Educator: Pippa Bowley

Pedagogist: Tracy Barkman

Children: Mary, Rachel, Sara, Aryn, Eric, Tracy, Ruth*

With support from ECPN leadership team – Meagan Montpetit & Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw

For the past two years at a licensed family childcare on the unceded territory of the Sinixt, Sylix and Ktnuaxa peoples in the interior of British Columbia, we engage with the question of what might become possible when we get to know the water of this place. Motivated by our collective deep concern over the rising drought and fires in interior British Columbia, the inquiry began with weekly visits to a small waterfall and its surrounding creek. We hope that by situating the curriculum within the specific locality of a place, we can create conditions that center the meaningful relations we, and children, have with the land, waters and histories of this place. We conceptualize humans as merely one part of a relational assemblage rather than the centre of it (Pacini-Ketchabaw & Taylor, 2019), and we co-construct curriculum that emphasizes learning with this place rather than just learning about it.

To think with water, we walk with it. Once a week, together with the children, we walk alongside the rhythms and seasons of Skʷakʷan’t (little waterfall) with sketchbooks in hand. We stop to carefully notice along the way in some of our favourite places, such as the rock circle or the bluejay place. At these stops we sit down and draw alongside Skʷakʷan’t and its creek. Our drawings follow how water flows down the mountain. Little by little, our walks with water become a regular part of our time together at the centre.

The children have many questions about Skʷakʷan’t water. They wonder about the path the water takes as it disappears underground at the foot of Skʷakʷan’t.

Mary: “Where does the water live?”  

Rachel: “Does the waterfall get dizzy?”

As we walk and the children become more familiar with the places where the water disappears through pipes and where it reappears again, we begin to notice, not only when we see this water, but when the water is not visible to our eyes. Sometimes all we can find of this water is the sound that emerges through the storm sewer grates and utility hole covers.

One early spring day as we walk, splooshing through bits of slush and snow that remain here and there, the children notice the meltwater trickling into the storm sewer. They stop to listen.

Sara: “I think I hear Skʷakʷan’t down there.”

As Mary lies on the cold wet ground and listens at one grate, Sara and Aryn run to the next one.

Sara: “It goes this way!”

Mary: “Over here! I can hear it.” 

To further engage with children’s questions, we research the creek and find out that its course historically divided the city of Nelson.

A deep ravine, created by Ward Creek, essentially divided the city in two, with the dirt roads of Vernon and Baker Streets passable only by way of wood frame bridges (https://humehotel.com/our-hotel/our-history/).

This waterway is no longer visible as it has been covered over and redirected away from its original course to better suit the humans that live here, and their infrastructure. We share aspects of this history with the children as we gather around the laptop and printer revisiting photos and videos from our most rec along Ward Creek.  As children’s questions intensify and multiply over several months, our weekly walks involve following the creek and the pipes from this small waterfall into Cottonwood Creek (a larger creek that flows into the Kootenay River).

The children in unison: “Where did the water go?” 

Rachel: “Why do dogs get to drink this water and we can’t?” 

Aryn: “Why is there no salmon in this creek? They could lay their eggs in a shopping cart.” 

Rachel: “Where is all this water coming from?”

Throughout the weeks, after following the flow of water on our walks, the children engage in drawing and mapping their ideas. Through this process, they revisit and rethink their encounters with water.

Sara: “Look at the river.  This one goes to here and this one goes to there, too.  This is Cottonwood Creek and this is Ward Creek.  It was a little bit raining, so I made rain. I made wind!”

 

Aryn: “It goes down from that  pipe, then goes  dooooown  into the lake, then zooms  into the ocean. ​ This comes out of there,  then goes all the way into  this pipe and into the  ocean, and there are trees  and trees and trees​.” 

 

 

Rachel: “I’m going to draw the road where the water goes under the road.  I need some blue so the water can go under the road.  Cars are driving on the waterfall because the waterfall is under the road.” 

Aryn: “Where’s the lake?” 

Rachel: “I’m going to make the lake after the road.” 

Mapping and Remapping the Creek 

With the children, we revisit photos of the waterfall and creek we have gathered on our walks. Slowly, over months, two tentative visual maps emerge. One is on the wall, composed of photos. The other we draw at the table as we discuss how the Skʷakʷan’t flows from uphill in Nelson through pipes and grates into another creek and then finally into Kootenay River.

The map on the wall becomes a reference point as we individually and collectively redraw maps of the journey the water had taken us on. By carefully revisiting the images and sharing stories from the walks, the children draw, tell, redraw and retell stories of Skʷakʷan’t water.

The children think and rethink, taking their time, about the water’s journey. They draw, redraw and draw again the route we have taken in our walks. They attempt to keep the map as accurate as they can, without success.  There is always a new idea, a new thought, a new mark that makes the map as fluid as Skʷakʷan’t water.  Even marking out north onto the map elicits alternative suggestions. To think through the fluidity that  emerges in the mapping, we experiment with layering.

Layering children’s drawings and photos digitally and with tracing paper intensifies the dialogue about our complex encounters with Skʷakʷan’t water and its complex route and history.

The children not only share their memories from the walks but also draw new stories onto an ever-changing map. They imagine themselves and others in relation with Skʷakʷan’t water.

Aryn: “I’m drawing me. You know how old I am here? Five!” 

Mary remembers her family, whom she wishes could visit the waterfall with her.

Mary: “That’s my momma, that’s me, my Dada and Charbar. Look at my baby brother. I can’t draw my dog, so I’m only going to draw my family.” 

Rachel draws the rock circle we visited many times, and she also carefully finds the creek on the map below and draws the red roots that grow in the waterfall.

 

Rachel: “Some are part in the water and part out.” 

 

 

 

 

Eric draws the rail trail on the map. As he moves between the visual map of photographs on the wall and the map on the table that the children are drawing on, you can see him figuring out where the photos match the drawn map. Aryn joins Eric. As they move amid the photos, the maps, their memories and their drawings, other questions and events emerge.

 

Eric: “Where is this picture on that map right there?” 

Eric: “Where were we right here?” (pointing to one of the photos)

Aryn: “We’re going to go right here today?” 

 

 

To engage with Eric’s question about where the children were in relation to the map, we superimpose  children’s bodies onto the map.

Eric: “We’re in the map.” 

Eric: “We’re not big enough.” 

Aryn: “We might slide off the map.” 

Eric: “We’re too heavy for it.” 

Sketching and Mapping

On our many walks to visit Skʷakʷan’t or along Ward Creek to Kootenay River, we have also nurtured a practice of drawing in sketchbooks. With these drawings as another record of  Skʷakʷan’t water journeys, the children (re)encounter the map, stories and their memories in new ways. The collective map making continues as the children notice that maps are fluid and always shifting.

Rachel: “That’s me walking with the snail.” 

Sara: “I’m going to draw us on the bridge.” 

Rachel suggests drawing a utility hole cover.

Eric: “You can’t tell right now ’cause it’s not summer, it’s winter….s.” 

Eric: “Does anyone remember when Tracy lost her thing (audio recorder) in the waterfall? I’m going to draw it.” 

Rachel: “And remember you got a different one.” 

Eric: “I almost fell in the waterfall.” 

Eric: “I dropped a cup!” 

Tracy: “I remember Aryn slipping down the snow and I caught him.” 

Rachel: “I was scooping water, and I reached too far and I fell into the waterfall.” 

Aryn: “We dropped snowballs.” 

Ruth: “And sticks, and leaves.” 

We continue to browse the sketchbooks. Eric holds up a page and says: “I remember a rainy day and I drew all brown.”  Rachel looks through her sketchbook carefully and asks: “Why do I keep drawing in purple? I do not remember drawing this.” She turns a few pages. “I remember making colours and I did this.” The children add additional texture and volume to the collective map.

The Impossibility of Mapping Skʷakʷan’t  documents the trajectory of relating to the waters during catastrophic times of drought and fire in the region.  Children engage with Skʷakʷan’t’s histories, connect to existing stories and create other stories of their own.  The complex water relations that emerge through these processes now live with(in) the children.  The children work with what might be possible, what can be done differently, what is hopeful for the times.

Mapping as a mode of thinking creates possibilities that highlight Skʷakʷan’t can never be easily represented or captured in a map.  As The Impossibility of Mapping Skʷakʷan’t shows, relations demand deep processes, careful work and onsite connections. Yet, even though mapping cannot represent Skʷakʷan’t nor can it allow children to fully know Skʷakʷan’t, mapping creates possibilities for the emergence of different ways of knowing/being/doing in the world.

 

*Children’s names are pseudonyms.