A book club that helps you connect to Indigenous roots
In a world that moves at an overwhelming pace, taking the time to pause and reconnect with the natural environment can become a meaningful experience. At Mt.A, the Braiding Sweetgrass Community Book Club offers students and community members a weekly opportunity to experience that.
The book club is organized through the Student Affairs Office in the Mawita’mkw Centre, a dedicated Indigenous gathering and learning space to support Indigenous students and community members – with Mawita’mkw meaning ‘a place we can gather.’ It is led by Amlamgog First Nation Mi’kmaq Cultural Coordinator and Knowledge Keeper, Nicole Porter. The book club aims to bring participants together to explore Indigenous knowledge, ecological understanding, and the relationship between humans and the natural world through the lens of literature.
The book club runs throughout the fall term, gathering every Wednesday at noon in the Mawita’mkw Centre – room 103 of the Wallace McCain Student Centre – until Dec. 9, offering students and community members an opportunity to participate throughout the academic semester.
Each gathering includes an open group discussion centred around the book Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. It was adapted by Monique Gray Smith from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s acclaimed work Braiding Sweetgrass, which encourages readers through its text to consider the relationships, responsibilities, and reciprocal connections that exist between humans, plants, and the wider ecosystem.
Drawing on her experiences as both a scientist and an Indigenous knowledge holder, Kimmerer considers how traditional ecological knowledge and scientific perspectives can co-exist with one another. Illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt, the adaptation gives young readers a chance to get in touch with Kimmerer’s reflections on Indigenous teachings, scientific knowledge, and the interconnectedness of the natural world.
By gathering weekly, the community book club takes these conversations beyond its pages. It gives participants the opportunity to read and reflect together in a shared setting by involving themselves with the themes of the book. The format encourages an exchange of perspectives and opinions by helping create space to consider how Indigenous knowledge can shape people’s understanding.
For a university community, these conversations also become opportunities to engage with Indigenous perspectives beyond the classroom. Literature becomes a starting point for broader discussions about knowledge, culture, history, environmental responsibility, and the importance of listening to perspectives that have long informed relationships with the land.
Ultimately, Braiding Sweetgrass asks readers to pay closer attention to the natural world and to reconsider what a co-existing relationship with it signifies. Through the community book club, those ideas find a space for collective reflection, giving a reminder to participants that reading can be more than an individual activity. It can also be a way of building connections, exchanging knowledge, and developing a deeper appreciation for the shared world.
There are several chances at Mt.A, like this book club, to explore how the Indigenous world was shaped, its roots, and its culture. Students can follow Mt.A’s Indigenous Student Support Group on Instagram, @mta_issg, to stay up to date on events.