Where the Journey Started
If you want to learn about Indigenous culture where do you go? Do you search online? Go to a museum? Take a course? You could do all of these things but we wanted to give people an authentic experience of our culture.
We wanted to bring people from around the world on the ancestral paths our people walked, have them taste the food we ate, sing the songs we sang, hear the stories that were passed down orally from generations ago, and travel down the rivers we canoed. In order to truly learn about our culture we felt the only way was to touch, smell, see, hear, and feel it. Our journey started hundreds of years ago but your journey will start right now with us at Moccasin Trails.
Education
To fully understand our indigenous culture you have to get educated with us. Learn our history; the many triumphs and the many struggles we have faced and encountered throughout our history. Learn our language, food, celebrations, ceremonies, stories/legends. We feel the only way to learn this is by being in the moment and experiencing it first hand. Our guides are also on a path of education, through cultural tours our youth have reconnected and learnt their ancestral way of life. It truly is a journey where your guide and yourself will be learning and relearning together through a journey on the land. The beauty of our canoe tours is that they are unique. It is always different. Different weather, animals, songs, stories, food, different sky, different spirits. It is because of all these variables that we learn together through our shared journey.
CLICK the PDF to learn more about our Indigenous Educational Tours!
Reconciliation
We must learn how to practice reconciliation in our everyday lives - within ourselves, families, communities, governments, places of worship, schools, and our workplace. To do so constructively we must remain committed to work of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships.
Our Customers
From neighbouring towns and villages to large cities local and international, our customers come from all around the world.
They come to learn Indigenous culture in an authentic and honest way. They are people who seek the truth and understanding of the Indigenous people of interior British Columbia.
Our Team
Frank Antoine
Frank@moccasintrails.com
Greg Hopf
Greg@moccasintrails.com
Frank Antoine has been learning and sharing indigenous culture all of his life. Since the age of three he was introduced to his spiritual & cultural beliefs. His parents taught him how to gather food through all of the four seasons. He is now passing it on to his children who will carry on these cultural values.
While working at Quaaout Lodge & Spa at Talking Rock Golf Resort. Frank was responsible for developing authentic indigenous tourism programs and projects. Guests and visitors get to fully explore the indigenous history of the Skwlax community.
Frank sits on a variety of tourism boards: Adams River Salmon Society, Shuswap Trail Alliance, Hat Creek Society, McAbee Group, Indigenous Tourism of British Columbia and the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association.
Greg Hopf was born and raised in Denendeh, (Northwest Territories). Sports played a key role in Greg’s young life, his parents John and Liz Hopf registered and enrolled Greg into various sporting programs in Somba K’e (Yellowknife) this is where he learned the important life values from sports (respect, leadership, be a good teammate, commitment, listen, learn, hard work ethic) this helped shape the foundation of his persona.
But it is when he went to live with his Aunt and Uncle Jim and Celine Antoine in the tiny Dene community of Liidlii Kue (Ft. Simpson) is where he learnt his true Dene Values. It is his connection to the land, the animals, the spirits, the culture. “I remember very vividly sitting in my Auntie Celine’s kitchen late at night drinking tea and hearing stories about my Grandparents way of life in the bush, Joachim and Judith Buggins. It is these stories about my grandparents that brought me closer to my culture and made me so proud to know that my blood comes from such a very respectful family. I take this very seriously in my daily life and that is to bring my grandparents and my ancestors great pride in knowing I am carrying their name and their culture and passing it down to my children and sharing and educating it with the rest of the world in a respectful and authentic way”.
It is these values and stories that brought him out on the land hunting, trapping, fishing and harvesting with his Liidlii Kue family. To this day Greg is still practicing his Traditional way of life with his Wife Sharon and his kids Keaton and Presley Hopf in the Okanagan Valley. “My best memories as a child were out on the land hunting and fishing in the traditional territory of Dehcho with my uncles and aunties and my cousins.