Skip to content

Storyteller brings life lessons to the students at Hillcrest

Jeanne Corrigal, a Métis filmmaker and storyteller, made an appearance at Hillcrest School to share a series of life lessons from an old friend.
hillcrest jeanne corrigal oct 2015
Filmmaker and storyteller Jeanne Corrigal, pictured with students Kali Sorenson and Logan Nagel, visited Hillcrest School to impart some life lessons to students, through the medium of her film, Jim Settee: the Way Home.

Jeanne Corrigal, a Métis filmmaker and storyteller, made an appearance at Hillcrest School to share a series of life lessons from an old friend. Corrigal showed students clips of her film, Jim Settee: the Way Home, featuring themes relating to indigenous life lessons, world views and the similarities in the values among different cultures of Canada. 

Corrigal’s presentation used a series of stories delivered through the medium of film clips, about Jim Settee, a Cree elder from north of Prince Albert, Sask. Settee’s teachings about life were illustrated through the presentation. 

“I began the tour six years ago up north in La Loche. Jim’s teachings are on respecting each other, how we’re all unique and that we can respect each other, all being one community,” said Corrigal. “He knew the history of people all around the central Saskatchewan area and the Treaty Six area. Anyone could go to him and he’d know their history. He and my dad worked together in Prince Albert National Park.”

Settee led a busy, meaningful life as a well-known oral historian, Anglican minister, social activist and tracker, who worked in the Prince Albert area, serving as a warden in Prince Albert National Park. Settee worked in close correspondence with the Catholic Church, and indigenous spiritual leaders, to help people who had attended residential schools in the healing process.

Corrigal noted Settee’s story is one of healing and reconciliation through kindness, respect and love — all messages she strives to deliver on her tour. 

It was during his time working as a warden in Prince Albert National Park, that one of the most memorable stories about Settee took place. Corrigal notes that occasionally, when Settee and her father worked in the park, people would get lost in the heavily forested area. 

“The story I grew up on when I was a child from my dad was that one day a boy got lost. He was 10 years old, and on that day Jim wasn’t there,” said Corrigal. "They called my dad and the other trackers, and they started to look for the boy. Usually they can find someone quickly, but they couldn’t find him that day.”

Corrigal said the search went on for two and a half days before Settee was called upon to help with what was turning out to be an increasingly hopeless search for the lost boy, who by then, had spent two nights in the bush alone. 

“Jim stood in the middle of the area, completely trampled by the search team that was there, got quiet, and everyone else got quiet. He stood there for two or three minutes and took off, walking really fast into the bush,” said Corrigal. “He walked for two hours straight, covered six miles of muskeg and bush. Dad said he walked straight to that boy and found him alive.”

Corrigal said she grew up on the story, and that much later in her life, when she spoke to Settee himself about it, the story and his explanation of how he found the boy became a life teaching to her, and a central premise of her film and tour.

“I share it with all the students and teachers, and everyone hears something a little different in what he said,” said Corrigal. “They tell me all kinds of different things. It’s not just about the boy — it’s a metaphor, because he brought people home to their own history and was a mentor.”

Corrigal also taught an important lesson about values and  respect through a segment of the presentation known as the matchbox lesson. She told students about how her grandfather would fill match boxes with small items that represented teachings. When he worked in a fire tower, he’d take boxes full of items and toss them to the ground, calling out for the grandchildren for whom they were intended.

“It would be a game for them to find those boxes in the grass, open them and find these treasures. Each one had different things in for each grandchild. He gave me a matchbox and objects that represent teachings to me,” said Corrigal. “On my tour, I ask students ‘What would you put inside the matchbox?’ It becomes their own. Everyone has their own values.”

Corrigal noted that the values students have connect integrally to the curriculum, helping decisions, and determining everything from behaviour to health. She encouraged students to participate, by asking anonymous questions she would answer later in the day, drawing scenes depicting Settee’s teachings. The response to Corrigal’s presentation was positive among teachers and students, alike. 

“It’s always good to have students learn about different cultures, since they don’t frequently interact with other cultures. They look at things slightly differently and try to look at things from the leanings of a different culture,” said Hillcrest School principal David Gillingham. “They were attentive and engaged. She showed what was significant to her, and the (students) showed what was significant to them. They all saw some similarities — it was great.”