Summer trails and sharing tales

Located on the edge of Kluane National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the wilderness camp offers packages for visitors who want to learn about First Nations culture, spend time outdoors and connect with nature. Travellers can take part in numerous cultural activities, explore the scenic trails around the camp on their own or join a guided hike to learn more about the First Peoples of the area. Every evening around the campfire, more stories are told about the history of the area and the First Peoples of the region.

Storytelling plays an important role in First Peoples communities. Stories passed down orally are an integral part of the traditional cultures of many First Nations. Such shared stories have a positive effect on everyone involved. The exchange of community stories, cultural practises and ways of life happens through storytelling. For this reason, storytelling is at the centre of many Indigenous travel experiences across Canada, helping visitors to better understand First Nations history, culture and way of life.

This experience is an example of using storytelling as a means to immerse visitors in the culture and wisdom of Indigenous peoples.

Why is it regenerative?

This practice is from Canada where the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC)’s tourism strategy aims to develop and market authentic Indigenous tourism experiences through storytelling. Its goal is to create a thriving Indigenous tourism economy sharing authentic, memorable and enriching experiences.

Project partners met in Aveiro on the 14th and 15th of September 2023. It was the perfect opportunity to visit the destination with regenerative glasses on, to understand its many assets but also some of the challenges the destination is facing. Face to face project meetings always provide the partners with the unique opportunity to learn about the work of the hosting partner and get valuable insights about the destination. In this case partners were hosted by the dedicated team of management and tourism professionals of the University of Aveiro who shared a wealth of insights about a city that was new to many of the participants.

The Enforce project is well on track when it comes to the project work plan, which means that after having completed the Best Practice collection of innovative examples about storytelling for regeneration and also the Storyteller’s Guide, partners used the meeting to discuss the development of the Enforce Training Programme.

For the next few months partners will be working on developing the content in line with guidelines provided by the University of Usak, our project partner from Turkey.
The course should be available for piloting in January/February 2024 and will also be available in the partner languages once all translations are finalised.

The ENFORCE team met in the beautiful city of Luxembourg for its kick-off meeting. It took place at the premises of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg (also known as CCIL), which opened its doors to warmly welcome all partners.

The team was aware of the importance of this first meeting and approached it with the same enthusiasm, as it plays an important role in building strong bonds that will contribute to the success of the entire cooperation. With the common goal of building a solid foundation, the participants discussed in depth the first steps required for the project ENFORCE.

During this visit, the project objectives were discussed in depth to ensure that each partner has a comprehensive understanding of the overarching goals. The outcome of the kick-off meeting was extremely satisfying for all partners and generated enthusiasm among the team. It was a success and left everyone inspired and energised.

The journey of ENFORCE has officially begun and with the collective expertise of the committed partners, there is no doubt that it will thrive and achieve remarkable results.

Enforce

“The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein”

Project N: 2022-1-LU01-KA220-VET-000089887

© 2024 Enforce Project
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