About me
My name is Jasmine Lambert, and I’m a 3rd-year Master’s student in the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, finishing up writing my Master’s thesis under Dr. Rob VanWynsberghe’s supervision. I also work at the UBC Farm in the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (CSFS) as the Children & Youth Program Coordinator with Education Manager Camil Dumont and Education Director (as well as my committee member) Dr. Will Valley.
My Story
These days, I spend most of my time on traditional, ancestral, and unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory, but I have spent my whole life as an uninvited settler on various Indigenous lands. I am the only child of a mixed-race couple – my mother is from Taiwan, and my father is some mix of English and French. I had the privilege of growing up on ṮEḴTEḴSEN (Saturna Island), the least populated of the Southern Gulf Islands. Various Coast Salish, specifically W̱SÁNEĆ, and even more specifically Tsawout and Tseycum First Nations, knew ṮEḴTEḴSEN as an important place for sustenance, navigation, and cultural significance. I feel so grateful to have grown up on Saturna – all the time I spent in and around the water, wandering through the forest, feeding the sheep, and pulling brooms all shaped me into who I am today, and really solidified my interests both academically and personally.
What research do I do?
My Master’s research is about how the children’s programs at the UBC Farm can move towards more land-based learning, and how we can go about doing that in a good way. I’ve been working at the UBC Farm for 2 summers now, first as a Children’s Program Assistant and then more recently in my current role, the Children & Youth Program Coordinator. I’ve had such a great experience being so entangled in the space that my research is focused on. I entered my Master’s being very intentional about what type of research I wanted to conduct – I wanted to make sure that I was doing something that would make a real impact and change the way that things had always been done. I feel confident in saying that I’ve done exactly that – I had the very unique opportunity of being able to conduct research on the children’s programs and make recommendations on how they could be improved, and then transition into a role where I could enact those changes. I cannot thank Rob enough for supporting me through my Master’s degree and helping put me in touch with the necessary people to turn my vision into reality.
As part of my Master’s research, I had to do a great deal of learning and unlearning to get to a point where I felt good about the project that I was putting together. The first major hurdle was the different terms I chose to use. From the beginning, I felt that “land-based learning” and “land-based education”, and my understanding of these terms, were what I was striving for and what I imagined the UBC Farm Summer Camps ideally embodying. My reasoning for this came from my own upbringing and my own connection to land and water, and I feel that my definition of land-based education is in line with Dr. Alex Wilson’s from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. Dr Wilson leads the Indigenous land-based program at the University of Saskatchewan, and she defines Indigenous land-based education as a spectrum, with outdoor education on one end and Indigenous land-based education on the other. Dr. Wilson writes, “Indigenous land-based education is relational and focuses on understanding how knowledge connects to and comes from land, including water, sky and everything connected to them” (UNESCO, 2021).
As I began to read more articles for my literature review, I came across so many differing perspectives on what land-based education is, if it has to be Indigenous-led, how it differs from other terms like outdoor education or nature connection or place-based education, and if I could even use the term land-based education at all. I felt like every paper I read and every person I talked to had a different perspective, and I felt overwhelmed and disoriented with all the information I was coming across. I went to my academic mentors, as well as my peers, and started having more conversations about these things that were weighing on my mind.
At this point, I had so many people telling me their own perspectives and what they thought I should do that I was questioning if I could or should even be doing this type of work. As an uninvited settler on Indigenous lands, I honestly started to think that I shouldn’t be doing this type of research, despite my desire to support people in connecting to their local environments while simultaneously uplifting Indigenous voices in this space.
I was feeling lost in my academic pathway, yet one conversation stuck strongly in my mind. My best friend, Judy Cristante, is Cree, Métis, and Anishinaabe on her mom’s side. Judy and her family have been a great inspiration to me in this work. They have taught me so much, been patient with me, shared stories with me, and continue to learn with me. Judy’s mom, Kolette, was a Kindergarten teacher for decades, and then began working as the Indigenous Education Teacher Consultant (Middle Schools) for School District 61 for the past few years. One of my conversations with Kolette was about an initiative that they were talking about rolling out in the school district, where each school would have a non-Indigenous person who had put in a lot of time and effort into learning about various Indigenous topics, which people could go to if they wanted to further their own education. The reasoning that Kolette shared with me for this person intentionally not being Indigenous was that many Indigenous people in these spaces are getting burnt out because they are always being called upon or expected to be a touchpoint for people who want to learn more about Indigeneity. Kolette was very strong in her perspective that Indigenous people shouldn’t always carry the burden of being the “go-to” person. This conversation really stuck in my mind because I felt that I was someone who, even though I still have so much more to learn, I also have that personal interest and passion for being someone who could dedicate much of my life to playing a similar role. This became a driving value for me.
I was still feeling disoriented, and I happened to attend an event at xʷc̓ic̓əsəm that was led by an Indigenous educator talking about land-based learning. At the end of the session, I asked if land-based education was something that only Indigenous people could lead. Their answer was yes. Due to the nature of the event, there wasn’t much room for follow-up or asking about specifics, and in this moment, I felt even more overwhelmed and disoriented.
The project that I had spent the past year and a half working on felt like it was falling apart in front of my eyes. The last thing that I wanted to do with my research was to offend or cause harm. I felt like I needed to seek out someone who I could have a conversation with about my thoughts. I felt like I needed to speak with someone who was qualified, relevant to my research area, and someone I could relate to.
Meeting Ena Point
When I came across Ena Point, a widowed mother of 3, an author, co-founder of her own consulting firm and her own wellness company, and the Indigenous Engagement Relations Pedagogist at UBC Childcare. When I read Ena’s description on the UBC Childcare website, I felt that she was the person that I was looking for. She works with children, is an integrated member of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm community, and is a Filipina-Canadian settler. As a mixed-race Taiwanese and Canadian person myself, even just reading about Ena I felt that initial connection that we often get when we come across someone similar to us. I told Ena about what was running through my mind at the time about my research and asked for her opinion. She told me that we need to stop saying no to things and instead support each other and work together. Even just those words helped my heart breathe a sigh of relief. My driving goal with this work is to help uplift and uphold Indigenous knowledges and voices, and hearing from Ena that I could simultaneously carry out my original research plan and bring Indigenous people into my work when they wanted to be included really helped solidify my perspective and place in this research.
I also asked Ena about the language surrounding “land-based learning” and if I could even use that term as a non-Indigenous person. She told me that we don’t need to focus on the differences between terms, but instead on how they work together. She recommended that I work towards bringing xʷməθkʷəy̓əm people into my work at the Children’s Programs at the UBC Farm, and until then, highlighting the need for practicing respect and learning from the land. I felt solace in being able to speak with Ena and hear her perspective on what I was struggling with. Since that first meeting, I’ve seen Ena a handful of times, and I am so grateful that she continues to check in on me and ask how my research is going. The day I spent with her significantly helped me feel more confident in my approach to my research.
After going through all of the back and forth, specifically on the use of terms, I have been able to refocus my energy on working at the Farm, enacting change in the children’s programs, and simultaneously working on my Master’s thesis. This specific example really helped remind me that work worth doing is not always going to be easy, and to be completely honest, I think it makes it even more worth doing because of the challenges. Working on this research project has changed me in so many ways, and I am so grateful for everything it has given me.
My current role at the UBC Farm
In my role now at the UBC Farm, I have the opportunity to work on anything that’s related to children’s programming that takes place at the Farm. I help out with Teacher Candidates who get placed with us for their Community Field Experience, support various self-directed studies, lead tours and field trips for schools, help plan and deliver our summer camp programming, support with children’s workshops and much more! I really enjoy how dynamic the work at the Farm is, and the people are a huge draw for me – there are so many great people who work at the Farm year-round, as well as the seasonal workers that we have join us in the spring and summer months. It’s always great to see familiar faces and get to know people from all over who end up at the Farm.
What’s next for me?
As for what’s next, I’m not exactly sure! I’m very happy with where I’m at right now, and I’d love to continue working at the UBC Farm. I’m still finishing up with writing my Master’s thesis, and once that’s done, I’ll finally have one full-time job instead of two and a half! I’m looking forward to whatever the future may hold, while trying to take in the opportunities that I have now. I think that my career will always be centered around the environment and encouraging people to remember what many of us have forgotten – that we are a part of nature and that nature is a part of us. Although I don’t know exactly what different titles I will hold in the future, I know that this guiding principle is one that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Different Shades of Sky
