Words from the Editors
There are many creative and artistic events on the campuses and regional centres of the University College of the North for faculty and students: drum making, hoop dancing, moccasin making, stone carving, and many others. Unfortunately, there is not enough space for our students to showcase their artistic and creative talents.
The online student journal Muses from the North is our response to this lack of a student-oriented creative platform. By publishing students’ works, we provide them with a platform to express their northern musings. In the same vein, we will also share the students’ published works with their peers for the advancement of scholarship at UCN.
We would like to acknowledge the encouragement and support which we received from Harvey Briggs, Dean of Arts, Business and Science, and David Yerex Williamson, Dean of Education towards making this project a reality. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude to Jillian Karpick, Graphic Designer, and Rod Nabess, Web Designer for devoting their talents and time to ensure the smooth take-off of this maiden issue of the online journal. Thanks are also due to Doug Lauvstad, our President and Vice-Chancellor for donating his personal photo album featuring northern images including landscapes, flora and fauna, animals and people. These photos have been copiously exhibited in this issue which are made available to us by Daniel Ranville, the Representitive Workforce Coordinator at UCN. There are altogether ten works ranging from an interview, poems, some short stories, memoirs, and a research paper in this issue. These pieces of writings do not only inform readers about life, tradition and culture of the indigenous people of the North, but they also educate readers about the complexity of human beings, and spirituality.
Muses from the North is biannual publication. We accept short stories, poems, essays, images, photos, and graphic stories. We encourage students to publish their works. We also invite instructors to recommend academic works suitable for publication from their students.
In order for students to improve their writing, Muses from the North also organizes writers’ workshops each term. In the meantime, we invite you, our readers, to savour the articles presented in this issue.
Drs. Ying Kong and Joseph Atoyebi