Innu of Labrador to pass on from one generation to the next.