The Thunderbird

Thunderbird"The Thunderbird has always been a part of the body and spirit of all native tribes of North America, figuring in stories, dances, religion, and everyday life. It gave to our people thunder, lightning, rain– cleansing and giving power to the earth, and to the people – power to survive and worship the Great Spirit. Today, it remains very important to us, symbolizing our long hope to emerge from a dark past into a bright future of cultural and spiritual freedom for our people in the land that our grandfathers left us. The Thunderbird is not a forgotten effigy on a weather-worn rock or on a string of beads. It is alive and as real to our people as the thunder, lightning and rain of every summer storm that is given to us."

Keewatinung Institute

The Thunderbird Logo

The Algoma University emblem, adopted in 1972, is a stylized Thunderbird. It was developed by Mrs. Dora de Pedery-Hunt, the well-known Canadian sculptor, from pictographs in the Agawa Bay area. In 1996 alumnus Jane Scott Barsanti, a graphic designer, created the existing logo incorporating the thunderbird into the design.

The Thunderbird, its freedom and strength represented by traditional colours, extends beyond the confines of the rectangle:

Blue = Sky, Water
Green = Land, Trees, Environment
Red = Colour of the Pictographs; Bloodlines
White = Hope, Purity, Snow, the North

When filled with green, the Thunderbird resembles the shape of the white pine tree. In the logo, ‘A’ stands for Algoma, and is indicative of learning and achievement; it also suggests the shape of a teaching wigwam, which is the foundation of Algoma’s educational philosophy today.