Indigenous culture – Questions and answers with David Saint-Jacques live from space

Uploaded on April 15, 2019

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Indigenous culture – Questions and answers with David Saint-Jacques live from space

2019-04-15 - During a videoconference with youth gathered at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques answers the following question, live from the International Space Station: Why was it important for you to include Indigenous people and culture on your journey to space? (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Text: Why was it important for you to include Indigenous people and culture on your journey to space? - Shanna

David Saint-Jacques: Well, first because I spent some of my professional career working with Indigenous people. I was a family physician up in the northern Quebec, working with the Inuit communities. So they are part of who I am, and just as I come here, on this International Space Station, bringing a piece of everywhere I've been, I wanted to bring a part of – that part of my culture, which is a little bit of Indigenous culture.

But beyond that, I think also, one thing that most Indigenous cultures have in common with our culture here, in space, is a great respect for Mother Earth and a kind of a way to look at Earth as something that – not as our physician but as something that we should take care of. So, I think it matches well with our culture up here.

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