Background Introduction

Welcome to the background division of  Kokomville Academy. Here you will find information and images regarding not only the history of the school and its founder and founding family, but also the heritage of its cultural roots... the People... the Elders... the Communities...all of which it has evolved from.

Within these pages are stories of the Algonqiun People...a nation and its environment..a society emerged from its rich connection to the cultural roots and its heritage of the land.

    

 

 
Overview
      
   Kokomville is a small native Algonquin community set within the boreal forest of  La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve, Quebec.…an area located within the heart of the Traditional Algonquin Territory.

In the mid sixties, this community originated as Elder Kokom Lena Jerome Nottaway searched for an ideal location to raise her family. Whithin the heartland of the family territory, on the edge of a small lake known as Nanwatinok, she settled  with her children. The family grew and so did the community, soon to be refered as Kokomville. Cherished by members of the family as the Matriarch of her environment, the recorded passage of Lena Jerome Nottaway is a history lesson of self reliance within the environment she called "Home."

    

 

    Jacob Wawatie, grandson of Kokom Lena was raised spending much of his early childhood with his family living off the land. In 1962, he began the formal European education system to emerge from its cultural roots. From his elders, he sustained the ancient skills passed down through countless generations of their Anishabe ancestry.  On the deathbed of his grandmother, Kokom Lena had told him .."I have taught you ...now teach them ...teach them well." Recieving both a traditional and formal education, Jacob worked to intergrate the traditional educational system within his communities, as well as in the public domain, developing curriculum and advising various projects relating to culture, nature and its environment.  

 

  Thus was the beginning  foundations of Kokomville Academy. Emerging from this background, it can be seen as “A Pathway to Nature", a guidance of the necessary footsteps to learn the resources of nature and the responsible and respectful use of them. Therefore, under these perceptions, we share our responsibilities as a caretakers of the land for the generations of tommorow.  
 

 

 

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