Career & Employment Services

Hours: 35 hours per week

Application Deadline:  March 4, 2026

The Invitation: 
We invite someone who carries their teachings with care, walks with humility and strength, and is ready to share, listen, and grow alongside community. This role is about weaving Indigenous voices into the fabric of Heritage Park, so that every visitor experiences not only history, but living culture. 

The Invitation:

We invite someone who carries their teachings with care, walks with humility and strength, and is ready to share, listen, and grow alongside community. This role is about weaving Indigenous voices into the fabric of Heritage Park, so that every visitor experiences not only history, but living culture. 

Department Overview:

The Indigenous Relations & Programming department supports Heritage Park’s commitment to truth and reconciliation, cultural inclusion, and authentic storytelling (correction Indigenous Oral Narratives and Indigenous authentic truthing stories). The department develops and delivers Indigenous-led programming, community partnerships, and advisory structures that strengthen Heritage Park’s relationships with Treaty 7 Nations, Métis communities, and urban Indigenous groups. The portfolio integrates Indigenous knowledge, protocols, and perspectives into the Park’s operations, guest experiences, and long-term planning.  

The Indigenous Relations & Programming department plays a vital role in advancing Heritage Park’s commitment to truth and reconciliation, cultural inclusion, and authentic storytelling. This department leads the development and delivery of Indigenous-led programming, fosters meaningful community partnerships, and establishes advisory structures that strengthen relationships with Treaty 7 Nations, Métis communities, and urban Indigenous groups. 

The portfolio integrates Indigenous knowledge, protocols, and perspectives into all aspects of Heritage Park’s operations, guest experiences, and long-term planning. Heritage Park is dedicated to a parallel lens approach—honouring Indigenous Knowledge systems (teaching, learning, research) and ways of knowing (policy, procedure, and practice) as equal and inseparable from Western Knowledge. 

A key commitment includes embracing Oral Storytelling practices, which support both the sharing of existing knowledge and the creation of new understandings. This includes validating transitional stories rooted in ceremonial frameworks and recognizing alignment stories that emerge during ceremonial transitions. These stories will inform and evolve Heritage Park’s smudge protocol, becoming part of the Park’s living truth. 

Through this process, Heritage Park defines and shares the lessons learned from new knowledge, contributing to enriched teachings and deeper understanding. This journey is shared collectively, moving through levels of learning within the circle of jurisdiction and spirit. 

Who You Are: 
Under You may have walked many paths — through ceremony, through community work, through teaching, or through formal study. What matters most is that you: 

• Carry your own story and teachings with integrity. 
• Have experience working with Indigenous communities and building respectful partnerships. 
• Are comfortable guiding conversations about history, culture, and reconciliation. 
• Bring creativity, adaptability, and a willingness to learn. 

What We Value: 

• Relationality: Working together, guided by respect, reciprocity, and responsibility. 
• Decolonial practice: Moving beyond institutional checkboxes, centering Indigenous perspectives in decision-making and storytelling. 
• Storytelling: Honoring oral traditions and recognizing that stories are teachings, not just entertainment. 
• Community connection: Valuing lived experience, cultural knowledge, and relationships as much as formal education. 

What You Will Do: 

• Carry stories: Share Indigenous knowledge, teachings, and perspectives through programming, interpretation, and events.  Know and understand the difference between Oral Narratives and Storytelling. 
• Build relationships: Work with COOK Circle, Guest Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers, and like-minded community partners to ensure programming is respectful, reciprocal, and rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing. 
• Guide learning: Support staff and visitors in understanding Indigenous histories and contemporary realities, fostering dialogue that is relational rather than transactional. 
• Hold space: Create opportunities for Indigenous voices to be heard and celebrated, ensuring programming reflects diversity across Nations and communities. 

Job Overview:

 Under the direction of the Senior Advisor, Indigenous Relations and Programming , this position is part of a new team creating space and reconciliation action in the day-to-day coordination of interpretive programming.  This position will focus on developing Indigenous land-based programming and with collaboration options to engage like-minded staff to research and implement initiatives both new and established.  Collaboration includes and is not limited to internal stakeholders but will include Knowledge Keepers from within singular nations.  The Culture of Original Knowledge (COOK) Advisory Circle meets quarterly with the growth and development of this new division. 

Responsibilities:

Strategic & Cultural Leadership

• Guide the day-to-day integration of Indigenous knowledge systems into interpretive programming, ensuring land-based, ceremonial, and oral traditions are centered with integrity.
• Support the Senior Indigenous Advisor in advancing a parallel-lens approach that honours Indigenous and Western worldviews as distinct yet co-existing.
• Ensure Indigenous programming is Indigenous-led, designed, and delivered within an ethical space, grounded in community validation and relational accountability.
• Advise internal teams on culturally respectful storytelling, protocol, and representation in exhibits, signage, programming, and events.

Indigenous Programming & Story Stewardship

• Develop, coordinate, and deliver Indigenous land-based and oral storytelling programs that reflect living cultures, Nations, and contemporary realities.
• Hold space for teachings shared by Elders and Knowledge Keepers, ensuring oral narratives are respected, contextualized, and carried forward responsibly.
• Observe and evolve programming through reflection and community dialogue, recognizing that stories are living and must grow alongside relationship.
• Support signature Indigenous events and seasonal programming, ensuring cultural integrity and authenticity remain at the centre of planning and execution.

Relationship & Community Engagement

• Build and nurture respectful relationships with Treaty 7 Nations, Métis communities, and urban Indigenous partners through reciprocity and ongoing dialogue.
• Collaborate with the COOK Circle and Elders to guide program growth, ceremonial frameworks, and emerging teachings.
• Participate in community gatherings and protocol where invited, representing Heritage Park with humility and respect.
• Ensure community voices inform and validate programming decisions and storytelling approaches.

Team Guidance & Capacity Building

• Provide leadership, mentorship, coaching, and cultural guidance to seasonal staff, volunteers, and cross-departmental collaborators.
• Support recruitment, onboarding, and development of Indigenous staff within the programming portfolio.
• Foster a culturally safe environment where Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff can learn, ask questions, and grow in understanding.
• Model relational leadership grounded in respect, responsibility, and collective accountability.

Stewardship & Organizational Alignment

• Ensure programming reflects truthing practices and aligns with Heritage Park’s reconciliation commitments and Master Plan.
• Safeguard cultural protocols and proactively address outdated or insensitive content.
• Support responsible financial stewardship of Indigenous programming resources and funding opportunities.
• Contribute to continuous learning cycles that strengthen Indigenous presence across the Park.

Organizational Excellence and Wellbeing

• Contribute to inspiring and immersive experiences at the Park by engaging in Heritage Park initiatives that align with our mission and vision, ensuring authenticity in our historical setting and stories. 
• Actively support a positive work environment by creating an atmosphere of inclusion, engagement, belonging, and fulfillment for employees and volunteers, in line with Heritage Park values. 
• Recognize all contributors to our community as integral to our success, fostering a sense of community and collaboration. 
• Demonstrate responsible stewardship of our people, collections, and financial assets by driving growth with innovation, transparency, and financial sustainability, while embracing our historical assets and recognizing all contributors. 
• Demonstrate commitment to workplace health and safety by complying with Heritage Park's Health, Safety and Environment Management System (HSEMS), following safe work practices, reporting work-related incidents, injuries, and hazards, participating in employer training, and adhering to policies including the Code of Conduct and the Workplace Violence and Harassment policy.