#4 The Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources

The CIER is an organisation which is established by Canadian First Nations groups. Their website is easy to navigate and has four major focusses: taking action on climate change, building sustainable communities, protecting lands and waters, and conserving biodiversity. Basically this is a gathering point for initiatives, partnerships, issues and anything else concerning First Nations environmental concerns.

The website provides links to their library collection, reports on initiatives and also encourages partnerships with different communities. If any FN group is wanting to partner with CIER they will either help them address a topic area through project funding that they already have, will help them find funding to work on a community project, or will provide workshops.

Aside from the obvious good that the site provides, what struck me, after our readings so far, was how much this site looks like a typical government or company site. Also, even though the individuals on the board are FN members (and the majority have had some role in the leadership of their own community) they are also all people who have lots of credentials in the western sense; they have signed major financial deals, have degrees, headed up different societies, etc.. I’m not sure if this is an important observation or not, but I wonder what message this website sends, and whether it is also set up in a way that would be appealing for those who provide the funding for the projects the CIER carries out.

http://www.cier.ca/

#5 Indigenous Food First

While on the CIER site I followed a link to find out more about a program called IFF (Indigenous Food First). This is a new website with a focus on Indigenous Youth exploring food and what it means to them. The launch is in October 2012, so at this time there is only a section with some articles, an about page and a sign-up section for the newsletter that they put out. One interesting link is to the Dreamcatcher Youth Conference, which supports positive projects by Aboriginal youth who are making a difference in their community.

http://iffculture.ca/

#1:  What is “indigenous knowledge”?  How is it different?  In this article, Marie Battiste endeavours to define and characterize indigenous knowledge, and describes it as filling the gaps and balancing Eurocentric education.

Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy

#2:  After reading Bowers (2000) and Howe (1998), I became interested in what can be done to educate the indigenous learner without manipulating his/her culture.   This article by Aikenhead compares and contrasts the Aboriginal way of knowing science to the Eurocentric approach.   He ends the paper optimistically, citing that one day all people will combine their knowledge for a betterment of the “whole”.

http://www.usask.ca/education/people/aikenhead/firstnat.pdf

#3:  Continuing along the same theme, I decided to look more locally.   Based on this literature review, the education system in SK seems to acknowledge the necessity of traditional knowledge but has challenges in its implementation.

http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/ablkc-k-12-literature-review

#4:  After contemplating the whale hunt of the Makah in Marker (2006), I was struck by the concept of how, without emotion or spirituality, we can nurture the aboriginal learner through the process of healing.  This report from the Canadian Council on Learning speaks to that:

http://www.ccl-cca.ca/pdfs/ablkc/ResponsiveEduSys_en.pdf

#5:  In an attempt to contextualize the situation in SK, I was curious as to what advances or successes have been made in the inclusion of indigenous knowledge.  Of special note is the conceptual framework depicted on page 13.  It is a visual representation of the medicine wheel superimposed on a white birch tree.   I connect this illustration with the message from Dr. Lee Brown regarding emotional health.

http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/inspiring-success

Our High School – Prince George Secondary – has a large population of First Nations students from the Lheidli T’enneh and Carrier Sekani First Nations communities. We have a number of Aboriginal Education teachers and teacher assistants, funded by both School District #57 and the Aboriginal community. The students are exposed to many elements of their culture, and some of them only learn of these cultural activities once they get to High School. Out of the 1300 students in the school, there are several hundred students who First Nations, and a number of other students of mixed descent who have First Nations connections.

Prince George began an interesting initiative a few years ago. The school district in association with many other agencies set up an Elementary “Aboriginal Choice School” It began operations in 2010, and is the first Aboriginal school within the public school system in British Columbia.

I believe that if this is the right way to proceed. In a ground-breaking partnership, Aboriginal Peoples control the education of their children. It will go a long way towards stemming the loss of culture and the corruption of the cherished values of the First Nations peoples. A tradition of Oral history, language, and connection to the land are focuses that will allow the students to retain their identities.

References

http://www.lheidli.ca/

http://www.carriersekani.ca/

http://aboriginalchoice.com/

www.sd57.bc.ca

photo: Prince George Citizen, by Brent Braaten, April 12, 2011

Continuing my search for information related to the environmental issues surfacing in Alberta, I have stumbled upon an interesting case regarding harvesting rights of the Metis.  Harvesting refers to the rights of the Metis, First Nations, and Inuit to collect foods by fishing, hunting, and farming.

Metis Nation of Alberta Harvesting Policy

Garry Hirsekorn was found guilty of two counts under the Alberta Wildlife Act and fined $700 after killing a mule deer in southern Alberta.  It is argued that his case was a planned action by the Metis to bring attention to the harvesting rights established (Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution) by the Alberta government.  The court proceedings started in April 2009, and the ruling was

Fish and Wildlife was aware of the planned hunt, but it is argued that the hunt was used for political purposes and not for traditional purposes.  Furthermore, it is argued that there is no historical Metis community in southern Alberta, therefore Hirsekorn is guilty of illegal hunting.

News Article for Hirsekorn’s Verdict

The decision has been appealed (in August 2012), but there are 25 other Metis charged with illegal hunting and are currently awaiting trial.

Hirsekorn’s Appeal

This case refers frequently to  the case of Steve and Roddy Powley, who killed a moose in October of 1993.  They identified the moose with a Metis card, specifying it was intended to be food for the winter.  Despite this identification, Ontario Conservation Officers charged the Powleys for hunting without a license and unlawful possession of a moose.  The judge ruled that the Powleys have a right to hunt, based upon Section 35 of the Constitution Act (1982).  Charges were dismissed, but the Crown appealed.  In February of 2001, the Court of Appeal upheld the early decision, but the Crown appealed to the Supreme Court.  In September of 2003, the Supreme Court supported the initial verdict as well, and supports the Metis right to harvest year-round.

The Powley Test 

My final research paper will be focusing on First Nations K-12 youth and their access to public libraries within Canada. School aged students typically have access to libraries within their schools, so I am therefore more concerned with student access to libraries outside of a school campus.

From what I have discovered thus far, it seems Canada’s First Nations population is only allowed to rent resources from ‘on-reserve’ libraries and not allowed to rent resources from publicly funded libraries. Since reserves typically do not raise tax dollars for use within non-reserve bordering cities, residents of reserves are therefore not permitted to use the available resources available for people who pay city taxes.

Again, I am just in the initial stages of research for my final paper but it seems as though this legislation does not make entire sense in regards to youth access to libraries. Since youth living on or off a reserve within Canada do not pay city taxes it seems strange to restrict access to public libraries.

Regardless of the fairness of the legislation, it is a shame that First Nations people cannot exploit the great resources and technology that libraries can offer. Finally, the paper will also try and match possible uses of technology to First Nations culture that may preserve and present First Nations culture in a unique and timely manner.

Thanks.

-Regen

Hello,

This fifth resource:

http://www.library.on.ca/links/clearinghouse/firstnations/index.htm

….provides hundreds of links to content concerning First Nations Library resources titled ‘Clearinghouse of Professional Information.’  Again, this site does represent the Ontario’s Library Service (OLS) but provides links for websites all over North America. Sub-topics for the website include: general information, advocacy, reading circles programs, libraries, planning, and special public funding programs.

The ‘libraries’ section is great in providing links to various First Nations library websites. This gives great ideas to other First Nations groups looking to establish or better support a library within Canada.

This website also does a great job in identifying Canadian content within the links by including a small logo of a Canadian flag beside the links that offer Canadian content. It is also useful to view American content in order to compare and contrast problems, ideas, and solutions with other countries First Nation’s groups.

Thanks.

-Regen

Site # 1

http://www.law.ualberta.ca/research/aboriginalculturalheritage/

The website for the “Protection and Repatriation of First Nation Cultural Heritage” research project has valuable information concerning how First Nations use the Web to disseminate information about their culture, as well as advance a political agenda. It has four main objectives:

1)     To disseminate information concerning the legal regime

2)     To serve as a platform for respecting and understanding First Nations concept of law and property

3)     To help First Nations partners to collect and develop archival educational materials

4)     Analyze provincial and federal legislation and provide First Nations with reform recommendations

Although the actual research was completed in 2006, the site offers an overview of the research with links to the two volumes. This site is important as it raises awareness about law reform, but also provides a voice for First Nations.  This web site also offers many other important resources, such as news and events and other carefully selected links to North American Native and/or Aboriginal sites. I found some of the links had been modified, but using the titles I easily found the sites through Google.

Seeing how much information was available on this website, I will come back to explore other links, but I decided to first explore Aboriginal sources.

Site # 2

http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/

The Aboriginal Canadian Portal is a site run by the Canadian Federal Government in collaboration with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Métis National Council, the Native Women’s Association of Canada, and the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers. The topics covered are quite varied, but because of the nature of my research I was particularly interested in the language, culture and heritage segment, which proved to have a wealth of information on various Aboriginal organizations, as well as various articles that harbor collective memories.

Site # 3

https://www.itk.ca/publication/5000-years-inuit-history-and-heritage

This essay provides an overview of the last 5000 years of Inuit history.  The essay covers the culture and language, the early history of the Inuit ancestors from first contact with the Europeans to modern day Inuit.  The essay also incorporates the history and culture of the four regions of Inuit Nunangat. I was not able to determine who exactly wrote this document, but found that the information herein was well written and is suitable for a general readership. The document often refers to “We . . .”, thus was written from an Aboriginal perspective for an Aboriginal audience, proudly outlining their history and accomplishments over the years. This type of essay contains information that could be used in schools during history classes to diffuse information about Inuit.

Site # 4

https://www.itk.ca/

This Website represents the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which is the national Inuit organization in Canada. It represents the four Inuit regions,  Nunatsiavut (Labrador), Nunavik (northern Quebec), Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the Northwest Territories. On the site historical events from 903 until the present are documented.  The president’s blog appears to be a new addition to the site and is run by Inuit leader Terry Audla. This blog offers viewers a platform to voice their opinion. This website also offers podcasts on various issues and events concerning Aboriginal life. This web site is rich with text-based information, but particularly audio feeds.  I was particularly interested in the audio from a 2011 conference called “From Eskimo to Inuit in 40 Years”, which marks the work Inuit Tapirisat of Canada has done over the last 40 years. The site offers audio files of the seven panel discussion sessions held during the conference. The site also offers links to publications on Inuit issues.

Site # 5

http://www.inuitknowledge.ca/

This website offers the newly established Inuit Qaujisarvingat (kow-yee-sar-ving-at). I found it most interesting to discover that the goal of the Inuit Knowledge Centre, is to bridge the gap between Inuit knowledge and western science. I find their vision of building capacity among Inuit to respond to global interests in Arctic issues daring and avant-garde. This website offers Inuit a platform to impact and advance sustainable Arctic science and policy making within a Canadian and global context. I was impressed with the way the information was diffused, with a good balance of text-based, visual and audio. It even offers a game called Niquiit (under construction) destined for Inuit youth to teach them about the dangers of contaminants in the Arctic. The Website is well laid-out and menus simplified to help users navigate and get the information they seek. Overall it appeared to be a great community resource run by Inuit for Inuit.

As an Australian I would like to focus my research on Australian Aborigines and Torres Straits Islanders. As a medical educator I have been thinking across both education and medical topics. My final decision was to focus on technologies, indigenous communities and health. This might still be too broad, but I plan to try and focus on three aspects that I have started to research:

• technology and health service delivery in indigenous communities (ehealth)
• technology for indigenous health promotion and patient education
• technology and traditional medicine

Mignone 2008 used the concept of social capital to explore ICT in Aboriginal Communities in Canada. Health is one of the areas he focused on. He describes three impacts of ICT on social capital in indigenous communities –transforming, diminishing and/or supplementing. His study and these concepts have provided a useful place to start, along with the WSIS position paper I posted as a module 1 weblog and other articles I have started to collect (as identified below).

Indigenous Position Paper for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

Lori A. Colomeda & Eberhard R. Wenzel (2000): Medicine keepers: Issues in indigenous health, Critical Public Health, 10:2, 243-256.  Downloaded 23/09/12 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713658247

Mignone J, Henley H, Brown J, O’Neil J, Ross W. (2008) Information and Communication Technology in Aboriginal Communities in Canada: Increasing Aboriginal Social Capital. A Discussion Paper.

Molyneaux, H, O’Donnell, S. (2009) ICT and Health and Wellness in Remote and Rural First Nations Communities: A Social Determinants of Health. Perspective Paper presented at the Canadian Society of Telehealth Conference (CST 2009),Vancouver, October 3-6 2009

I explored some of my own country’s literature on cultural issues, ICT and Indigenous Australians. I have combined these three weblogs because of their similarity.

Dyson (2004) focused on the reasons for low adoption of ICT with Indigenous Australians and concluded that access was the major issue and that ICT was embraced by indigenous Australians and able to be adaptable to other cultures provided people from that culture have input into ICT design and management.

Samaras (2005) identified similar access issues to Dyson (2004) and argues that the digital divide for indigenous Australians stems from socioeconomic inequalities. She concludes that more needs to be done by government and the information profession to ensure a more socially inclusive information society for all, but especially for indigenous Australians.

Now over 5 years later this concern about the digital divide here in Australia was again  identified by the University of Adelaide Dean of Aboriginal Education Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney speaking at the Australian Council for Educational Research national conference on indigenous education in very strong terms:

“Most Indigenous communities have had a decade of lag time in accessing and effectively using online services. ………. Policymakers need to act now or risk condemning indigenous Australians to digital ghettos.”

It would appear that we may still have a long way to go……

References

 Dyson L,E. (2004) Cultural issues in the adoption of information and communication technologies by indigenous Australians. Sudweeks F., Ess C. (eds). Proceedings cultural attitudes towards communication and technology. Murdoch University, Australia. 58-71.

Samara K. (2005) Indigenous Australians and the “digital divide”. Libri 55: 84-95.

Indigenous digital divide widening due to wrong education. Sourced from news.com.au on 23/09/12

I am toying with two potential areas of research, one of which is the complexities presented when trying to find balance between modern environmental issues and indigenous traditions.  After reading about the struggles that surface during traditional whale hunting practices, I began to wonder what issues are present in good old, land locked, Alberta.

The issues surfacing are a bit different.  Instead of traditional practices conflicting with modern animal rights issues, Albertans are facing conflict related to the oil industry – Northern Alberta is “ground zero” for the Tar Sands Gigaproject, in which more than 20 companies are currently operating.  The Mikisew Cree First National, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Fort McKay Cree Nation, Beaker Lake Cree First Nation Chipewyan Prairie First Nation, and the Metis are facing destruction of land, ecosystems, cultural heritage and community health.

Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign

When I was feeling overwhelmed by the negative impact of the Tar Sands, I checked out the other side of the issue, visiting the Alberta Government’s web site.  Alberta’s First Nations Consultation Policy on Land Management and Resource Development is working to balance resource development and Treaty rights, using feedback from First Nations, “providing a voice for Aboriginal people in the province’s regional land use planning”.

Alberta’s Oil Sands (Government Web Site)

Other Sites I found:

Turtle Island Native Network

Rights of Mother Earth: Restoring Indigenous Life Ways of Responsibility and Respect

Tar Sands Action