The past few weeks we have been reading many materials regarding the recognition and revitalization of the traditional ways of First Nations people. As I research materials for my course project, I came across this website from National Geographic regarding the Tar Sands of Alberta.

How are the Tar Sands related to the challenges faced by First Nations people? I think that the biggest challenge put in front of First Nations people is how cultures in Canada view land.

The predominant culture sees the land as a “resource” first. Land is meant to be extracted, refined, exported. Land drives economy, creates jobs, and puts Canada on the global map as a provider of raw materials.

First Nation groups see land as something radically different from this. It is part of their “self”. Land cannot be removed from the self. It is tied to each of us. It is tied to the air we breathe and the animals that roam over, squirm under, and fly over, its surface. It is part of their economy too. For the land provides that which they need to survive. It is revered and honoured in daily life. There are spoken codes of conduct of how one interacts with the land, and this conduct presents itself in the traditional stories passed down from one generation to the next. As Dr. Nancy Turner spoke of in last week’s podcast… “Most of the people that I have worked with have lived in their community their entire life and so have their family, and their family’s family, going back to the beginning of time. They are situated in a specific place. Their wisdom, stories, language, all sits in that place. A lot of this knowledge of plants, environments, and how to live their lives is situated in these places.”

Enter the indigenous peoples of Ft. McKay, a small community located at the very heart of the Tar Sands. The indigenous peoples of Ft. McKay are literally surrounded by the Tar Sands and have watched their land literally disappear from underneath them for the past 20 years. How will the First Nations people of Ft. McKay save what is left of their culture when huge corporations have invested billions into the extraction, purification, and exportation of those lands?

I believe it is a difference in perspective that is the biggest challenge facing indigenous peoples of North America.

Mel Burgess.