Was a historical consultant, co-developer, and contributor to First Story, a smart phone app that interactively maps the Indigenous history of Toronto, with First Story Toronto (formerly the Toronto Native Community History Project) of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and the Centre for Community Mapping; prototype launched at ImagiNative Film Festival, October 17, 2012. To download, go to Driftscape and search First Story.
Founder and co-coordinator of Turning Point: Native Peoples and Newcomers On-Line, a volunteer-run web site facilitating dialogue and information sharing between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada, 2001-2009. Included discussion on history, land claims, indigenous governance, spirituality, cultural appropriation, environmental issues, social action, and education. See my article “Reconciliation in Cyberspace? Lessons from Turning Point: Native Peoples and Newcomers On-Line” in Lynne Davis, ed. Alliances: Re/Envisioning Relationships: Re/Envisioning Indigenous/Non-Indigenous Relationships (University of Toronto Press, 2010), 149-157.
Cofounder (with David Young and Sandy MacAuley) and fundraiser, Baffin Island Writers’ Project, which promoted writing and publishing in Inuktitut or from an Inuit perspective, in partnership with the Baffin Divisional Board of Education and the Apple Canada Foundation. The project published Kivioq, an Inuit circumpolar literary magazine, brought writers (especially First Nations and Inuit writers) into Baffin Island schools and communities, and supported local digital publishing from 1988-1991. See my article “The Baffin Writers’ Project,” Canadian Literature, A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, published by the University of British Columbia, 124-125 (Spring-Summer 1990), 266-272. Reprinted in W.H. New, ed., Native Writers and Canadian Writing (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1990).
Victoria Freeman 