Northern Perspectives

The Parks Canada website offers visitors information about traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) and helps explain some fundamental differences between Western and Aboriginal worldviews relating to nature and history. As an example they cite Dene oral histories that track the migration of peoples resulting from volcanic eruptions. Using “western” scientific techniques these stories have been scientifically “proven”.

Parks Canada -Aboriginal vs. Western World Views

The site links to a number of  a articles in Northern Perspectives ( a publication of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee) that  further clarifies notions of traditional knowledge in contrast to western science.

An interesting comment in Martha Johnson’s article on Dene traditional knowledge mentions that western science is rooted in quantitative  analysis while aboriginal peoples value qualitative information.