Allison Guthrie is a Métis individual and a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta, with a diverse cultural heritage. She has been learning Southern Michif, a critically endangered Métis language, for over two years. Although not yet fluent, she is dedicated to achieving proficiency and aspires to one day teach the language. With fewer than 50 remaining mother tongue speakers, all elderly, Southern Michif blends Plains Cree verbs with Métis French nouns. This linguistic heritage is deeply meaningful to Guthrie and other Métis people.

Allison's long-term goal is to teach Michif through land-based learning, integrating language instruction with traditional skills such as berry picking, gardening, harvesting medicines, and cooking. She has also been learning Cree for the past six months, focusing on the Northern Michif dialect spoken in many Métis communities. In addition to her language work, Guthrie holds an undergraduate degree in plant biology and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in developmental plant biology. Her research explores the intricate processes of plant development, complementing her broader interests in language revitalization and land-based education.

Southern Michif, a critically endangered Métis language, has limited publicly available resources, particularly in areas like traditional ecological knowledge. Allison’s project seeks to address this gap by creating a Southern Michif nature guide, documenting approximately 200 plant, animal, and fungi names gathered from dictionaries, recordings, interviews, and unpublished sources. Each entry in the guide will feature the Michif and English names, scientific nomenclature, and details about habitat, range, cultural uses, and sensory descriptions such as color, sound, and taste. The guide will also include photos—both from Creative Commons and original photography—showing species as they appear in the northern prairies of Canada and North Dakota, with a focus on helping users identify them in their natural environment.

To expand and verify the list of species names, Allison will conduct interviews with fluent speakers, in order to document additional terminology. She will collaborate with experts in Michif language revitalization, to ensure accuracy in grammar, semantics, and orthography, aligning the text with the standardized Michif Learners Orthography. The final guide will be published for free online as a digital document, app, or website, depending on community consultation about the most beneficial format.