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“The Thunderbird has always been a part of the body and spirit of all native tribes of North America,<br />
figuring in stories, dances, religion, and everyday life. It gave to our people thunder, lightning, rain–<br />
cleansing and giving power to the earth, and to the people – power to survive and worship the Great<br />
Spirit. Today, it remains very important to us, symbolizing our long hope to emerge from a dark past<br />
into a bright future of cultural and spiritual freedom for our people in the land that our grandfathers<br />
left us. The Thunderbird is not a forgotten effigy on a weather-worn rock or on a string of beads. It<br />
is alive and as real to our people as the thunder, lightning and rain of every summer storm that is<br />
given to us.”<br />
Keewatinung Institute<br />
The Algoma University emblem, adopted in 1972, is a stylized Thunderbird. It was developed by Mrs.<br />
Dora de Pedery-Hunt, the well-known Canadian sculptor, from Indian pictographs in the Agawa Bay<br />
area. In 1996 alumnus Jane Scott Barsanti, a graphic designer, created the existing logo incorporating<br />
the thunderbird into the design.<br />
The Thunderbird, its freedom and strength represented by traditional colours, extends beyond the<br />
confines of the rectangle:<br />
Blue = Sky, Water<br />
Green = Land, Trees, Environment<br />
Red = Colour of the Pictographs; Bloodlines<br />
White = Hope, Purity, Snow, the North<br />
When filled with green, the Thunderbird resembles the shape of the white pine tree. In the logo, ‘A’<br />
stands for Algoma, and is indicative of learning and achievement; it also suggests the shape of a<br />
teaching wigwam, which is the foundation of Algoma’s educational philosophy today.
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