Buffalo harvest brings tradition and lunch to northern Saskatchewan schools

By Sonal Gupta, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer On a frigid prairie day, students from northern Saskatchewan gathered outside — not for recess, but for a lesson. Dressed in layers against the December wind, they stood around a freshly harvested buffalo. There was no textbook. Instead, knives were passed between mittened hands, as they learned to skin, gut, and cut the meat for their own school lunches. The buffalo harvest project, led by the Meadow Lake Tribal Council and its member First Nations, is changing how a generation thinks about food, tradition and self-sufficiency. “It’s a food source, so there’s this nutritional value, but it’s so much more than that,” said Tammy Shakotko, a community nutritionist with Meadow Lake council. “The real value is cultural — the social…

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