FIrst Nations Studies

Why is it that Chief Joseph Brant, one of the key indigenous North American leaders, is fondly remembered in Canada, but largely forgotten or dismissed in the United States?  How did his strong Anglican heritage shape his leadership?  How did Brant face betrayal and setback in his life?  What can we learn from his life?  Would Canada still exist without his contribution?

I was Research Fellow and International Conservation Liaison for developing national parks in the Central Mountains of Formosa with the Bunun tribe, whose sacred homeland is Yushan National Park and well beyond the park’s borders. After witnessing, reporting and publishing the desecration of a Bunun tribal cemetery by Taiwanese hotel developers in the Bunun hot springs village of Tungpu (Eisenberg 2015), I was invited to serve as Research Fellow and Professor at Yushan Tribal College with the First Peoples of Formosa (Figure 1). It was a great privilege and an honor to live and work with Formosan Native Peoples who are proactively engaged in practicing and invigorating their cultural heritage. They deeply enriched my life and our world with their creativity, wisdom, grace, kindness and generosity. The First Peoples of Formosa are linguistically Austronesian and today they are approximately 2.3 percent of the population of the island, Formosa, which is largely Chinese. I asked my students to consult with their elders and write from the heart.

Coyote U: Stories and Teachings From the Secwepemc Education Institute is a unique collection of writing from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Territory of British Columbia. This anthology is the product of a highly successful Aboriginal Educational Program created by the partnership of the Secwepemc Cultural Education Institute and Simon Fraser University (1989–2010). The text demonstrates that a Native- administered post secondary institution can pioneer new ways of combining Native and Non-Native educational philosophy to produce a literary collection of outstanding quality. The student works consist of poetry, personal essays, interviews, and short stories that speak to current issues of identity, the legacy of residential schools, and the power of traditional teachings of Shuswap elders. Recommended reading for Native Studies courses that focus on Native Education, and Native literature courses at the post secondary level.

In 2002, the Federal Court in Canada v. Misquadis ruled that Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) had discriminated against the urban Aboriginal community, a decision upheld on appeal (Ardoch Algonquin First Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2003). The court determined that Aboriginal political organizations can represent urban Aboriginal interests, and that the HRSDC must provide funding for the infrastructure required to deliver services and establish representative governance. In doing so, the court defined off-reserve Aboriginal people as a group of self-organized, self-determining, and distinct communities, analogous to a reserve community. While reinforcing the political connection between on- and off-reserve Aboriginal people, the court more importantly created an Aboriginal community separate from the reserve. This essay will revisit Misquadis and explore the underlying assumptions about urban Aboriginal communities upset by this ruling.

This study seeks to understand what aspects of Crown consultation with indigenous groups influence the meaningfulness of the British Columbia (BC) Environmental Assessment (EA) process through the perspectives of indigenous groups, and whether the BC EA Office (BCEAO) has adapted and made improvements regarding the issues raised by indigenous groups. Ten issue types are analyzed using content analysis on 250 submissions (e.g. emails, reports, and tracking tables) to determine whether there has been improvement through reforms in the Environmental Assessment Act, 2018. Additionally, statistical analyses (e.g. multiple linear and logit regression) are employed to determine whether (a) the level of involvement of the Crown (via the BCEAO) in EA and (b) expanding the scope of EA to include cumulative effects (i.e. of multiple projects over time and space) increases the meaningfulness of consultation. Findings show that there has been no institutional adaptation to address any of the issue types in the content analysis, beyond semantics and empty provisions. Thus, this study asserts that the Crown is not responsive to the issues decreasing meaningfulness. The statistical analyses find that increasing the assessment scope to include cumulative effects increases the overall meaningfulness of consultation by making the process more holistic, reflecting certain aspects of indigenous worldviews. No relationship is found between the level of Crown involvement in EA and the overall meaningfulness of consultation; however, increased Crown involvement is associated with a decrease in the use of overly technical language in decision-making materials and documents.

This paper examines Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women in the context created by the challenges of colonization on the balance and maintenance of gender roles in traditional Haudenosaunee society. A distinctly female Haudenosaunee perspective provides a unique view of our history and gives voice to our resilience as Haudenosaunee women.

Amidst the ever-changing terrain of contemporary shape-shifting colonization, this article discusses how Indigenous peoples engage in turning away from the state and the ways these movements take place in unexpected and everyday ways. I will examine three examples of ways that Indigenous international relations are being practiced
so as to bypass states and create new forms of solidarity across colonial borders: "Indigenous Women of the Americas Defenders of Mother Earth Treaty Compact (2015) that spans from Turtle Island to South America; the Haida and Heiltsuk Treaty of Peace, Respect and Responsibility (2015) initiated to protect their relationship
with herring; and the Tyendinaga Mohawk blockade of the VIA rail in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en (2020).

The idea for this book arose in the spring of 2020. It began when one of us, Michael Paulsen, in December 2019 wanted to join the conference “Anthropocene—Reworking the Wound” in Katowice, Poland on June 17 to June 20, 2020, and offered to chair a panel session on “Pedagogies of the Anthropocene (s)”. The conference organizers, Ania Malinowska and Karolina Lebek, then wrote back affirmatively, after which Michael began to look for researchers to join the panel. The interest was indeed great, and already on January 10, 2020, we registered four panel sessions with a total of 20 researchers from around the world. Everyone was very excited to meet in Katowice. However, then COVID-19 pandemic came— the physical version of the conference was canceled, although some panels continued virtually. However, one of the panelists, jan jagodzinski, sug- gested that we “instead” transmute the panels into a book on Pedagogy and the Anthropocene. There seemed to be enough interest to reach the group that was to appear at the conference sessions. ‘I edit a series for Palgrave press called Educational Futures’, jan told Michael. Michael agreed to co-edit and wrote to the panelists to garner interest for such a book project. Most responded with a yes! One panelist, Shé Hawke, had been considering editing a Special Journal Issue on the Anthropocene and Inter-disciplinarity, with Reingard Spannring, and offered to consolidate editing energy into one robust and diverse book. As Reingard was now involved in another book, our editing team of three got to work. We drafted a proposal for Palgrave, which led to the publishing contract for us, for which we are extremely grateful. A huge thank you goes to Milana Vernikova, Antony Sami and everyone at Palgrave who helped with the execution of the book. Many thanks also to both the original panelists and the authors of the 16 chapters of this book. It has been a fantastic journey, with valued commitment from so many good people full of energy and passion for the project. Many of us have yet to meet in person, but we are not strangers to one another’s work, or our shared commitment to a ‘new earth’.

This research is an ethnography of 30 people on Indigenous experiences, place-making and the cultural practices that are used to construct meaning and cultural renewal that leads to healing and decolonization in the Ottawa, Ontario area. The research explores the lives of those who reside in the city and have never lived in traditional territories, and those who continue to have roots there. These practices are observed through the lens of the three bodies of the individual, social, and body politic. Identity has moved beyond legacies of essentialized and bounded notions which in actuality are multiple and fluid. The study revealed themes of a continuum of experiences and practices including: territorialists who reside in the homeland; returners who have the Indigenous diasporic experience of longing for a homeland; learners who have been displaced from Indigenous communities for various reasons but have initiated cultural renewal; adaptors who have little to no connection to a homeland or Indigenous groups in the city; and urbanites who accept the city-as-home, often with multiple generations of residence in the city. The social body is enacted by Indigenous people who construct communities in cities through social practices such as welcoming others through physical places like Friendship Centres, universities, and social service organizations. Connections also occur in urbans hubs of activity through various practices such as cultural and arts events, ceremonies, and conferences. Cultural renewal is fundamental for the well-being of Indigenous people who have experienced decades of oppression as a result of the regulation of bodies, social actions, land and self-determination by the body politic. The cultural renewal of Indigenous people in cities creates space for healing, decolonization, reclamation, restoration, reconciliation and renewal.

Transmotion is a biannual, fully and permanently open-access journal inspired by the work of Gerald Vizenor. Transmotion will publish new scholarship focused on theoretical, experimental, postmodernist, and avant-garde writing produced by Native American and First Nations authors, as well as book reviews on relevant work in Indigenous Studies, and new creative work that seeks to push boundaries.

The indigenous populations of the Pacific Northwest have consistently maintained that proof of their long occupation in their traditional ethnographic territories is embedded in their oral traditions. These oral accounts are the primary methods for recording indigenous epistemology and history. From a native perspective, historical references contained within oral traditions are considered factual. However, the wes tern scientific community has not been as accepting of oral traditions, as actual accounts of the past. Geologists, archaeologists and physical anthropologists tend to revert to western science when reconstructing the past.
Native groups claim that information within their oral traditions is historically accurate. Therefore, one may presume that a comparison between oral traditions and scientifically known prehistoric and historic events would lead to similar interpretations. Past catastrophic
environm ental events (such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, floods, etc) with discrete, recognizable attributes, may serve as benchmarks for comparison to prehistoric references contained within oral traditions. For the most part, geologists have provided us with a specific range of dates and magnitudes for such events. In addition, such events, even of considerable age, would likely have been significant enough for a lasting record to be maintained by the indigenous population(s) in their oral traditions.
This study examines the relationships between the following three specific catastrophic paleoenvironmental events and native oral traditions that apparently refer to them: (1) the Mount Mazama climactic (or ‘caldera-forming’) eruption, 6850 b.p.; (2) the Bonneville/Cascade landslide, 900-400 b.p.; and (3) the megathrust earthquake related tsunami, 300 b.p.. The historical literature pertaining to indigenous groups (specific to each event) was reviewed for oral traditions that may refer to the event in question. Through the use of qualitative tables, relationships between the geological and archaeological evidence and the event depicted in the oral tradition are shown to exist. Moreover, a ‘qualitative measure’ is employed in a descriptive fashion, where a distinction is made between clear relationships and less obvious ones.
Perhaps such an evaluation of a portion of the indigenous perspective within a western scientific framework may serve as a foundation for further work in this area. Eventually, a combination of the two perspectives may yield a richer, more holistic view of the past.

Manitou College, one of the first Canadian post-secondary
institutions for indigenous students, was created in 1973 on
the abandoned site of the missile base located in La Macaza,
Quebec. Despite its very short existence, Manitou College had
a considerable impact on the definition of a collective
indigenous identity and on the construction of First Nations
leadership in Canada and Quebec. Using primary and
secondary sources as well as new testimonies from key actors,
this article aims to contextualize the rise and fall of Manitou
College.

En 1973, dans les installations de l’ancienne base miliaire de La Macaza, au Québec, ouvrait l’un des premiers établissements postsecondaires destinés aux étudiants autochtones du Canada. Si l’expérience du Collège Manitou ne dura que quelques années, elle eut pourtant un effet considérable sur la fortification d’une identification collective, sur l’essor d’un leadership et sur le processus d’autonomisation autochtones au Canada et au Québec. À travers le recensement de sources primaires et secondaires et l’apport de nouveaux témoignages d’acteurs clés, cet article propose de retracer les grandes lignes qui ont caractérisé la création, le développement puis la fermeture du Collège Manitou.

As Indigenous peoples we have found it necessary both to react to and to differentiate ourselves from the beliefs, values and practices that have been imposed upon us through colonization. To make our resistance effective, we sometimes use the tools of the dominant society. The Unity Flag in the incarnation that is commonly known as the ‘Mohawk Warrior Flag’ is one example of this phenomenon. Flown all over the world, it serves as a symbol for the unity of Indigenous peoples, illuminating our discordant relationship with a world that remains dominated by beliefs and values that are alien to us. This paper will introduce a Kanienkehaka perspective on the Flag, reconstructing its symbols and history and illustrating how it carries the message of unity-in-resistance for the various peoples who have turned to it for support in their ongoing struggles with colonialism.

Kuessipan de Naomi Fontaine est-il vraiment un roman, ou fonctionne-t-il comme un pendant du blog tenu par cette auteure, Innushkuess ? Cette communication prononcée à l'occasion de la Journée des Jeunes chercheurs du CRILCQ à Québec tente de questionner les liens entre le roman et le blog dans l'écriture de Naomi Fontaine.

This presentation that explores First Nations and Aboriginal homelessness trends in Canada was one of five presentations to officially launch the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). The COH builds on the work of the Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN) and introduces a program of research that includes local, provincial and national monitoring activities, as well as original research that addresses key issues in homelessness. COH includes researchers, service providers, policy and decision makers, people with lived experience of homelessness as well as graduate and undergraduate students from across Canada with a passion for social justice issues and a desire to solve homelessness in our communities.

The question of how the 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms (DCHP-1) fares from a perspective of decolonization is the focus of this chapter. DCHP-1 is assessed from both a 1960s perspective, for which it was quite modern, and a present-day perspective, where it inevitably falls short. Examples from DCHP-1 include outdated proper names, e.g. Inuit < Eskimo, or the documentation of the terms Indian, which occurs in 137 compound constructions, including treaty Indian, and residential school, which is, in gross ignorance of the fact, not properly defined or linguistically marked. DCHP-1 exhibits at least three kinds of colonial bias, which are illustrated with examples. Charles Crate's correspondence with editorial assistant Joan Hall offers a frank view on the effects of colonization in the remote community of Albert Bay, BC, through the eyes of an untrained, but well-meaning non-Indigenous teacher, as Crate was teaching high school in that village, while contributing to the dictionary. The chapter, which can merely start to address the issue of decolonization for DCHP-1, concludes with preliminary thoughts of any remnant colonial bias in the current, 2017 edition, to be found at www.dchp.ca/dchp2.

This  study  is  an  interpretative  and  critical  analysis  of  Law  Nº  20.249,  which regulates  the  destination,  administration  and  the  6 nality  of  all  coastal  marine space of the original peoples and of the Rule Nº 134 that normalizes this Law, in
the framework of the complex judicial, administrative and social situation, that affects the administration of Chile´s denominated coastal borders.

In Red Skin, White Masks Glen Sean Coulthard speaks to the asymmetries that plague state-driven attempts at enforcing recognition, reciprocity, and reconciliation with First Peoples communities in post-TRC Canada. Although the exigency of achieving a mutually-beneficial, reciprocal form of communication between settler-state and First Peoples has grown especially visible in our present moment, the mechanics of listening and speaking both within and between communities have in fact long been a pivotal concern in First Peoples’ fiction.

This project investigates the functions of dialogue in Greek-Cherokee novelist Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. With attention to King’s unique style of writing non-dialogues between characters, as well as the structural role that dialogue plays in his writing more broadly, my analysis shows how the act of refusing to listen becomes a means for transforming and generating new conversations across different (typically intercommunal) power dynamics.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) implicitly recognizes urban Indigenous self-determination and acknowledges collective and individual Indigenous rights. This essay examines the tensions associated with the Declaration’s acknowledged recognition of Indigenous collective self-determination. The purpose is to expose the complexities inherent when attempting to reconcile the Declaration with First Nations and urban Aboriginal political aspirations, Canadian court decisions, federal Indian policies, and the protective mechanisms of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The author cautions that additional studies are required probing these and other issues prior to First Nation, Aboriginal, and Canadian political leaders venturing forward in their desires to implement and activate the Declaration’s provisions to promote Indigenous community development.

For the very first event in Simon Fraser University's (SFU) new "Research Masterclass" series, Jenna Walsh, SFU Indigenous Initiatives Librarian, interviews IPinCH Project Director George Nicholas. The main idea behind the Masterclass series is to have a group of prominent SFU researchers tell the story of their research path and the "best practices" and tips they learned along the way - how they came to be interested in the topic, how their research directions have changed over the years, any major shifts in direction, who their collaborators are and how they developed those collaborations

This interview with a Native Elder of the Ohlone/Costanoan people was conducted in her ancestral home of the Indian Canyon. Anne‐Marie Sayers speaks about her own history, and of the importance of her spiritual and ancestral heritage, of the environmental crisis and its spiritual roots, and of the traditional emphasis of living in balance with Spirit in nature.

The Wet’suwet’en are currently struggling to affirm their Aboriginal and territorial rights through the British Columbia treaty process. While this process continues, resource extraction activities remove large volumes of culturally important resources. At present, very few areas of the their territory have not been impacted by logging or mining development. Understandably, the Wet’suwet’en feel a sense of urgency regarding the conservation and protection of their natural and cultural resources. This paper examines how the Wet’suwet’en adapted the existing archaeological process within the resource management industry to better reflect their vision and cultural values. The creation of non-legislated policy and protocol agreements with various industry and government entities, combined with the Wet’suwet’en Territorial Stewardship Plan (WTSP), has allowed this First Nation to centrally position themselves in the archaeological process, which did not adequately address their needs. The primary result has been greater Wet’suwet’en involvement in decisions made regarding the mana- gement of their cultural resources.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the birthplace of the Greenpeace movement, has been a significant site for the articulation and enactment of multifaceted environmental
consciousness. Since 2010, First Nation groups and environmental NGOs have come together to oppose the construction of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in the form of public protests and demonstrations. Using a social networks perspective, we closely examine the nature of these protests and the convergence of First Nation groups and environmental NGOs. We argue that the Vancouver protests ultimately failed to transform into a social movement and had limited impact. While a common concern for the environment links both stakeholders in their opposition to the pipeline project, their motivations are rooted in very different epistemic concerns. For First Nation groups, resistance to the Enbridge pipeline is primarily tied to deeper political processes of regaining territorial control and ongoing struggles for cultural revival within British Columbia.

There is a surprising paucity of information about urban Aboriginal gambling behaviours and practices considering that the urban Aboriginal community is the fastest growing demographic group in Canada and that indigenous people have some of the highest rates of gambling and problem gambling. Interpreting the focus group findings from First Nations and urban Aboriginal participants in Alberta, this study provides insights about urban Aboriginal and rural First Nations attitudes about gambling and the perceived value of the provincial First Nations gaming industry. Although the First Nations focus groups’ were aware of gambling’s associated positive and negative outcomes, they were generally supportive of their communities’ decision to pursue casinos. The urban Aboriginal focus group however identified little positive about the casinos, even if its participants supported the First Nations capacity to pursue casino development. These tensions demand policy makers’ attention, for the First Nations Gaming Policy has the potential to amplify what is a growing ideological divide evident between First Nation and urban Aboriginal peoples.

“In the Orange fixed-wing is Larissa sitting for seventy
Rattling minutes in paramedic thought. She will unbuckle
In the imminent aftermath of when a building in
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwig was blackened like a
battleground…”
- “Re ember” (about the tragic 2019 house fire in KI)
-  Ripping down half the trees by Evan J (Montreal: McGill Queen Univ P.) 2021. pg 71

Evan J, Poet-Advocate-Educator, lives in Sioux Lookout, a remote town in Northwestern Territories where one out of every twenty students in his adult education classes, dies each year.

Light Magazine Oh, Canada...we have so much to answer for. What would it take for us to truly rediscover that every child matters? Before the COVID lockdown, I (Ruth) attended the Children of God musical where Corey Payette performs 'Gimikwenden Ina (Do You Remember)'. I invite you to listen to this song in remembering the 215 souls. (If it ever returns to Vancouver, may I humbly suggest you see it.) Many Canadians have been stunned by the revelation of 215 indigenous children found in an unmarked Kamloops grave. Founded in 1893, Kamloops Indian Residential School had once been the largest residential school in Canada. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation had only previously confirmed 51 deaths at the school. Ground penetrating radar was used in this discovery.

In 2016, The Bill Reid Centre at Simon Fraser University, along with SFUÕs New Media Lab, launched the first tour of a mobile app titled êmesh (To Walk). When finalized, the app will present three walking tours around SFUÕs Burnaby Mountain Campus that focus on Indigenous content. Along with presenting various place names in the languages of the local Tsleil Waututh and Squamish Nations, the app locates Indigenous artworks on Burnaby campus and signals their connection to the unique and diverse worlds that shape them. This paper presents a narrative account of the theory, circumstances, and the scholarship that guided the app project to this point, and presents examples of how the app seeks to decolonize art and landscape in the context of SFU Burnaby. However, its primary focus is the theoretical argument that giving authority to Indigenous perspectives regarding land and art can disrupt the dominant paradigm of settler society, and bring about understanding and respect by requiring the inquirer to be open to different realities.