By Calvi Leon  Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Eli Baxter grew up on his parents’ traditional hunting grounds, where he learned the Ojibwe language through oral tradition. “I always admired the speakers who were older than me, and I always wanted to have the ability to talk at that level,” he said. But learning the ceremonial teachings associated with Ojibwe, a language now considered endangered, was cut short when Baxter was forced to attend Lac Seul Residential School, part of a network of the church- and government-run residential schools that operated across Canada from the early 1800s to 1996. “We weren’t allowed to speak the language when we went through the residential school system,” recalled Baxter, an Anishinaabe elder and member of the Marten Falls First Nation in northern Ontario. “We

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