Katrina Srigley is associate professor in the Department of History at Nipissing University in North Bay, Canada. Author of the award-winning monograph Breadwinning Daughters: Young Working-Women in a Depression Era City (University of Toronto, 2010), Srigley’s scholarship forefronts women’s collective and individual experiences and explores the dynamics of memory making and storytelling. Her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)-funded research developed in partnership with Nipissing First Nation picks up the themes of storytelling and engaged practice.
Gaa Bi Kidwaad Maa Nbisiing: A-Kii Bemaadzijik, E-Niigannwang mobilizes Anishnaabeg ways of knowing and understanding the past and decolonized research practice to examine and mobilize the history of Nbisiing Anishnaabeg territory. Srigley is currently co-authoring a book with Glenna Beaucage (Cultural Planning Coordinator, Nipissing First Nation) entitled Gaa-Bii Kidwaad The Story of Nbisiing Anishnaabeg. Their work has also focused on exploring dibaajimowinan (everyday stories) of the Nipissing Warriors, a highly-successful all-Anishnaabeg hockey team in the 1960s and 70s, which carry important teachings about family and community and what it means to be a warrior. ( View Warrior’s Video.) This work has been mobilized in a variety of ways: as a historical exhibit, through curriculum and most recently in a short documentary in partnership with Regan Pictures. Srigley has also worked with the North Bay Friendship Centre, centering Indigenous storytelling methodologies to document and explore the history of homelessness, poverty and migration in northeastern Ontario. This work, supported by a SSHRC-funded Community University Research Alliance grant, informed the provincially-mandated ten-year housing planning for the District of Nipissing and is highlighted in the Friendship Centre’s publication, “Walking the Red Road”.