Protecting Biocultural Heritage and Land Rights

Published as part of our Indigenous Perspectives series featuring Indigenous-led initiatives to address and respond to climate change.

1. Introduction and context

The Ndakina, the ancestral territory of the W8banaki 1 Nation, extends approximately from Akigwitegw (the Etchemin River) in the east to Massessoliantegw (the Richelieu River) in the west, and from the St. Lawrence River in the north to the Atlantic coast and the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and part of Massachusetts in the south (see Figure 1). Currently, the Nation has more than 3,000 members in two communities, Odanak and Wôlinak. The Ndakina Office 2 works to safeguard the Ndakina in the long term, mainly via: 1) promoting and defending the Nation’s rights and interests on the Ndakina; 2) representing the Nation in territorial consultations and land claims; 3) documenting, preserving, showcasing and passing on the knowledge of the W8banakiak; and 4) supporting the Nation in fighting and adapting to climate change. To fulfill this mission, the Office favours an approach of territorial affirmation rather than comprehensive land claims.

Figure 1: Map of the Ndakina, ancestral territory of the W8banaki Nation (GCNWA, 2021).

The right of the W8banakiak to traditional activities, cultural continuity, and self‑determination is connected to territorial integrity. Research on modern use and occupation of the land conducted by the Office and for specific groups in the Nation (for example, youth or women) has clearly demonstrated this (see, for example, GCNWA, 2016). This research has also shown that human activities such as agricultural intensification, land privatization and the pressure exerted by commercial and sport practices have significant impacts on the Nation’s traditional activities (hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering, etc.), knowledge, health, and, ultimately, stewardship capacity.  Despite these significant constraints and albeit with difficulty, the W8banakiak have been able to continue their ancestral activities over the years (Gill, 2003; Marchand, 2015).

To these pressures, climate change has now been added. The Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki launched projects focused on adapting to climate change in 2014–2015, based on an initial plan 3 (GCNWA, 2015).

As part of this initiative, members reported on how climate change is affecting the abundance, distribution, and health of species of wildlife, fish, and plants. One major effect is that, for many, the cycle and timing of hunting, trapping, and fishing have been disturbed; this varies between seasons but has intensified over the years. For example, hunters and trappers must stagger or sometimes cancel their activities. Winter travel has become more dangerous because of the fragility of the ice. Populations of some native species (for example, yellow perch) have dropped, and their meat may be of lower quality due to the proliferation of parasites that higher temperatures can bring. The quality and quantity of certain medicinal plants have also been negatively affected by higher temperatures, as when some medicinal plants dry out, they produce less essential oil. The proliferation of exotic invasive species is also an issue. Another major effect that many have observed is disrupted water flow and accelerated bank erosion, especially for Alsig8tegw (St. François River) and W8linaktegw (Bécancour River).

Overall, these changes have had major impacts on the way of life of many members of the Nation who practice sustenance, ritual, or social activities. The fact that these activities are vulnerable to climate change significantly reduces members’ cultural continuity and ability to transmit knowledge and practices, which ultimately impacts their health.

2. Assessing climate change adaptation initiatives

This case study is focused on two specific aspects of climate change adaptation initiatives: 1) project management, and 2) program governance and funding. What factors help a climate change adaptation project maximize its positive ecological and social impact, and what characteristics mean programs can help communities successfully adapt to a warming cliamte?

We find that the Ndakina Office has prioritized access to the land and cultural continuity through three projects to prevent and mitigate the degradation of biological and cultural resources: 1) Evaluating the reproduction success of lake sturgeon and restoring its habitat (2012–2018), 2)  Evaluating the impact of climate change on the availability of medicinal plants and the proliferation of exotic invasive species in a health context (2018–2019), and 3)  Evaluating erosion and flood risks on the banks of Alsig8tegw (St. Francis River) and W8linaktegw (Bécancour River)] (better known as the Erosion Project, 2019–present). These three examples were selected because they identified similar vulnerability factors and have taken similar approaches to community engagement.

https://twitter.com/ClimateChoices/status/1450146346598551554

3. The three cases

3.1. Management of species of cultural importance: lake sturgeon

The W8banaki Nation continues to have an important cultural connection with the lake sturgeon4 (the emblem of the Odanak community) and in particular the populations of the St. Lawrence River and its watersheds. The fish remains part of the Nation’s diet, and is especially prized as a dish for community gatherings. For 10 years now, the Odanak Land and Environment Office5 (known by its French acronym BETO) has conducted in‑depth documentation of the reproduction of the lake sturgeon in the St. Francis River, near the Drummondville hydroelectric dam where there is a spawning ground, with a view to proposing avenues for conservation efforts. The resulting research has shown that poor water flow management by hydroelectric stations has a negative influence on the sturgeon’s reproductive ecology, particularly during periods of migration and spawning (Dufour-Pelletier et al., 2021; see also Clément-Robert et al., 2016). Extreme weather events such as droughts, floods or heavy total precipitation further threaten the reproduction and long‑term survival of lake sturgeon in the area (COSEWIC, 2017).

In this context, BETO’s initiatives to monitor lake sturgeon reproduction and recovery have had a significant impact. Site management and water flow management plans have been recently set up, as has a sanctuary area where sport fishing is prohibited before the spawning season. These efforts were made in partnership with major regional actors such as Hydro‑Québec and the Minister of Forests, Wildlife, and Parks. Such protection and management measures are a hopeful sign for the species’ reproductive success and survival rate in the future. On the technical side, the BETO has developed advanced monitoring and management techniques. In a meeting, the project manager strenuously insisted that testimonials from certain W8banakiak fishers and knowledge holders were important for identifying and characterizing research sites of interest for initial work, planning and following up.6 In this sense, the efforts regarding the lake sturgeon are an excellent example of the integration of W8banakiak knowledge with western science. On the socio‑economic side, the long‑term project meant that a good dozen W8banakiak could be hired and trained, deepening the cultural ties between members and this emblematic species (see Photo 1). Furthermore, in material and financial terms, the funds generated helped to consolidate and grow the BETO, increasing its credibility and legitimacy with other regional actors.

Photo 1: Members of the Odanak community participate in sorting drift material (BETO, 2015).

3.2. Managing medicinal plants and exotic invasive species

In various studies, members have consistently stated that the intensification of climate change is disrupting the distribution and quality of plant species in southern Quebec. This disruption includes the proliferation of certain invasive species (for example, common reed and Japanese knotweed), which compete with valued species such as cattails or yarrow (GCNWA, 2015, 2016). Climate change also lowers the quality of important indigenous plants, as global warming leads them to dry out more quickly. These problems are of significant concern. At issue is not just a resource, but also members’ capacity to transmit knowledge and educate future generations. This is all the more concerning given that the W8banakiak have suffered the disruption of their ethnobotanical knowledge due to the colonial past and divisions between generations that they experienced; despite these challenges, interest in this knowledge and these practices continues (GCNWA, 2016).7 The project had two objectives regarding these issues: 1) to document and promote the availability and variety of medicinal plants in communities in a time of climate change, and 2) to promote the transmission of knowledge about medicinal plants, traditional medicine, and climate change.

The project promoted intergenerational ties by directly connecting Elders with younger people, which led the younger participants to develop a strong interest in traditional medicine.

The project had several positive outcomes. Interviews with knowledge holders gave researchers a better understanding of their perceptions of climate change’s impact on medicinal plants and ethnobotanical knowledge. A transect inventory method developed by the BETO, the BETW, and knowledge holder Michel Durand Nolett, used especially in wetlands and forested areas, helped provide more in‑depth data on the zones prioritized by the two communities and on plant species of seasonal interest. Vulnerable areas were identified by cross‑referencing the distribution of plant species of interest with that of EIS. The study also had a capacity‑building and awareness‑raising component: knowledge holders led sharing workshops, a community garden was set up, a booklet and videos on medicinal plants were developed, along with other efforts to raise awareness of EIS‑related issues (see Photo 2). The project promoted intergenerational ties by directly connecting Elders with younger people, which led the younger participants to develop a strong interest in traditional medicine. For example, a young Abenaki woman working at the BETO has now been approached about taking over the transmission of such knowledge about ancestral plants.

Photo 2: Filming a video on medicinal plants (Ndakina Office, 2019).

3.3. Assessing erosion and flood risks in the context of climate change

Water systems have always been dwelling places for the W8banakiak. Alsig8tegw (the St. Francis River) and W8linategw (the Bécancour River) are key witnesses of the Nation’s presence in Quebec, first semi‑permanent and then permanent. Many locations along the banks of these rivers have been recognized as important places of occupation and registered by Quebec’s Minister of Culture and Communications. Oral and written sources and settlement patterns have also identified other sites of great potential interest (for example, portages, campsites, ceremonial sites or burial sites). Today, many W8banakiak still practice activities on the same rivers, including hunting, fishing and gathering. However, climate change is accelerating erosion along Alsig8tegw and W8linategw (Roy and Boyer, 2011; Tremblay, 2012). Members confirmed this trend in interviews conducted for the climate change adaptation plan (GCNWA, 2015). Erosion and sedimentation can have major impacts on water quality and fish habitats, and therefore fishing. They can also damage important archaeological and cultural sites.8 The first phase of the project to assess erosion and flood risks along the banks of the rivers Alsig8tegw and W8linaktegw in the context of climate change established the extent of the degradation and documented its impact on the archaeological and cultural heritage of the region.

From this work, observation and recorded data have tracked erosion mechanisms in dozens of zones with archaeological or cultural potential, the implementation of erosion vulnerability indices, and the creation of tracking sheets (see Photos 3 and 4). This risk assessment should help the Nation to better plan and manage the efforts needed to mitigate erosion impacts and protect these sites. As in the lake sturgeon monitoring project, some W8banakiak recognized for their knowledge of navigation were consulted to help researchers understand the history of, and changes in, the hydromorphology and ecology of the two rivers. Beyond archaeological considerations, one field employee reported that the project allowed them to explore the territory in greater detail than usual, because of the study’s intersections between biophysical features and topological features. This work helped to build the capacity of the archaeology and biology teams and opened the door to developing joint projects. Once again, BETO and BETW participation in this project and its fieldwork activities provided jobs to members of the Nation.

Photo 3: Observation of erosion dynamics in zones with archaeological potential (BETO, 2020).

4. Lessons learned and best practices

4.1. Lessons learned for climate change adaptation advance planning

As stated above, the GCNWA launched its climate change and adaptation efforts with the help of a provincial program to support the creation of climate change adaptation plans. Since the funding was short‑term (one year, after a long approval period), the program excluded all implementation activities, preventing any application of a longer‑term and more promising vision.9 Members of the Ndakina office and the BETO and BETW pointed out many other gaps as well, including the limited scope of the consultation and the top‑down plan implementation approach that involved excessively close monitoring of the process and delays in execution. The result of this process was a rigid and standardized plan. It was difficult to integrate members’ key concerns, such as traditional Indigenous knowledge, which was dismissed in favour of measurements and quantification. (For example, little consideration was given to observation of ice or snow.) In retrospect, the focus on exhaustive data collection, analysis, and written reporting was deemed to be distant from members’ more concrete and practical priorities.

In response to this institutional context, and although the climate change adaptation plan provided significant information and orientations that directly led to some climate change adaptation projects, the Ndakina Office, the BETO, and the BETW launched an adaptation program that was more closely aligned with the priorities that members had expressed in various consultations on the use and occupation of the land, working with the opportunities available at the time. This is a more bottom‑up approach to planning.

4.2. Lessons learned for managing climate change adaptation projects

In our experience, when developing projects, it is important to take into account ecological, social and cultural dimensions and the Nation’s interests for the Ndakina. Good starting hypotheses for research work and correct diagnosis also require appropriate mobilization of scientific and traditional knowledge. The participation of knowledge holders and members (particularly Elders and youth) as advisors and for validation is especially useful for achieving this. Greater involvement of the Nation’s members and elected leaders remains a constant challenge. We have observed that they will get involved more directly in projects that provide them with tangible benefits (for example, jobs or salaries, access to equipment, or training or learning opportunities).

On a broader scale, we have seen that strong collaboration between the Nation’s administrative units and regional actors has allowed for a deeper analysis of issues and for more ambitious initiatives. In the two sections that follow, we will see that additional factors, such as the institutional and financial context, may be catalysts or obstacles for projects.

4.3. Lessons learned for climate change adaptation governance and funding

A project’s success depends greatly on the source and nature of its funding. The issue here lies in defining what “high‑quality” funding means for First Nations communities. The experiences of the three projects presented here show that quality funding must be sufficient, stable, flexible, available in cash and in kind, and tailored to community needs.10 Obviously, the volume, stability and long‑term continuity of funding help to ensure greater autonomy in planning and implementing climate change adaptation. For example, wildlife management and inventory work for the lake sturgeon predate the climate change adaptation plan and benefit from substantial multi‑year funding from the Aboriginal Fund for Species at Risk that allows for consistent program‑related decision making. This continuity of funding makes it possible to plan long‑term activities and thus maximize their impact. It is no less important, however, to obtain more ad hoc funding, given that the land and environment offices are small organizations. Such funding allows them to round out work teams, provide competitive wages to members of the Nation, and invest in up‑to‑date equipment.

In all three cases, feedback emphasized the value of funders leaving a certain amount of flexibility to project heads, resulting in greater independence in articulating the project and its orientations. Of the three projects, two were nearly not funded because they did not match the initial scope of the programs. For the project on medicinal plants done in collaboration with Indigenous Services Canada and Health Canada, it was necessary to negotiate the project’s eligibility before funding was obtained, which pushed back the approval and start‑up phases. The Erosion Project ran into similar difficulties. The Department of Crown‑Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs deemed work with an archaeological component to be ineligible for funding. The application was refused at first, but accepted after discussion and negotiation of the program’s scope.

A certain degree of independence is not the same thing as carte blanche. The Ndakina Office administrators we met with recognized the value of effective follow‑up. They appreciated when funders went beyond their administrative role to provide technical contributions as well. Another aspect of follow‑up they mentioned was the need to distinguish between the importance of ensuring project compliance (for expenses or deadlines, for example) and the importance of providing opportunities to exchange information and learn, especially between project leaders and the funder and between different communities funded (Indigenous and non‑Indigenous). Certain GCNWA‑led projects have a strong potential for being duplicated in or transferred to other communities or contexts, particularly innovative projects and those that were notably successful. Similarly, the Ndakina Office considers that, in current funding programs, the component for the community of practice to learn and share results is a poor relation of sorts, and that platforms showcasing successful Indigenous projects are extremely rare if not non‑existent.

In our experience, available funding must be designed in a specific or targeted manner for Indigenous communities (or, more broadly, for small rural communities). Otherwise, it is difficult for small administrative bodies like the Ndakina Office or the BETO/BETW to submit competitive applications. One possible solution would be to strengthen an association’s connections with regional organizations that have compatible visions and goals (for example, watershed organizations for the Erosion Project), to enable small organizations to seek more substantial funding. Other potential allies include major programs working to protect at‑risk species (such as the Aboriginal Fund for Species at Risk or the Quebec Wildlife Foundation), that set regional priorities each year. However, the species of cultural priority to the Nation (moose, lynx, yellow perch, lake sturgeon, etc.) rarely appear in those lists.11

The Nation’s sovereignty is negatively affected by this exclusion of key species from at-risk status. We believe that each nation must be able to define their own priority species for funding, but current federal mechanisms do not allow for such flexibility. This issue highlights the necessity of understanding the needs and priorities of each community and its organizations, so that proposed projects can be tailored to the local context and desires.

5. Conclusions and recommendations

The integrity of the Ndakina is critical for the W8banakiak to effectively exercise their rights regarding self‑determination and the practice of traditional activities. Over the last few years in particular, members have shared their growing concerns about the impact of climate change on these rights (hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering, etc.). Climate change affects both the quality and the quantity of species of wildlife, fish, and plants. Such resources also have a high cultural value, so the fact that these activities are vulnerable to climate change also reduces the Nation’s ability to transmit its culture between generations. The climate change adaptation‑related planning and three cases presented here have helped to highlight these concerns and impacts. The concrete outcomes of the three projects include deeper BETO and BETW expertise on the socioecology of the Ndakina, connecting traditional Indigenous knowledge and modern science; greater technical and material skills; tangible benefits for members and knowledge holders; closer collaboration among members, administrative units, and a variety of regional partners; and stronger intergenerational ties to strengthen a culture of territorial stewardship in youth.

The factors that contributed to the three projects’ success in planning, funding, and execution have led us to make the following recommendations.

Community-engagement recommendations:

  • Encourage research by communities. This allows them to mobilize their members, suggest good diagnostic measures, and set up efforts that are relevant to the community’s situation.
  • Promote participatory approaches to interventions that include Indigenous knowledge and modern science, and consider socio‑economic benefits (wages, building technical capacities) as central elements of participation and inclusion.
  • Encourage opportunities for networking in a spirit of collaboration between First Nations and regional actors whose missions and activities are often complementary with regard to sustainable environmental management.

Planning and funding recommendations:

  • For climate change adaptation plans (an essential tool for conceptualizing the issues, objectives, efforts and key stakeholders to involve), consult with members widely and in an ongoing way, and ensure that the planning framework comes from the community rather than following a template.
  • Provide Indigenous communities with recurring core funding so that they can both fight, and adapt to, climate change.
  • Ensure that funding for climate change adaptation programs is more flexible and able to accommodate cultural, spiritual and other dimensions, to fit the more holistic First Nations understanding of the land.
  • Adapt funding in certain sub‑sectors (such as species conservation) to communities’ specific needs and priorities.
  • Ensure that funding options open the door to more technical support and to opportunities for learning and discussion among participating First Nations.

The W8banaki Nation is currently updating its previous climate change adaptation plan, which covered 2015–2020. We have learned a great deal from the adaptation projects carried out in the last few years, and have every hope that this plan will take a queue from more inclusive planning processes so that we can work to successfully ensure the long‑term integrity of the territory needed for the Nation’s cultural continuity and self‑determination.

About the authors

Rémy Chhem is Environmental Project Manager at the Ndakina Office and is currently completing a Ph.D. in international development at the University of Ottawa.

A member of the W8banaki Nation, Suzie O’Bomsawin has worked as Director of the Ndakina Office of the Grand Council of the Waban-Aki Nation since 2013. A resident of the Odanak community, she is also very involved in various organizations dedicated to the interests of First Nations.

Jean-François Provencher is Executive Assistant at the Ndakina Office, and holds a master’s degree in environmental management from the Université de Sherbrooke.

Samuel Dufour‑Pelletier is a biologist and Director of the Bureau environnement et terre d’Odanak.

References

Ndakina Office. (2020). Projet de recherche sur l’impact des changements climatiques sur la disponibilité des plantes médicinales et la prolifération d’espèces exotiques envahissantes pour les communautés d’Odanak et de Wôlinak dans un contexte de santé. Wôlinak: Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki.

Clément-Robert, G., S. Gingras, M. Pellerin and R. Poirier. (2016). Enquête sur les sources de variation de débits de la rivière Saint-François durant la période de fraie de l’esturgeon jaune. Sherbrooke: Université de Sherbrooke.

Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). (2017[2006]). Assessment and Update Status Report on the Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) in Canada. Ottawa: Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, 124 p.

Dufour-Pelletier, Samuel, Émilie Paquin, Philippe Brodeur and Michel La Haye. (2021). “Reproduction de l’esturgeon jaune dans la rivière Saint-François : un exemple de participation des peuples autochtones à la conservation d’une espèce emblématique.” Le naturaliste canadien.

Dumont, P., Y. Mailhot and N. Vachon. (2013). Révision du plan de gestion de la pêche commerciale de l’esturgeon jaune dans le fleuve Saint-Laurent. Québec: Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec, 127 p.

Gill, Lucie. (2003). “La nation abénaquise et la question territoriale.” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, 33(2), p. 71–74.

Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki. (2015). Plan d’adaptation aux changements climatiques – 2015. Odanak: Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki.

Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki. (2016). Étude de l’utilisation et de l’occupation du territoire de la Nation W8banaki, le Ndakina, et des connaissances écologiques traditionnelles qui lui sont associées dans la zone d’influence du projet d’oléoduc Énergie-Est de Transcanada. Odanak: Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki.

Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki. (2021). Évaluation des risques d’érosion et d’inondation sur les berges des rivières Alsig8ntekw (Saint-François) et W8linatekw (Bécancour) dans un contexte de changements climatiques. Odanak: Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki.

Marchand, Mario. (2015). Le Ndakinna de la nation W8banaki au Québec : document synthèse relatif aux limites territoriales. Wôlinak: Ndakina Office, Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki.

Nolett Durand, Michel. (2008). Plantes du soleil levant Waban Aki : recettes ancestrales de plantes médicinales. Odanak.

Roy, A., and C. Boyer. (2011). Impact des changements climatiques sur les tributaires du Saint-Laurent. Presentation at the Colloque en agroclimatologie of the Quebec Reference Centre for Agriculture and Agri‑food (CRAAQ), Université de Montréal.

Tremblay, M. (2012). Caractérisation de la dynamique des berges de deux tributaires contrastés du Saint-Laurent : le cas des rivières Batiscan et Saint-François. Master’s thesis in geography, Université de Montréal.

Treyvaud, Geneviève, Suzie O’Bomsawin and David Bernard. (2018). “L’expertise archéologique au sein des processus de gestion et d’affirmation territoriale du Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki.” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, 48(3), p. 81–90.

Flood Vulnerability and Climate Change

1. Introduction

In a warming climate, Canadian cities are at risk of increasingly severe and frequent floods. Nearly 80 per cent of Canadian cities are built on floodplains, exposing populations, property, and infrastructure to flood risk (Golnaraghi et al., 2020; Jakob et al., 2015). The socioeconomic impacts of urban flooding are expected to worsen in the future because of population growth, expanding developments in flood-prone areas, and more frequent and severe extreme weather linked to climate change (Burn et al., 2016; Honegger & Oehy, 2016; Zhang et al., 2019). 

Urban flood risk is the product of three interacting variables: the flood hazard, the exposure of people and assets, and the vulnerability of people and assets to flood impacts (Agrawal et al., 2014; Armenakis et al., 2017; L. Chakraborty, 2021). Most Canadian studies measure the extent and severity of flood hazards, along with the associated exposure of people, property, and infrastructure, but they often fail to include socioeconomic vulnerability. In the context of flooding, socioeconomic vulnerability refers to characteristics of a person or group that influence their capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a flood hazard event (Cutter, 1996; Cutter et al., 2003; Wisner et al., 2004). 

Studies from other countries indicate that socially vulnerable communities are disproportionately exposed to flooding and are more significantly affected by its impacts, but there has been little such analysis in Canada (J. Chakraborty et al., 2019; Collins et al., 2019). Spatial assessment of socioeconomic vulnerability is fundamental for identifying local flood risks (Cutter et al., 2013; Guillard-Goncąlves et al., 2015) and would build on existing data about flood hazards to assess the extent to which property and populations are exposed. Measuring the distribution of socioeconomic vulnerability in a community is critical for prioritizing scarce resources to protect those most at risk.

Methods for measuring socioeconomic vulnerability to flood risk in Canada are in their infancy. For this reason, a case study such as this one, which seeks to validate methods, identify data gaps, and draw out potential implications for public policy, can help to advance our understanding. Windsor, Ontario, was identified as a suitable focus due to its considerable exposure to flood risk. The results reveal hotspots of flood risk across neighbourhoods that have both a high concentration of socially vulnerable groups and a high exposure to flooding. We also consider potential policy interventions to address this geographically concentrated flood risk, with a focus on socioeconomic vulnerability.

Study objectives

  • Understand the validity of data on socioeconomic vulnerability for measuring flood risk;
  • Generate knowledge about the spatial extent and geographic distribution of flood risk across a large urban centre, and assess whether vulnerable communities are disproportionately exposed to flooding; and,
  • Consider policy recommendations to address urban flood risk in ways that particularly protect the most vulnerable.

2. Methodology

This case study includes geospatial and quantitative analysis using national maps and datasets of flood hazards, residential properties, and census information (Table 1). The study area is the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and the unit of analysis is at the census tract level.12 Flood hazard extents were generated using JBA Risk Management’s 2018 Canada Flood Map, which quantifies fluvial (river-related) and pluvial (rain-related) flood risks at a 30-metre horizontal resolution.13 The 100-year recurrence interval—a flood the magnitude of which has a one per cent chance of occurring in any given year—was used as the hazard scenario (Holmes & Dinicola, 2010). 

The number of residential properties in the flood hazard area was determined through GIS-based spatial analysis of a 2018 national dataset of address points generated by DMTI Spatial Inc. The socioeconomic vulnerability of exposed populations at these address points was calculated using Statistics Canada census data for socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and demographic variables. These data were organized using principal component analysis14 to construct a neighbourhood deprivation index that displayed variation in socioeconomic vulnerability across the community. The maps of residential flood exposure and socioeconomic vulnerability were combined to reveal the geographic concentration of flood risk across the CMA. Finally, a bivariate correlation analysis was performed to investigate whether socially vulnerable groups were significantly exposed to flood risk.

Table 1. Datasets 

Click to enlarge

2.1 Study area 

The population of the Windsor CMA includes the City of Windsor and the Towns of Amherstburg, LaSalle, Lakeshore, and Tecumseh. Between 2011 and 2016, the CMA population grew by 3.1 per cent, from 319,246 to 329,144. Windsor CMA is the 16th largest metropolitan area in Canada, larger than Saskatoon, Regina, Sherbrooke, St. John’s, and Barrie, but smaller than Victoria, Oshawa, Halifax, St. Catharines-Niagara, and London (City of Windsor, 2018, 2021). Windsor’s socio-demographic profile, key aspects of which are summarized in Table 2, is reasonably typical for a city of its size in Canada.

Table 2. Key Socio-Demographic Characteristics – Windsor CMA 15

Source: Statistics Canada, 2017 (Click to enlarge)

Windsor is located in a low-lying area surrounded by Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. Flooding has been a consistent problem for the city, with significant events in 2016, 2017, and 2020 (Battagello, 2020; Canadian Underwriter, 2017; CBC News, 2017). An extreme rain event in 2017, for instance, led to flooding in over 6,000 basements and caused $165 million in insured losses (Insurance Bureau of Canada, 2019). In response, the City of Windsor initiated a Sewer and Coastal Flood Protection Master Plan designed to assess and improve its flood mitigation strategies (CBC News, 2020). Given its exposure to flood risk and recent efforts to improve flood mitigation, Windsor is an ideal case for studying the value and implications of socioeconomic vulnerability analysis.

3. Findings and discussion

3.1 Flood exposure of residential properties

Established methods were used to determine flood exposure in three phases (Qiang, 2019). First, the number of residential properties was calculated for each dissemination block.16 Dissemination blocks were used for the property count because they are the smallest geographic units and they cover the entire Canadian territory, which comprises 489,676 dissemination blocks that have unique identifiers and attributes (Statistics Canada, 2018). Second, the total number of dissemination-block-level residential properties was aggregated to find the totals at the census tract level. Finally, the percentage of residential properties exposed to flood hazards in each census tract was calculated using the following equation:

JBA’s flood hazard datasets were imported into ArcMap 10.7.1 to visualize flood-prone areas identified in the Canada Flood Map (Figure 1). Address points were layered onto the flood hazard map using DMTI’s residential address database (DMTI Spatial Inc., 2018).17

Figure 1. Fluvial and Pluvial Flood Hazard Exposure in Windsor CMA

(a) Residential properties without flooding(b) Flood hazard exposure
Click images to enlarge

Using the plotted outlines of residential properties, a binary analysis (1=yes; 2=no) was used to indicate whether a property intersected with the flood hazard area. The Windsor CMA contains 73 census tracts. There are 118,038 residential properties spread across these tracts, with at least 74 residential properties in each. The GIS-based exposure analysis results were summarized in a spreadsheet and then joined spatially with the census-tract-level cartographic boundary. This analysis revealed 26,722 residential properties (22.6 per cent) exposed to fluvial flood hazard and 19,582 residential properties (16.6 per cent) exposed to pluvial flood hazard.

3.2 Socioeconomic vulnerability index

The socioeconomic vulnerability index was developed by compiling relevant indicators that measure a neighbourhood’s social deprivation relative to others. Deprivation indices are designed to capture the socioeconomic status of residents at a neighbourhood level (Bell & Hayes, 2012; Chan et al., 2015). Two deprivation indices—neighbourhood instability and economic insecurity—were most relevant for this objective. 

The neighbourhood instability index defines levels of social deprivation by measuring the proportion of the population that would most struggle to recover from unexpected shocks or disruptions. Key indicators for this index include a lack of home ownership, insufficient income, high shelter costs relative to income, lack of a private vehicle, and precarious work or unemployment. By comparison, the economic insecurity index defines levels of social deprivation by measuring the distribution of the population that suffers from insufficient economic resources to sustain a median level of social welfare. People are considered economically insecure if they live in a dwelling requiring significant repair, inhabit a property valued lower than the Canadian median, lack a high school education, require social assistance, or suffer from a physical disability.

These indices provide an additional benefit for socioeconomic vulnerability analysis because they can be linked with demographic census data. Evaluating this relationship can determine whether historically marginalized or disadvantaged populations live in neighbourhoods with high levels of deprivation, in addition to hazard exposure. Descriptive statistics of variables used in the case study are reported in Table A.1 (Appendix A). Methods used to construct the neighbourhood deprivation index and ensure its validity and reliability are described in Appendix B.

3.3 Hot spot analysis: The intersection of flood exposure and socioeconomic vulnerability 

To identify areas at high risk of fluvial flooding, census tracts were classified and mapped into five categories and corresponding colour codes, including very low, low, moderate, high, and very high, based on the percentage of properties exposed to flood hazards (Figure 2a) and their socioeconomic vulnerability scores (Figure 2b). When these maps were combined, census tracts with both high or very high flood exposure and high or very high socioeconomic vulnerability were identified as hot spots of flood risk (colour-coded orange and red) (Figure 2c). The same process was repeated for pluvial flooding (Figures 3a, 3b, 3c).

Figure 2. Flood Risk Assessment for Windsor CMA (Fluvial)

(a) Flood hazard exposure(b) Socioeconomic vulnerability

(c) Fluvial flood risk 
Click images to enlarge

Figure 3. Flood Risk Assessment for Windsor CMA (Pluvial)

(a) Flood hazard exposure(b) Socioeconomic vulnerability

(c) Pluvial flood risk 

Click images to enlarge

These maps indicate that both flood hazard exposure of residential properties and socioeconomic vulnerability vary significantly across census tracts in Windsor CMA. Flood risk is concentrated in census tracts where residential properties and populations occupy inland flood zones (mainly the northeast corner of the City of Windsor). Riverine (fluvial) risk intersects with socioeconomic vulnerability in census tracts along the Detroit River, whereas surface water (pluvial) risk intersects with socioeconomic vulnerability primarily in dense downtown neighbourhoods.

To better understand flood-related environmental inequities, an analysis was conducted to determine correlations between flood exposure and several demographic variables that past research has associated with populations who experience social inequity and injustice. These variables are summarized in Table A.1 (Appendix A).

Based on census data, visible minority populations were grouped as ‘South Asian’, which included people of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian origin, or ‘Other’, which included people of Arabian, Latin American, and West Asian origin. The Indigenous population subgroup consisted of Aboriginal peoples and people with first ethnic origin identified as First Nations, Inuit, or Métis. Consistent with other Canadian environmental justice and equity analyses (Bocquier et al., 2013; Carrier et al., 2016b, 2016a; Dale et al., 2015), four other socio-demographic characteristics of the population were used in addition to race/ethnicity and neighbourhood deprivation indices. These included (1) per cent female; (2) per cent population aged 65 and over; (3) per cent population aged 15 and under; and (4) per cent population living alone.

Bivariate correlation coefficients are useful to evaluate whether certain populations that are historically marginalized also face disproportionate flood risk relative to other groups (J. Chakraborty et al., 2019; Grineski et al., 2015). This study used Pearson’s correlation coefficients to test the hypothesis that socioeconomically deprived groups disproportionately inhabit inland flood hazard areas, such as fluvial and pluvial flood zones of Windsor (Table 3).

Table 3. Bivariate Correlation Coefficients and Statistical Significance

Note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, and *** p < 0.001 indicate 5%, 1%, and 0.1% significance level (two-tailed), respectively. N = 73 census tracts with at least 260 residents. All variables except instability and insecurity indices are proportions. (Click to enlarge)

The correlation analysis revealed some statistically significant findings. As indicated by the correlation coefficient of 0.35** in column (2), for instance, Black households are more exposed to surface water (pluvial) flood risk than other population subgroups considered in this study. Indigenous peoples, other visible minorities, and lone-parent households are also highly exposed to pluvial flooding. In addition, pluvial flood risk is more significant in areas with higher neighbourhood instability and economic insecurity. 

However, the same correlations were not found for riverine (fluvial) risk, as most of the coefficients in column (1) indicated either negative or statistically insignificant relationships between flood exposure and racial/ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics. For example, the coefficient of -0.37** in column (1) suggests Black households are at lower risk of fluvial flooding. Similarly, the coefficient of -0.20 for Indigenous populations in column (1) indicates that fluvial flood risk for Indigenous residents does not differ significantly from other population subgroups. These results possibly indicate that there are no significant racial and social disparities in exposure to riverine flooding in Windsor CMA. In other words, marginalized and racialized populations in Windsor are likely more exposed to pluvial flood risk compared to fluvial risk.

4. Policy implications for flood risk management

Incorporating measures of socioeconomic vulnerability into flood risk assessment offers several benefits. First, it provides a more comprehensive and robust picture of flood risk. In the case of Windsor, Ontario, the addition of socioeconomic vulnerability revealed that fluvial flood risk is concentrated in areas outside of those captured in more traditional methods that are limited to hazard exposure and physical vulnerability. The pluvial socioeconomic vulnerability analysis revealed that the distribution of risk is more complex and nuanced than what is captured by exposure assessment alone. Subsequent analysis on the distribution of risk across marginalized and racialized populations revealed the potential environmental injustice associated with flood risk in the Windsor CMA. Replicating this type of analysis in other municipalities could reveal different but equally important conclusions about how socioeconomic vulnerability intersects with flooding. 

Better risk assessments can focus government policies on people and communities that would benefit most from flood risk reduction. For instance, riverine (fluvial) flood risk is the primary focus of federal and provincial programs, but surface water (pluvial) flooding is a rapidly growing source of risk as increasingly heavy rainfall in a warming climate overwhelms drainage infrastructure and water flows into streets and nearby structures (Gaur et al., 2019). As this analysis shows, even if people live far away from rivers, certain marginalized and racialized groups may experience high flood risk due to their exposure to surface water flooding and higher socioeconomic vulnerability. 

The findings also suggest some implications for flood risk management policy. Flood risk communication and education, for example, aim to inform residents about flood risk and encourage household preparedness. Given the correlation between flood risk and marginalized and racialized communities, this analysis suggests that these communication and education campaigns should be tailored and targeted to reach the most vulnerable (Ziolecki & Thistlethwaite, 2019). 

The risk assessment and mapping also offer a means to better calibrate non-flood related social programs and policies targeting these communities. As noted above, urban flood risk is the product of interaction between a flood hazard, the exposure of people and assets, and the vulnerability of people and assets to flood impacts. Whereas physical infrastructure can reduce the damage from flood events and purposeful planning can reduce exposure of people and assets, flood risk can also be reduced through social programs that target the determinants of socioeconomic vulnerability, such as low income, unemployment, and high shelter costs (Joakim & Doberstein, 2013; McEntire, 2012). For example, targeted funding made available through disaster assistance programs, subsidies, or vouchers could improve the affordability of flood insurance, which would improve the resilience of communities to recurring flood events, while reducing overall socioeconomic vulnerability.

5. Conclusion

This case study examined the feasibility of combining geospatial and statistical methods for understanding and assessing socioeconomic vulnerability to flood hazards. Based on its high exposure to varying flood risks, the CMA of Windsor, Ontario, was chosen as a worthwhile place to incorporate socioeconomic vulnerability into flood risk assessment. The method employed multiple datasets and statistical methods to triangulate how flood risk changes in response to socioeconomic vulnerability. The findings confirm that there are significant benefits to expanding Canada’s historical approach to risk assessment beyond hazard, exposure, and physical vulnerability to include socioeconomic vulnerability. In the case of Windsor, the incorporation of socioeconomic vulnerability shifted the scale and location of both pluvial and fluvial flood risk. 

These findings suggest that policymakers should incorporate socioeconomic vulnerability into flood risk assessments. Indeed, existing approaches limit the benefits of flood risk management by directing resources to areas exposed to hazards but that may have lower levels of socioeconomic vulnerability, rather than areas with higher levels of socioeconomic vulnerability (L. Chakraborty, 2021). In the case of Windsor CMA, for example, some marginalized and racialized communities are highly exposed to pluvial flooding. Understanding the systemic forces that produced this outcome is important, as is the need to target flood mitigation and recovery resources to communities for whom this investment would reduce vulnerability and generate more benefits for the local economy. 

It is important to note that the study revealed some areas of uncertainty that could be addressed to improve flood risk assessment using socioeconomic vulnerability. This study used top-down statistical aggregation and modelling that requires a process of “ground-truthing” to ensure its assumptions are valid based on local flood risk conditions. For example, Windsor has data on several recent floods that could be used to validate the flood model spatial outputs. Higher resolution digital elevation data and more refined hydrologic and hydraulic models could also improve the flood hazard layers to achieve more granular analysis than 30 metres. 

In addition, the flood data does not include local flood defences such as berms and small dikes to contain fluvial hazards, so including this infrastructure could produce a different result concerning the distribution of flood extent and severity in the area. Rigorous exposure analysis is also needed to reduce uncertainty by including other important assets, such as roads, emergency and health infrastructure, and culturally significant sites. Lastly, because flood risks will continue to grow and change in a warming and increasingly volatile climate, the flood hazard and exposure data should be adjusted to incorporate climate change projections and ongoing land development, including exploring how different emissions and development scenarios influence risk over the coming decades. 

Despite these limitations, this case study demonstrates the feasibility of using socioeconomic vulnerability to improve flood risk assessment and management. A key benefit could be improving the cost-effectiveness and equity of mitigation and recovery policies by ensuring resources are allocated to areas that need them most. 

6. References (click to expand)

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7. Appendix A: Description of variables

Table A.1. Descriptive Statistics

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All variables in Table A.1 except owner-occupied home values represent census-tract-level proportions. The log of median home value variable is rescaled by subtracting census-tract-level individual values of the variable from its maximum value. The higher the difference between the highest value and census-tract-level particular value of the variable, the more severe and significant the neighbourhood-level socioeconomic deprivation the variable represents.

8. Appendix B: Principal component analysis

Following the methodology to construct a neighbourhood deprivation index (Messer et al., 2006), principal component analysis was applied with the Kaiser criterion on 17 standardized socioeconomic variables to identify significant neighbourhood deprivation indicators. Several other methods were used to examine multicollinearity problems, validity, and reliability of the dataset.18 As our selected census data passed all three diagnostics tests, we applied Principal component analysis on selected variables to extract independent componments, representing deprivation factors (Table B.1).

Table B.1. PCA Loading Scores and Post-Estimation

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The data revealed that two deprivation components explained 82 per cent of the total variance. Since deprivation components and corresponding socioeconomic indicators increase socioeconomic vulnerability, a non-standardized socioeconomic vulnerability index (SoVI) was calculated by adding the absolute values of these components as suggested by Cutter et al. (2003) in the ‘hazard-of-place’ model of socioeconomic vulnerability (Guillard-Goncąlves et al., 2015). The index was then standardized, following the methods documented in Chakraborty et al. (2020), to rescale SoVI scores between 0 and 100 for ease of interpretation such that a SoVI score close to zero represents very low socioeconomic vulnerability and a SoVI score close to 100 indicates very high socioeconomic vulnerability. The index was then mapped using the choropleth mapping technique to visualize spatial disparities of socioeconomic vulnerability across census tracts in the Windsor CMA.

About the authors

Dr. Liton Chakraborty is a senior policy analyst in the Emergency Management and Programs Branch of Public Safety Canada. His research analyzes socioeconomic vulnerability, social inequities, and racial/ethnic disparities in environmental risks to consider gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) in federal decisions supporting equitable disaster and emergency management policy development for Canada.

Dr. Jason Thistlethwaite is an associate professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, Associate Director of Partners for Action and Co-lead of the Climate Risk Research Group. His research focuses on innovative strategies to reduce the societal impacts of climate change and natural disasters. 

Dr. Daniel Henstra is an associate professor of political science and co-lead of the Climate Risk Research Group at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on the multi-level governance of complex policy areas such as climate change adaptation, emergency management, and flood risk management.

Footnotes

The ‘Two-Eyed Seeing’ of Cross-Cultural Research Camps

Published as part of our Indigenous Perspectives series featuring Indigenous-led initiatives to address and respond to climate change.

Summary 

Climate change will hit the Northwest Territories (NWT) harder than most places in Canada. The Northern NWT has warmed more quickly than the rest of North America and the global average over the past 50 years, and scientists predict that the mean temperature will rise by between 4 and 8 degrees by the 2050s. 

The changing climate threatens the health, safety, and food security of Indigenous communities such as the Sahtú. In an effort to deal with these changes, the Sahtú communities have turned to community-based traditional knowledge and science-based research and discussions as the basis for wise decision-making regarding what to do about climate change. The NWT government has also identified community-based monitoring and management as among the most important actions to inform decisions on potential adaptations. 

Sahtú communities have turned to community-based traditional knowledge and science-based research and discussions as the basis for wise decision-making regarding what to do about climate change.

In the Sahtú, this type of work has been undertaken in the form of cross-cultural, on-the-land camps that create opportunities for learning and sharing across cultures, across generations, and across knowledge systems. This case study presents how this strategy has been successful in creating safe spaces for learning about the changes that everyone is seeing on the land in the face of climate change. It provides examples of what has worked during these camps, including: 

  • the building of relationships between community members and southern researchers; 
  • the learning and practicing of traditional skills such as fishing; and 
  • the learning and understanding of the land in their traditional territory. 

It also identifies challenges that this work presents, including: 

  • the high cost of bringing people onto the land; 
  • designing schedules that keep all participants engaged; and, 
  • keeping people feeling safe and supported. 

Context 

The Sahtú Region is an area of 280,238 square kilometres—about the size of Ecuador and arguably the most ecologically diverse landscape in North America. It encompasses the world’s seventh largest freshwater lake, Sahtú (Great Bear Lake); portions of Shúhtaot’ı̨nę Nęnę (the Mackenzie Mountains), Canada’s longest river system, Dǝho (the Mackenzie River); and the transition between dechı̨ ta (taiga forest) and gokw’i (arctic tundra). 

Source: canadians.org

There are five communities of the Sahtú region: Délı̨nę, K’áhbamı̨túé (Colville Lake), Rádelı̨hkǫ́ (Fort Good Hope), Tulita (Tulít’a), and Tɬegó̜hɬı̨ (Norman Wells). The Sahtú population totals 2,500, approximately 1,800 or 70 percent of whom are Dene and Métis. Within these communities there are roughly three dialects encompassing six varieties of Dene Kedǝ, “Dene language,” (also known as North Slavey), reflecting the diverse histories of the historically nomadic Sahtú families. The landscapes are reflected in the naming of the peoples and their language variants, including: Dela Got’ı̨nę (End of the Treeline Dene), Dǝho Got’ı̨nę (Big River Dene, people of the Mackenzie River, the second largest river system in North America); Shúhtaot’ı̨nę (Mountain Dene, people of the Mackenzie Mountains), and Sahtú Got’ı̨nę (Great Bear Lake Dene). 

The cultural diversity of the Dene and Métis peoples arises from the region’s landscapes. Families traditionally travelled seasonally on the land and today many families maintain or are seeking to rekindle their ancestral stewardship roles with specific areas. 

The Sahtú Dene and Métis are resilient peoples, and have successfully adapted to significant environmental, cultural, and socio-economic changes throughout their history. However, climate change poses a new and significant challenge. Sahtú regional priorities related to climate change adaptation are well documented through a number of recent planning and research initiatives. For example, caribou populations have been decreasing or changing their patterns, which has led to two community conservation plans rooted in traditional Dene laws for sustaining relationships with caribou (Ɂekwe/ʔəde). These are Délı̨nę’s Belarewı́le Gots’ę́ Ɂekwę́ (Caribou for All Time) plan and Colville Lake’s Dehlá Got’ı̨ne ʔəde plan. 

Any research in the Sahtú should follow both community-identified research priorities and support community leadership of and participation within that research. Some of the recent research initiatives are discussed below. 

Community-Led Approaches 

The principle that any research should be community-led is what initiated the Nę K’ǝ Dene Ts’ı̨lı̨ (Living on the Land) Forum, a name which emphasizes and articulates the integral link between land stewardship and Dene and Métis identity and wellness. The forum also followed the holistic approach of Sahtú communities by seeking to integrate research with programs that support land stewardship, Dene and Métis identity and wellness. 

The Sahtú Renewable Resources Board is one of three co-management boards created by the Sahtú land claim agreement to manage the land wisely. The Board, along with other partners, has used the Nę K’ǝ Dene Ts’ı̨lı̨ Forum to help articulate community and regional research priorities as well as local and regional research governance. It is also used to provide opportunities for building local and regional research capacity to support the development of Indigenous talent, knowledge, partnerships for reconciliation, and respectful relationships. 

The Forum invites academic researchers, territorial and federal government departments, and industry representatives with active or proposed research projects in the region to attend meetings and discuss their work, its benefits and implications. The Forum has established long-term collaborative relationships with a number of researchers from diverse institutions and disciplines, reflecting local values that recognize land stewardship as a complex topic inextricably linked to questions of culture, language, identity, economy, and wellness. The Forum’s purpose, as defined in its terms of reference, is “to provide advice and coordination support for traditional economy, on-the-land activities.” 

Linked to the Forum is the actual on-the-land aspect, which the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board has coined Cross Cultural Research Camps. They follow a similar format to the Forum but are done on the land. The model aims to provide interactive experiences from on-the-land practices and dialogue with traditional knowledge holders combined with science-based research and monitoring techniques and methods. This “two-eyed seeing,” as it is sometimes called, brings a lot more significance and understanding to the discussions and decisions regarding land stewardship, climate change, and the connections the communities have to these areas. They also provide a greater learning environment for all involved. 

The camps consist of participants from multiple generations, multiple cultural backgrounds, and different academic and knowledge-system backgrounds. This integration ensures culturally appropriate and holistic approaches that build environmental leadership; honour, foster, and mobilize Indigenous knowledge; support and involve family units including youth; and create opportunities to support Dene and Métis wellness, healing, land stewardship, and career development. 

“The Board’s strategy included decolonizing, Dene Ts’ı̨lı̨, the other side of the same coin, also on-the-land orientation, so centred on the land as much as possible…we also have youth centred…those are key elements of the Board’s strategy. Oh, and community-driven conservation planning. That’s the approach.” —Deborah Simmons,Tulı́t’a 

The Camps 

The overarching goal of the camps is to create an environment where experiential, on-the-land learning helps to facilitate co-production of knowledge that is grounded in the traditional knowledge and experiences of community members. Community members, researchers, and partners use the time on the land to better integrate current and planned research initiatives, identify research and capacity needs, and support new and innovative research to address these concerns in the Sahtú. The collaborative nature of the camp’s activities is designed to add value to the research and to encourage open discussion and knowledge sharing between community members and researchers. 

The overarching goal of the camps is to create an environment where experiential, on-the-land learning helps to facilitate co-production of knowledge that is grounded in the traditional knowledge and experiences of community members.

The Sahtú Renewable Resources Board has been holding these types of camps for nearly a decade and continues to learn how to improve them every time to allow for greater learning by participants, greater self determination by the Sahtú communities and simply more effective and efficient ways to share, communicate, live, and work together when out on the land. 

Below are several examples of Cross Cultural Camps that have been hosted. 

The Dene Ts’ıl̨ı̨School Experience: Toward a Sahtú Youth Network 

In discussions with youth in the five communities, they expressed a need for more on-the-land opportunities. In particular, they wanted opportunities to be out on the land with elders for a longer period of time so that they are able to learn about the land and develop their bush skills. Three distinct intentions emerged through this dialogue: to 1) develop community capacity by involving local Ɂehdzo Got’ı̨nę (Renewable Resources Council) in the development and implementation of the Dene Ts’ı̨lı School; 2) strengthen the connections that youth have with their traditional culture; and 3) help to foster leadership skills among youth. 

The camps were held at Dǝocha (Bennett Field) during 2017-2018. The first workshop gave rise to development of the cross-cultural Dechı̨ta Nezǫ Gots’udı́ (Living Well on the Land) approach to safety planning. The second workshop provided an opportunity to assess implementation of the plan’s first iteration, expanded the plan to include cultural and spiritual safety components, and focused specifically on safety planning for activities during the fall season. 

In addition to the pre-camp planning workshops, daily leadership meetings provided time for the instructor team to discuss learnings from the previous day and refine the approach and plans for the coming day’s learning activities. Learning was necessary for both non-Indigenous resource people and elders/mentors. Non-Indigenous resource people are challenged to understand, respect and support spaces for learning that are tailored for Dene and Métis youth learning needs. Dene/Métis elders and mentors have a similar challenge coming from another direction, in that they seek to learn about the needs of young people who are at home in town and in structured school contexts, but are often unfamiliar with traditional ways of learning on the land. 

“A major highlight for me was learning to appreciate my life, my loved ones, my culture, and food. I was dealing with depression this past year, and somehow Dene Ts’įlį school has helped me to move forward from that mental state of mind.”

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Feeding-the-fire ceremony with Walter Bezha. Photo credit: Deborah Simmons. 

For thousands of years, Dene people across the Sahtú have had guidelınes and laws that were, and are, followed to stay true to the land, ancestors of the past and for people of the future. Trevor speaks about some of these Dene Laws that apply to the lifestyles of Sahtú people. Created by Trevor Niditchie at the February 2017 Dene Ts’įlį School.  Dene people take great pride in being and knowing they are from the land. In order to be healthy Dene people,  therefore, it is important to ensure that the land is also healthy and prosperous. Created by Shannon Oudzi at the September 2017 Dene Ts’įlį School.

For thousands of years, Dene people across the Sahtú have had guidelınes and laws that were, and are, followed to stay true to the land, ancestors of the past and for people of the future. Trevor speaks about some of these Dene Laws that apply to the lifestyles of Sahtú people. Created by Trevor Niditchie at the February 2017 Dene Ts’įlį School.  
Dene people take great pride in being and knowing they are from the land. In order to be healthy Dene people,  therefore, it is important to ensure that the land is also healthy and prosperous. Created by Shannon Oudzi at the September 2017 Dene Ts’įlį School.

Water Knowledge Camps: Building Capacity for Cross-Cultural Water Knowledge, Research, and Environmental Monitoring 

The Dene and Métis people of the Sahtú region experience a strong connection to the waters that surround them, and have a strong interest in scientific research and monitoring activities in their territory as evidenced by many years of participation in science-based research. However, notwithstanding scientific research results, communities throughout the Sahtú have expressed concerns about the health of the waters in the region (and consequent risks to human health) due to the legacy impacts of mining and development in the region and beyond, including Port Radium and oil and gas development in Norman Wells, long range transmitted contaminants, upstream effects of oil sands development in Alberta, and more recently the impacts of climate change and the potential for development of the Canol shale oil and gas play. As a result, many have stopped drinking from local water sources, preferring to purchase drinking water imported from elsewhere. With a great deal of research being conducted in the Sahtú, it was critical to promote a common cross-cultural understanding of water knowledge and concepts of risk by both researchers and community members as a basis for wise decision-making and community-based risk communication. Furthermore, there was a strong desire to build greater capacity for community-driven research and monitoring and ensure that research is conducted and results delivered in a culturally and socially respectful manner. 

The first Water Knowledge Camp was held at the junction of Sahtú Dǝ́ (Great Bear River) and Tek’áı́cho Dǝ́ (Marten River) in Tulı́t’a, NWT, from August 19-26, 2019. It was an opportunity for Dene and Métis people of the Sahtú and academic researchers to come together on the land to share knowledge about water, climate change, and environmental monitoring. The objectives of the Water Knowledge Camps are to: 

  1. Promote knowledge sharing between researchers and communities in the Sahtú. 
  2. Hold focus groups with community partners to enhance effective communication of water-related research results to communities. 
  3. Establish new baseline water quality and environmental research monitoring sites and work with communities and partners to build a water quality and environmental monitoring framework for the region. 

Although the activities varied daily, they included daily chores, fishing (a favourite among the youth), berry picking, making dry-fish, preparing moose ribs, quilling, singeing, and cooking a porcupine that had wandered into camp, collecting spruce boughs, and beading. These experiential activities, facilitated by community members, had value for all participants because they learned how to be on the land and were taught about the cultural significance of being Dene and their holistic relationship with the lands, waters, wildlife, and community. 

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Drummers, left to right: Leon Andrew, Keith Widow, Chief Frank Andrew. 

Research activities offered another form of experiential learning. Three concurrent focus groups were held on drinking water, environmental monitoring, and climate change. At the request of the youth, the climate change focus group was amended to include a discussion on youth leadership. Additional research activities included a water sampling and data collection/management demonstration facilitated by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, a tree coring and cookie activity, a mapping activity, and collecting water samples from Great Bear River. 

“We are here at this camp to teach the young people the importance of water and to teach them about the science of water. Not only from new visitors from the south, researchers and scientists, but we also talk to them about traditional knowledge, about Dene knowledge, what our ancestors and our prophets have predicted. So, we are combining the two.”  – Michael Neyelle, Délı̨nę 

“Máhsı to the elders for passing on their knowledge and teachings to me. It’s because of you I can become a respectful Indigenous woman. Without programs like these, I would have never learned anything. I didn’t have family that took me out on the land. I didn’t have anyone to teach me these things. That’s why we need more programs like this for the youth. We need to make a difference.” -Kyanna Lennie-Dolphus, Tulı́t’a 

Tracking Change Project 

Since 2016, communities in the Sahtú have taken part in the Tracking Change project, which focuses on environmental changes in and around the Dǝhogá (Mackenzie River) through hands-on activities, participant sharing, and interpreted traditional knowledge about the changing ecology of water and fishing livelihoods. The long-term goal of this project in the Sahtu is to strengthen the voice of Indigenous communities in the governance of the Mackenzie River. Their local and traditional knowledge can help us all understand and interpret the long-term patterns of both cultural and ecological changes and the interconnections between the well-being of the river system and community. 

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Deline Fish Camp (2016). Photo credit Christine Wenman. 

Fish has always been a food staple for communities of the Sahtú region, available when other luxury foods like caribou and moose are scarce. However, ongoing climate related changes are raising newfound concerns about the future of fishing and fishing livelihoods. In 2016, Délı̨nę Got’ı̨nę community members participated in a pilot year with the Tracking Change project which focused on possible environmental changes in and around the Great Bear Lake region. In 2017, a similar camp was held by the Tulı́t’a Got’ı̨nę community, and finally in 2018, similar questions were explored during the Lafferty family’s annual fish camp downriver in the K’áhsho Got’ı̨nę district, with an emphasis on changing approaches to cross-generational education practices for maintaining necessary knowledge and skills in fish harvesting, preservation, and sharing. 

Through hands-on activities, participants shared and interpreted traditional knowledge about the changing ecology of water and fishing livelihoods. Activities addressed five main objectives:

  1. to document narrative and practice-based systems for cross-family, cross-community, and cross-generational transfer of traditional knowledge and skills in water safety, subsistence fishing, fish preparation, and the sharing economy; 
  2. to document traditional knowledge narratives and spatial information about water and fish ecology 
  3. to strengthen planning processes for traditional knowledge research and monitoring; 
  4. to strengthen community governance and leadership in water stewardship and fish conservation; and 
  5. to foster networking and collaboration in ongoing and new community-driven traditional knowledge research and monitoring in the region. 

Participants left with a greater understanding of traditional fishing practices, fish and water ecology and how it has changed over the years, and a new set of skills in traditional fishing practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to explore the climate change-related impacts on water, fish, fish health, and well-being. Grounding research and monitoring in community-driven conservation processes ensure projects themselves become avenues for knowledge mobilization and reconciliation and are embedded within strengthened governance models directly involving decision makers. 

Camps in the time of COVID 

This last year following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board, just like every other organization, has had to re-orient and strategize on how to continue to do their work. For us, we were able to create community bubbles and hold more Nę K’ǝ Dene Ts’ı̨lı̨ Forum calls within and between communities while virtually bringing in our partners from outside the territory so that nobody felt like the work had stopped. One project concerning food security and the impact of climate change in the community of Tulı́t’a was coming to a close. Originally, several community members were meant to travel to the University of Waterloo to participate in cross-cultural exchanges and to learn how the data analysis was done on the data they had collected. With travel restrictions, this was not possible. We therefore came up with a plan that permitted cross-cultural exchanges at a distance and short-term employment for the local group of the Shúhta Ne K’édíke (Keepers of the Mountain Land), a group of young Indigenous Guardians. 

The Shúhta Ne K’édíke Program contributes to community health and well-being, sustainable economic development and expanded employment, food security, strengthened local governance and reconciliation, and cultural and spiritual integrity. It is helping to build resilience through land-based stewardship, drawing on traditional knowledge and science to understand and build adaptive strategies for climate change, and other socio-ecological changes affecting our peoples. Initiatives are locally led with the goal of restoring active Indigenous stewardship of traditional lands and encouraging and supporting communities to re-assert their traditional land steward roles. The program also provides participants with critical decision-making information that the communities can use when deciding on future research, industrial or extractive projects as well as in policy and regulation discussions with various levels of government. 

The project started by sending these Shúhta Ne K’édíke along with some mentors onto the land to harvest country foods for the workshop and see firsthand the impacts that climate change has had on their land and on country food availability. The vicious cold and heavy snowfall that they faced taught them how to survive and how the weather affects how the animals behave. With no large or small game to be found, they focused on fishing and brought them back to the community. 

While no one from outside the territories could join, we were able to prepare great communication materials in the form of easy-to-understand posters to host a workshop that focused on teaching youth and other community members how to prepare the fish in a way that preserves it and reduces wastage. At the same time, we were able to discuss the importance of teaching the community these skills because climate change has made going out on the land less predictable, more expensive and also less likely to yield successful harvests. It was also an opportunity to talk about the results of the research conducted, which supported what the community traditionally did, sharing traditional foods amongst one another to ensure that the community remained healthy. 

Lessons Learned 

Each on-the-land camp comes with new obstacles, new understanding, and new fun. It has become clear that in order to truly get cross-cultural knowledge sharing there is the need for deliberate and strategic approaches to teaching the participants, especially the youth. 

The first major lesson that was learned and has since been incorporated into every camp was the need for wellness supports in on-the-land programs, especially those that include or target youth. Many Sahtú youth are struggling with addictions, intergenerational impacts of residential school and colonialism, and related experiences of trauma or stress. Leadership team members also struggle with these same challenges. Living on the land is not in itself a path to wellness, as is often assumed. In fact, being on the land can be triggering—and people continue to be affected by what happens in town. People taking leadership responsibility at camps for youth in the Sahtú need to be trained in wellness skills to appropriately address issues that are sure to come up. Moreover, training is also needed to support youth to be well upon returning to town. 

The second major lesson is not to assume that everyone knows how to spend time on the land safely. Our first camp gave rise to development of the cross-cultural Dechı̨ta Nezǫ Gots’udı́/Living Well on the Land approach to safety planning, which includes cultural and spiritual safety components. Every camp since has been an opportunity to assess the implementation of the plan and add in new information and learnings that come out of the camp. The latest camp held this winter has now made us realize that we need to have a rule on when travel is not safe during the winter in particular, for example anything colder than -40 degrees Celsius. 

The safety planning process has served as invaluable spaces for leadership development, since collaborative safety planning requires collective development of the program approach and activities. In addition to the pre-camp planning workshops, daily leadership meetings at the camp provide time for the instructor team to discuss learnings from the previous day and refine approach and plans for the coming day’s learning activities. These leadership meetings are done in a self-determined way, and anyone in the camp who wishes to join and take on a leadership role, even if only for a day, is welcome. We have found this to be an incredibly useful and rewarding format, as we have found youth who want to join and bring new ideas to the table and take on this leadership role. 

A third lesson from these camps was the realization that it’s not enough to just be living together on the land but that there is the need to create a conducive learning environment. Camps need to include some structured learning, but also leave considerable time for less structured Dene ts’ı̨lı̨ activities as well such as fishing, harvesting, berry picking, sewing, etc. For the youth, it is important to have both cultures represented because they are straddling both and need opportunities to learn both and reconcile that within themselves. Therefore, though elders may not find learning about drones interesting, combining learning on how drones can be used to understand how the land is changing with the stories from the elders and actually walking the land provides youth with a full understanding of different ways of looking at and understanding their territory. 

In this same vein, the participants, especially the youth again, are also looking for skills that will help them get jobs. It is important to provide training sessions that result in certificates. For example, firearms training, chainsaw safety, and wilderness first aid certificates. These certificates are also helpful in terms of recruitment of participants. It continues to be a challenge to recruit participants for the camps for various reasons, including childcare, addictions, anxiety—both of leaving their families but also being on the land—and peer pressure. As the camps have continued, it is getting easier, and knowing that there is something concrete such as a certificate at the end of the training that can help with employment is one of the incentives. 

One of the greatest benefits of these camps is the positive and supportive relationships established at them. For months and year afterwards, that relationship continues, and people talk about the camps as a “community” or “like family.” They have led to much better relationships between researchers and community members as both begin to see how the others think and what is important to them and why. It has led to better relationships between Sahtú Renewable Resources Board staff and community members and researchers, which has meant easier recruitment and participation in all the Board’s work, as well as more funding from donors who have been part of the camps. 

The camps have also led to better relationships among community members themselves. One of the training camps held in the summer of 2020 brought together youth from Tulı́t’a and Norman Wells, NWT, and they continue to stay in touch, meeting to talk about the camp and come up with plans for future activities. Another camp, in the summer of 2018, gave grandparents a chance to take their children and grandchildren with them onto the land and just be with each other and share in a healthy, uncomplicated way for two weeks. 

These relationships that are built at the camps support and build cross-cultural, cross generational understanding. These relationships are what the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board feels will build up the region, because it is by drawing on traditional knowledge and science that the communities will be able to build adaptive strategies for climate change, make decisions that support their Dene ts’ıl̨ı̨, and ensure that the communities have the support they need to stay resilient in the face of all the changes coming their way. 

“There’s a lot of work that we do here, and I would like to thank the young guys and everybody who pitched in. It really helps a lot. Like I said, from day one, I really like it here with everybody here. It brings my spirit back up. That’s what we’re here for. We are on the land, and we really connect ourselves to the land and our spirituality is so important for me and everybody too. Every day we learn something new. We learn from different cultures, how they do stuff and how we do our traditional stuff. It helps us to grow and to understand. I think someone said that’s for the young people here. Keep doing what we’re doing here. I would like to thank Debbie and the crew from the university that came here to put this program on. It’s really good. I hope we have more of this here.  We always talk about the young generation and we are here to teach them and to show them the right way, the right path. Máhsı.” – Wilbert Menacho, Tulı́t’

About the Authors

Kirsten Jensen has worked in conservation for nearly a decade, much of it spent learning from other cultures how they want to protect their special places. Her time with the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board has focused on getting community members on the land and learning the skills they want to learn from their elders and western science while also making sure that they have a voice in the decisions being made about their land.

Deborah Simmons is the Executive Director of the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board.  She was raised in the Northwest Territories and is trained as a social scientist specialising in social and environmental issues relating to Indigenous peoples.

Leon Andrew is a Shúhtaot’ı̨nę elder with the Tulı́t’a Dene Band. He is the Sahtú Renewable Resources Board’s Research Director. Leon has provided his research expertise on numerous traditional knowledge studies, assisted and advised GNWT Archeologists from the Prince of Wales Museum, and is also an experienced interpreter in Dene and English languages.

Climate Change impacts on bees in Mi’kma’ki

Published as part of our Indigenous Perspectives series featuring Indigenous-led initiatives to address and respond to climate change.

Although smaller than a thumbnail, bumblebees play an outsized role in our food system and our ecosystem health more broadly. In this case study video, Gregory Dugas, an Indigenous youth from Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia), shares his experiences about protecting and rearing bumblebees as part of “Protect the Bees in Mi’kma’ki,” an initiative of the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq’s Climate Action Program. 

Gregory explores how surging pest populations are linked to warmer weather from climate change (among other factors) and the devastation these pests, such as wax moths, have on bumblebee colonies. Based on his field research, Gregory suggests the provincial government implement a pilot project to install “cat flaps” on managed hives to reduce the threat of pests and preserve bumblebee populations.

Gregory Dugas is a youth beekeeper who is passionate about the stewardship of bumblebees, honey bees, and native bee species. He is a resident of Nova Scotia and lives near his home community of Millbrook First Nation.

Environmental Racism and Climate Change: Determinants of Health in Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian Communities

Summary 

The health of each person across Canada is shaped by the economic and social circumstances of their life. In the coming years, the health of people in Canada will also be shaped by the impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures, air pollution and climate hazards.  

Climate change adaptation policy does not regularly reflect a key concept: that climate change impacts are not equitable, and that most risks are created by society, not the physical environment.  

In order to develop more robust and equitable climate policies, it is important that decision makers understand how climate impacts, environmental racism, and structural determinants of health intersect to shape health and well-being, especially in Indigenous, Black, and other racialized and marginalized communities.  

This case study illustrates how structural determinants of health are interconnected with climate change vulnerability and environmental racism in two Nova Scotia communities: African Nova Scotians and Mi’kmaw.  

Introduction 

In the coming years, climate change will increasingly have negative impacts on people’s health across Canada. In order to reduce these health impacts—which communities are already starting to experience—evidence-based adaptation policies are needed. However, adaptation policies are not always as rigorous and evidence-based as one would hope.   

Climate change adaptation policies in Canada tend to neglect two important concepts. First, climate change impacts are not equitable, meaning most risks are created by society, not nature. Second, the main determinants of health are, in fact, caused by structural factors such as race, immigrant and refugee status, poverty, education, food security, and access to clean air, water, and soil. 

Consideration of how structural determinants of health, climate impacts, and environmental racism intersect to shape health and well-being is key to developing robust climate policy and building greater resilience.  

In this case study, I highlight some of the most pressing structural determinants of health in Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities, drawing on literature and case studies from the research and advocacy I have been involved in with these communities over the last nine years.  

The communities profiled in this case study are illustrative of a broader story of racism, health inequality, and the impacts of climate change, which will play out not only across Nova Scotia but across Canada. The stories and findings from these communities help to articulate the relationships among climate change and racial and class inequality. 

Still from the documentary film There’s Something in the Water, co-produced by Dr. Waldron based on her book.

Structural determinants of health impact climate change sensitivity 

The concept of the structural determinants of health is increasingly being used to refer to the social, economic, political, and environmental conditions that contribute to illness and disease (De Leeuw, Lindsay & Greenwood, 2015; Waldron, 2018a, 2019). The concept of structural determinants builds on the idea of social determinants of health, which is that health is shaped by an individual’s material circumstances, such as living and working conditions (Davidson, 2015). A structural determinants framework takes a more systemic focus. The material conditions of health are rooted in systems outside an individual’s control (economic and social policies, the justice system, etc.) that have historically discriminated against racialized and marginalized people (De Leeuw, Lindsay & Greenwood, 2015; Waldron, 2018a, 2019).19 For example, lack of access to medical care in rural African Nova Scotian communities until the late 1930s, a legacy of diseases contracted by early African settlers, and racial discrimination dating back to slavery in Nova Scotia contribute to ongoing health disparities between African Nova Scotians and other populations.  

“Income makes you healthy. Because I notice when you live in poverty, you tend to not be able to eat well or afford your prescriptions. And that happens a lot with the seniors in the community. So, if there are no jobs available, how are they going to eat tomorrow or how are they going to support their families and themselves and make sure they have okay health if they can’t get their medicine? And that also causes depression, and it causes anxiety and stress. And stress does bother you and it does kill you.”

In a study conducted recently, a participant from the African Nova Scotian community of Lincolnville discussed the relationship between health and poverty, food security, employment, and access to health services (Waldron, 2016).

Income and employment are key structural determinants of health because they influence access to adequate housing, healthcare, and food. Both Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities experience higher poverty rates and income instability. Frank and Saulnier (2017) report that poverty rates tend to be higher in predominately African Nova Scotian communities, such as East Preston and North Preston, where 38.9 per cent and 40 per cent of families, respectively, live in poverty. The unemployment rate for Mi’kmaw people living on reserve in the 2006 census was 24.6 per cent, compared to 9.1 per cent for all Nova Scotians (Office of Aboriginal Affairs n.d.; Statistics Canada 2011; Waldron, 2018a). 

Criminalization and discrimination through the justice system are part of the social and economic conditions that influence health. Between 2014 and 2015, about 12 per cent of youth sentenced to a youth correctional facility and seven per cent of adults sentenced to jail were Mi’kmaw – although Mi’kmaw people represent only about 4 per cent of the total population (Luck, 2016). The 2019 Wortley Report on street checks revealed that African Nova Scotians were six times more likely to be stopped by police than white people (Wortley, 2019). Higher rates of criminalization are informed by racist stereotypes and result in racism and violence directed towards racialized people at all stages of the criminal justice system. Incarcerated people in Canada have higher rates of many negative health outcomes, such as mood disorders, communicable diseases, and mortality, especially death by suicide (Kouyoumdjian et al., 2016). 

Education is strongly connected to employment and income security and, consequently, to the ability to access the resources that contribute to health and well-being, such as food security and housing security. Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotians are less likely to finish high school or attend university than other Nova Scotians. Of African Nova Scotians aged 25–64 years, 77.7 per cent have some sort of certificate, diploma, or degree, compared to 85.3 per cent of all Nova Scotians (African Nova Scotian Affairs n.d.). Twelve per cent of the Mi’kmaw population between the ages 25–64 holds a university degree, compared to 20 per cent in the general population (Office of Aboriginal Affairs n.d.; Statistics Canada 2011). 

It is also becoming more widely recognized that stress and trauma from racism itself negatively impact the health and well-being of racialized people, even in the absence of other risk factors (McGibbon, Waldron & Jackson, 2013). The Canadian Public Health Association states that systemic racism, although subtle, causes harm in every aspect of life and is correlated with poorer health outcomes for racialized communities, such as hypertension, infant low birth weight rate, heart disease, diabetes, and mental health (CPHA, 2018).  

Structural inequities like poverty and discrimination contribute to poor health outcomes for many racialized and marginalized people. Poor overall health, in turn, makes these communities more susceptible to the negative health impacts of climate change.  

Structural determinants impact exposure to climate hazards 

Indigenous, Black, and other marginalized communities in Canada and around the world are more exposed to the impacts of climate change (Simmons, 2020). They are more likely to reside in places where they are impacted by poor air quality and water contamination from polluting industries, as well as future climate devastation resulting from rising sea levels, raging storms and floods, and intense heat waves (United Nations, 2019).  

Environmental racism helps to explain the unequal impacts of hazards. Environmental racism is the idea that marginalized and racialized communities disproportionately live where they are affected by pollution, contamination, and the impacts of climate change, due to inequitable and unjust policies that are a result of historic and ongoing racism and colonialism (Konsmo & Kahealani, 2015; Pulido, 1996). Furthermore, marginalized communities often lack political power for resisting the placement of industrial polluters in their communities through their exclusion from many environmental groups, decision-making boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies (Cryderman et al., 2016; Deacon & Baxter, 2013; Scott, Rakowski, Harris & Dixon 2015; Waldron, 2018a, Waldron 2018b). 

Epidemiological studies increasingly link diseases like cancer, skin conditions and reproductive health in Indigenous, Black, and other racialized communities to their disproportionate exposure to pollutants, contaminants, and climate hazards. The ENRICH Project map, developed by my research team, identifies different polluting industries and other environmental hazards in Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities across Nova Scotia, demonstrating the proximity of waste incinerators, waste dumps, thermal generating stations, and pulp and paper mills near these communities, as well the harmful materials contained at these sites that are linked to health risks.  

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The ENRICH Project, a collaborative community-based project investigating the cause and effects of toxic industries situated near Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities, has developed an online map of the polluting industries and other environmental hazards across Nova Scotia. 

A feedback loop exists between exposure and sensitivity  

Structural determinants of health and environmental racism are deeply connected. These two factors work together to make racialized and marginalized communities more exposed and more sensitive to the impacts of climate change.  

Racist and colonial legacies have created lasting health inequities in many marginalized communities, making them more sensitive to climate impacts. Further, because of environmental racism, many marginalized communities will be more exposed to climate hazards that could affect their health.  

Recognizing and addressing how structural health inequities and environmental racism make marginalized communities more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change can make for stronger, more equitable climate policy.  

The following sections examine some of the most significant structural determinants of health in Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities that result from social, economic, political, and environmental inequities. 

Structural Determinants of Health in Mi’kmaw Communities 

The Mi’kmaw, or Lnu, are the founding people of Mi’kma’ki (what is now known as Nova Scotia), having existed in the province for over 11,000 years (Sipekne’katik n.d a). The Mi’kmaw land stretches from the Canadian Maritimes to the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec (Sipekne’katik n.d.a). It is comprised of thirteen bands/First Nations, each of which is governed by a chief and council. The largest of the thirteen bands in Nova Scotia are Eskasoni (4,314 members) and Sipekne’katik (2,554 members) (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 2014; Sipekne’katik. n.d.b).  

Structural inequities within education, employment, criminal justice, the environment, and other social structures contribute to poor health and mental health outcomes in Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia and other Indigenous communities in Canada.  

Land use planning and development policies have resulted in Mi’kmaw communities being disproportionately exposed to polluting industries and other environmental hazards. There have been several cases of environmental racism in Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia, which are highlighted in this section.  

Sydney, Cape Breton 

The Sydney Tar Ponds was a hazardous waste site on Cape Breton Island that sparked some of the first concerns about environmental injustice in Canada. The estuary at the mouth of the Muggah Creek where it joins Sydney Harbour used to be a hunting and fishing ground for the Mi’kmaw. From 1901 through 1988, Sydney Steel Corporation’s now decommissioned steel mill operated in the area with no pollution controls. Over a million tons of particulate matter were deposited and several thousand tons of coal tar were released into the estuary over that period, including chemicals known to cause cancer (Lambert, Guyn, and Lane 2006). As a result, Sydney area residents experienced a local cancer rate 45 per cent higher than the Nova Scotia average, and the highest rate in Canada (Nickerson 1999). 

The Sydney Steel Corporation produced significant amounts of toxic waste, yet very little money was invested to modernize the facilities or to address the health and safety concerns of the workers (Campbell, 2002). In 1974, Environment Canada found that air pollution from the coking operations was 2,800 to 6,000 per cent higher than national standards allowed (Barlow and May, 2000). As Campbell (2002) documents, there were several attempts over the years to remediate this former industrial site. Concerns were raised in 1980 about the need to address the environmental risks of steelmaking in Sydney after the federal fisheries department discovered that lobsters in Sydney Harbour had high levels of carcinogenic chemicals and various toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium, and arsenic (Campbell, 2002). 

In May 2004, the governments of Canada and Nova Scotia announced that they would commit $400 million over the next ten years to remediate the Sydney Tar Ponds site to reduce the ecological and human health risks to the environment (Walker, 2014). The cleanup was completed in 2013 with the development of Open Hearth Park, which is situated on the site of the former steel plant (Morgan, 2015). 

Pictou Landing First Nation 

Boat Harbour, a quiet estuary near Pictou Landing First Nation, was once a fertile hunting and fishing ground until 1967, when an effluent treatment facility for the Northern Pulp mill started discharging pulp and paper mill biproducts into Boat Harbour under a provincial agreement (Idle No More 2014; Thomas-Muller 2014; Waldron, 2018a). The ecological and health costs associated with the dumping of billions of litres of untreated effluent and other industrial contaminants into Boat Harbour have been considerable. Boat Harbour has the third-highest cancer rates per capita of all health districts in Canada (Mirabelli & Wing 2006; Soskolne & Sieswerda, 2010). Other studies have concluded that there is a likely connection between the mill and high rates of respiratory disease in Pictou Landing (Reid, 1989). In addition to respiratory illness, the incidence and abundance of other health problems such as nose bleeds and cancers can also be partly attributed to years of bleached kraft pulp mill pollution (Reid, 1989).  

The Shubenacadie River. (Still from the documentary film There’s Something in the Water.)

Sipekne’katik First Nation 

Sipekne’katik First Nation in Hants County near Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, is currently opposing the development by Alton Natural Gas Storage of a brine discharge pipeline next to the Shubenacadie River (Hubley, 2016; Waldron, 2018a, 2021). The brine discharge pipeline would allow natural gas to be stored in underground salt caverns near the Shubenacadie River. Failure rates for salt cavern liquid natural gas projects have been high in the United States and are considered dangerous due to risks of explosion, leaks, and emissions of gasses like methane (Howe, 2016; Hubley, 2016).  

In the fall of 2014, Alton Gas began developing the brine discharge pipeline, but halted the project as local resistance grew. The project resumed in January 2016, after Alton Gas was given environmental approvals for several permits by the Government of Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia, 2016; Waldron, 2018a, 2021). Throughout 2016, resistance to the project grew even stronger. Members of Sipekne’katik First Nation argued that they were not adequately consulted, that they had never given consent for the project to resume, that they were not given enough time to review project proposals and environmental impact assessments, and that they were provided with little to no notice about public meetings where they could express their concerns about the project before it resumed (Howe, 2016; Hubley, 2016). In March 2020, a Nova Scotia judge overturned the approval for the project and ordered Alton Gas to continue consultation with Sipekne’katik First Nation (Grant, 2020).  

In addition to concerns about the Alton Gas project, Sipekne’katik First Nation has been concerned for some time about contaminated water in their community. The community had access to clean water until 2012, when the community’s water table was contaminated by digging at the nearby Nova Scotia Sand and Gravel pit. During a meeting I held in 2014 (Waldron, 2014), residents spoke about the environmentally hazardous methods used by Nova Scotia Sand and Gravel to dig up and clean sand in the area. This involved digging down to the level where the community’s water table flows, resulting in the water table flowing into their site, as well as huge reservoirs of water the community was no longer able to use. The community was subsequently issued a do-not-drink advisory, after which the Department of Aboriginal Affairs began shipping water into the community. Despite this, the root cause of the problem — the pit located in the community’s backyard — was never addressed, resulting in ongoing issues with water contamination (Donovan, 2015; Waldron, 2014). 

Acadia First Nation 

Acadia First Nation in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, is in the southwestern region of Nova Scotia. During a meeting I held in the community in 2013, residents expressed their concerns about the health risks associated with the junkyard in their community: 

“Well, in our community, our reserve is actually built on a dump, over a dump. So, when they were digging it up, trying to loosen up all of the soil, so that I could put fertilizers on it and whatnot, we actually dug up car parts that are underneath us, and I was getting some history on this. So, when the band bought that land, they bought toxic land. I don’t know what they paid for it at the time, probably three-quarters of a million dollars, I don’t know, but anyway, all that land the band bought was used for a dumping zone, for cars, it was hundreds of cars where all the housing is right now” (Waldron, 2014; Waldron, 2018 a).

The junkyard has been used as a dumping ground for car parts for over sixty years and is a source of anxiety for residents, who believe it is associated with high rates of cancer in their community (Waldron, 2014). 

Sydney, Pictou Landing, Sipekne’katik and Acadia First Nations are just a few examples of the larger phenomenon of environmental racism in Nova Scotia and Canada. Climate change could impact Mi’kmaw communities in the same way that environmental racism does: by increasing the exposure of marginalized communities to hazards. Increased exposure then undermines overall health and well-being in these communities, making them more vulnerable to future impacts.  

The following section highlights similar examples of environmental racism among African Nova Scotian communities.  

Structural Determinants of Health in African Nova Scotian Communities 

People of African descent have lived in Nova Scotia for almost three hundred years, longer than any other Black community in Canada. African Nova Scotians are descendants of African slaves and freedmen, Black Loyalists from the United States, the Nova Scotian colonists of Sierra Leone, Maroons from Jamaica, and refugees of the War of 1812. The majority of African Nova Scotians and other people of African descent continue to reside in rural and isolated communities due to institutionalized racism during the province’s early settlement (Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia n.d.; Waldron, 2018a).   

Over the past 70 years, environmental racism has damaged the health of rural African Nova Scotian communities. African Nova Scotians who live near toxic sites believe that high rates of cancer in their community can be linked to these sites. In my research, I have found that African Nova Scotian communities in Shelburne, Lincolnville, and the Prestons attribute high rates of cancer, liver and kidney disorders, diabetes, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, skin rashes, and psychological stress to various environmental hazards that have been near these communities for decades (Waldron, 2014, 2015, 2016; 2018a; 2018b, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d). The following sections highlight specific cases of environmental racism in African Nova Scotian communities, including its impacts on health.  

Africville 

Perhaps no other African Nova Scotian community has served as more of a classic example and symbol of segregation, racism, and environmental racism than Africville. The community was located just north of Halifax on the shore of the Bedford Basin, and was first settled in the mid-1800s by Black refugees who came to Nova Scotia following the War of 1812 (Allen n.d.; Fryzuk 1996; Nelson 2001; Waldron, 2020d). The community was subjected to injustices on many levels. For example, although the City of Halifax collected taxes in Africville, they did not provide the community with basic utilities or infrastructure offered to other parts of the city, such as paved roads, potable water, sewage, public transportation, garbage collection, recreational facilities, fire protection, streetlights, or adequate police protection (Allen n.d.; Fryzuk 1996; Halifax Regional Municipality n.d; Nelson 2001; Tavlin 2013; Waldron, 2020d).  

Starting in the 1800s, the city placed a number of undesirable facilities in Africville, such as slaughterhouses, an infectious disease hospital, and human waste disposal pits (Mackenzie, 1991). In 1947 the city rezoned Africville as industrial land. The rezoning permitted the construction of an open-pit dump in 1950, which many in the community considered to be a health hazard (Waldron, 2018a). In 1964, the City Council voted to relocate Africville residents in order to build industry and infrastructure in the area. By 1970, all homes in Africville had been bulldozed and residents forcibly displaced into other areas of the city (Waldron, 2020d). Africville subsequently became host to several environmental hazards, including a fertilizer plant, a slaughterhouse, a tar factory, a stone and coal crushing plant, a cotton factory, a prison, and three systems of railway tracks (Allen n.d.; Fryzuk 1996; Nelson 2001; Waldron, 2018b, Waldron, 2020d).  

Shelburne 

The Morvan Road Landfill has been located near the African Nova Scotian community in South Shelburne since the 1940s (Waldron, 2020d). The landfill was used for industrial, medical, and residential waste until its closure in 2016, thanks to pressure from the community (Waldron, 2018a). While the closure of the landfill is a major achievement, the presence of the landfill continues to have health and environmental repercussions in Shelburne. The waste that accumulated has not been addressed through a remediation plan (Delisle & Sweeney, 2018). A Shelburne resident who participated in my study on environmental health inequities in African Nova Scotian communities attributed high rates of cancer and liver and kidney disorders in her community to the landfill near her community. 

Lincolnville  

Lincolnville is another example of a long-standing case of environmental racism in an African Nova Scotian community. Lincolnville is a small rural African Nova Scotian community situated in Guysborough County in northeast Nova Scotia. It was settled by Black Loyalists in 1784 (NSPIRG n.d.). In 1974, a first-generation landfill was opened one kilometre away from the community (Waldron, 2018a). The health impacts of the first landfill are unknown, though residents believe rates of cancer in the community are far above acceptable levels (Waldron, 2018a).  

“Everyone knows that in all surrounding communities the dump can be seen in the south end of the community. A significant amount of people in proximity to the dump has died from cancer and has or is suffering from an array of other health problems such as various forms of cancer, increased blood pressure, changes in nerve reflexes, brain, liver, and kidney disorders” (Waldron, 2016).

In 2006, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough closed the first landfill and opened a second-generation landfill at the site of the first-generation landfill that accepts waste from across northern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. According to regional environmental organizations, hazardous items such as transformers and refuse from offshore oil spills have been deposited at the landfill. This has caused concern in the community about unacceptable levels of carcinogens from the site—including cadmium, phenol, and toluene—leaching into the community’s drinking water (Benjamin, 2008). According to a Lincolnville resident who took part in a study I conducted, residents have experienced worsening health since the first-generation landfill was placed in the community, including increasing rates of cancer and diabetes: 

“If you look at the health of the community prior to 1974 before the landfill site was located in our community, our community seemed to be healthier. From 1974 on until the present day, we noticed our people’s health seems to be going downhill. Our people seem to be passing on at a younger age. They are contracting different types of cancer that we never heard of prior to 1974. Our stomach cancer seems to be on the rise. Diabetes is on the rise. Our people end up with tumours in their body. And, we’re at a loss of, you know, of what’s causing it. The municipality says that there’s no way that the landfill site is affecting us. But, if the landfill site located in other areas is having an impact on people’s health, then shouldn’t the landfill site located next to our community be having an impact on our health too?” (Waldron, 2016)

The Prestons 

North and East Preston, located in eastern Halifax Regional Municipality, represent other examples of environmental racism in the African Nova Scotian community. During the summer of 1991, the Metropolitan Authority was in search of a new landfill site for Halifax and Dartmouth. Included in the top choices were four areas that were close to historically African Nova Scotian communities. When the Metropolitan Authority eventually settled on East Lake as the new landfill site, African Nova Scotian residents in East and North Preston were outraged (Fryzuk, 1996; Waldron, 2018). Residents of the Prestons opposed the decision to site the landfill in East Lake by launching a formal complaint against the landfill site selection process, arguing that the Metropolitan Authority failed to consider social, cultural, and historical factors in their decision-making process.  

A North Preston resident who took part in a meeting I held in 2013 shared her concerns about the relationship between water and air pollution from the waste disposal site near the North Preston Community Centre and high rates of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, and skin rashes in the community: 

“For years, part of the community was on a water system which was not flushed out for several decades because the chemical treatment of that water supply was monitored … but I believe that there were too high concentrations of chlorine in the system. So, I think that accounts for the high cancer rate over the last several decades. I also believe that in terms of environmental health, that it’s poor because of our community being associated with a local dump. And therefore, a lot of the fly ash in the air contributed to the high rate of respiratory illnesses” (Waldron, 2014).

The case studies on Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities presented here provide evidence for the link between race, polluting industries and other environmental hazards, and poor health outcomes. Other Canadian literature supports the idea that this phenomenon is not unique to Nova Scotia: across the country, racialized communities have been disproportionately exposed to health risks compared to other communities because they are more likely to be spatially clustered around waste disposal sites and other environmental hazards (Atari, Luginaah, Gorey, Xu, and Fung 2012; Sharp 2009; Teelucksingh 2007; Waldron, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018a). 

Conclusion 

These case studies illustrate how connected the health of Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities is to the air, water, and soil surrounding them. Polluting industries and environmental degradation have already harmed the health of communities and ecosystems. If decision makers fail to understand and address the ways that marginalized communities will be uniquely affected, climate change could recreate the same unequal impacts.  

Decision makers and policy makers in the health and environment sectors in Nova Scotia and Canada must begin to consider approaches that can be used to address the social, economic, political, and environmental inequities that shape health outcomes in Mi’kmaw, African Nova Scotian, and other Indigenous, Black, and racialized communities. The following section offers a path forward for how policy makers and decision makers can better address the structural determinants of health in these communities.  

Addressing the structural determinants of health discussed in this report can bring us closer to our goal of achieving health equity in Canada and building resilience to climate change. Health equity includes three main principles: 

  • Equal access to healthcare, regardless of one’s social, economic, physical, or geographical status.  
  • Equal opportunity for all people to be as healthy as possible, given their unique physiology.  
  • Equal quality of care for all describes the level of commitment that healthcare providers demonstrate in providing the same high standard of professional care to everyone, regardless of social, economic, or cultural differences (Braveman & Gruskin, 2003). 

Achieving health equity and environmental justice for Mi’kmaw, African Nova Scotian, and other Indigenous and Black communities in Canada requires progressive policy change and decision making in departments of health and environment. There are several actions that these departments can take to address health inequities (including environmental health inequities) in Indigenous and Black communities.  

Addressing the structural determinants of health discussed in this report can bring us closer to our goal of achieving health equity in Canada and building resilience to climate change.  

First, it is crucial that departments of health and environment collect disaggregated statistical race-based data on health outcomes in Indigenous and Black communities and on the location of environmental hazards across the country.  

Second, health departments must increase representation of Indigenous and Black people by hiring more Indigenous and Black health professionals and recruiting them to sit at decision making tables as managers and policy makers where upstream changes are made.  

Third, it is important that environmental justice legislation is passed that encompasses tools, strategies, and policies focused on eliminating unjust and inequitable conditions and decisions that result in differential exposure to, and unequal protection from, environmental harms.  

Finally, a health equity impact assessment must be incorporated into the environmental assessment and approval process to examine and address the cumulative health impacts of environmental racism in Indigenous and Black communities that are outcomes of long-standing social, economic, political, and environmental inequities.  

Dr. Ingrid Waldron is HOPE Chair in Peace and Health at McMaster University and the co-producer of the Netflix film based on her book There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities.

Resources from the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project) 

The Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project (The ENRIC PEwebsiteENRICH Project): https://www.enrichproject.org/ 

Dr. Ingrid Waldron’s book There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous & Black Communities: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/there8217s-something-in-the-water 

The ENRICH Project Donation Page at MakeWay: https://makeway.org/project/the-enrich-project/ 

The National Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition Donation Page at MakeWay: https://makeway.org/environmental-racism/ 

Trailer for the Netflix documentary film There’s Something in the Water, based on Dr. Waldron’s book and co-produced by Waldron, Elliot Page, Ian Daniel and Julia Sanderson, and directed by Elliot Page and Ian Daniel: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/theres-something-in-the-water-ellen-page-documentary-954952/ 

In Whose Backyard documentary, co-produced by Pink Dog Productions and Dr. Waldron: https://www.enrichproject.org/resources/#IWB-Video 

The ENRICH Project Map: https://www.enrichproject.org/map/ 

The ENRICH Project’s Africville Story Map: https://dalspatial.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=d2e8df48f88e4ddc90ebe494a2cfa2a1 

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Seed Sowing

Published as part of our Indigenous Perspectives series featuring Indigenous-led initiatives to address and respond to climate change.

Introduction

Across Canada, Indigenous leadership is being recognized as an essential component to addressing climate change (CAT, 2021). Much of this is because Indigenous Knowledge and Land20 management practices encompass processes that are known to be effective and sustainable, with 80 per cent of the planet’s remaining biodiversity maintained on Indigenous-managed Lands (Ottenhoff, 2021; Sobrevila, 2008). 

Indigenous worldviews offer a different perspective on social resilience to environmental change, one that is based on moral relationships of responsibility that connect humans to animals, plants, and habitats. These responsible practices not only ensure ecosystem goods and services are maintained for future generations, but, more importantly, they centre the moral qualities necessary to carry out these responsibilities: trust, consent, and reciprocity. Moral qualities of responsibility are the foundation that allows us to rely on each other when facing environmental change (Whyte, 2018).

At a time when governments are recognizing their failures in fulfilling obligations to Indigenous Peoples (UBCIC, n.d.), organizations and agencies across jurisdictions must be aware of how Indigenous leadership can be engaged to revive and protect shared environments within urban and peri-urban regions. Climate change threatens the urban natural infrastructure we depend on for a myriad of services, while urbanization encloses more of our natural spaces. Better protection and management of these natural spaces are instrumental to the well-being of humans and non-humans alike.

This case study explores the journey of an Indigenous-led grassroots initiative in the Grand River Territory within southern Ontario, which falls under what has been designated a “crisis ecoregion,” the Lake Erie Lowland (Kraus & Hebb, 2020). Through three stories that describe the fostering of distinct relationships within the Wisahkotewinowak collective (Wisahkotewinowak, 2021a), an urban Indigneous food sovereignty initiative, we illustrate how Indigenous leadership can enhance community efforts to transform our shared social spaces, built environments and ecological climates by:

  1. finding Land use opportunities in natural urban places; 
  2. imagining and creating place for Land-based learning; 
  3. building and mobilizing community to enhance local biodiversity and social adaptations (Indigenous Climate Hub, 2020); and,
  4. enhancing Indigenous food sovereignty practices towards community wellbeing. 

We argue that these evolving relationships have integrated processes that are fundamental to robust and meaningful climate action, both in terms of centring Indigenous ways of caring for the Land as well as advancing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action through restoring Indigenous Peoples’ relationships to Land and pathways to wellness. 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada explicitly calls for actions that close gaps in health equity, including food security (TRC, 2015). Climate change impacts such as heat waves and extreme rain will affect local food systems and security, an important determinant of health, through food accessibility, distribution and food safety (Zeuli et al, 2018; Schnitter & Berry, 2019). Food security within diverse Indigenous contexts, however, should not be narrowly defined as having enough to eat or sufficient household funds to purchase processed foods that may be more accessible. To restore sustainable relationships to the Land, culture, and communities, and advance reconciliation efforts alongside social and environmental justice, a resurgence of community roles and responsibilities is needed (Cidro et al., 2015). As Indigenous law scholar John Borrows (2018) contends, “reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and the Crown requires our collective reconciliation with the earth” (p. 49). These considerations are particularly critical within urban and peri-urban places and spaces where natural environments are few and at greater risk from impacts of urbanization and climate change.

The stories presented here will illustrate these local initiatives and conclude with a series of best practices and recommendations to guide other groups, institutions, policy makers, and governments who wish to engage in similar work within diverse environments. 

Laying the Groundwork

A clay pot was discovered during a construction dig several years ago in the Great Lakes region. Inside were tiny black tobacco seeds, perhaps once grown by the Tionontati who cultivated tobacco below the Niagara Escarpment (Ramsden, 2020). Gifted to local Indigenous Peoples living in present-day Kitchener, Ontario, these seeds eventually made their way into the hands of Dave Skene, an urban Métis who gardened as a way to connect to his Indigenous identity while living in the city. In 2014, Dave planted those tiny seeds in some soil, knowing that all they needed was some sun and water to grow. 

A seed needs the right environment to grow. It needs nutrients from the Earth, moisture from Water and warmth from the Sun. All of these elements work together for germination to begin, the necessary conditions for new life to emerge. 

Dave continued gardening and gathered other traditional seeds, including some white corn from nearby Haudenosaunee neighbours. Together with a group of local Indigenous students, he established, tended, cared for and harvested the gifts from his first community garden project. This new project needed a name, and Dave came across the word Wisahkotewinowak, which means “the growth of new green shoots that come up from Mother Earth after a fire has come through the Land.” As the purpose of the garden was to revitalize Indigenous Land-based practices, it was a fitting name. New life sprouted within this new place and among the people participating in it, revitalizing knowledge of and relationship with the Land.

From the nurtured seed comes the sprout, which cracks its way through the surface of the Earth. At this time, the sprout knows it will grow in that place, putting roots down into the soil as it reaches upwards to the Sun. In this phase of growth, the right environment is essential, including the right conditions and the right helpers, including other plants to help share resources, and sometimes human hands to help mediate elements lacking in the ecosystem. 

Soon after its establishment, Wisahkotewinowak outgrew its initial garden location. So, in 2017, Dave began dreaming with university professors Hannah Tait Neufeld and Kim Anderson about how they could support the health of urban Indigenous communities through Indigenous food sovereignty and access to Land. Through their relationship and individual connections, new gardens were established across the region at Steckle Heritage Farm, the Guelph Organic Centre at the University of Guelph, and the University of Waterloo. And last spring, White Owl Native Ancestry Association staff (Garrison, Sarina and Dave) developed the Indigenous teaching garden at the Blair Outdoor Education Centre. 

With this holistic environmental support, the sprout can mature into a plant. And at this time, the plant is able to participate in sharing profoundly with its community. First, it flowers, inviting pollinators to feed from its nectar and carry its pollen widely to other plant-kin. Then, it offers fruit as nourishment to its animal-kin. Finally, with the unconsumed fruit, the plant creates seeds that contain the next generation of life, ready for gathering, sharing, and future planting. 

The Wisahkotewinowak Collective grew with each new garden and nurtured relationships in community. Meaningful places were created at these garden sites, and we have welcomed more students, academics, activists and Elders to become involved. The authors of this case study are the Collective’s core group, Indigenous (First Nation and Métis) and settler-allies who also wear many hats as gardeners, researchers/academics, teachers/educators, students and lifelong learners. As a Collective, our relationships extend to many youth, students, families, Elders and non-human kin in the places that sustain us. We are grateful to cultivate and care for the Land at the different garden sites, which grow within the Territories of the Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee Peoples, and the Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit and the Haldimand Tract of the Six Nations of the Grand River. Our connection with the gardens is also in relation to the Dish with One Spoon Territory, which we strive to uphold by taking only what we need, leaving some for the next person, and keeping the dish clean.

We are beginning to see the fruits of our work as we develop processes of relationship building, sharing food in community and continuing to grow and harvest food in self-determined ways across the Waterloo-Wellington municipalities we call home.

Banner design by Amina Lalor

1. Creating Grounded Opportunities: The White Owl Sugar Bush 

In 2016, White Owl Native Ancestry Association staff were invited to give a talk at Emmanuel United Church in Waterloo, Ontario. The congregation had donated to White Owl’s summer camps for Indigenous children and youth in the region, and program staff came to speak about some of the camp activities. Afterwards, a member of the church’s council asked if there was anything else the congregation could do to support White Owl’s work. Michelle Sutherland, co-Executive Director of White Owl and one of the presenters, replied “you could give us some Land.”

Coincidentally, the church owned a parcel of Land, and offered it to White Owl (McFarlane Miller, 2020). The United Church had purchased 10.5 acres of Land in the 1960s, with the intention of building a new church there. These development plans were hindered by the presence of the endangered Jefferson Salamander. The Land was given designation as a protected site by the City of Kitchener. It is estimated that only 3000 genetically pure Jefferson Salamanders exist in Canada within mature woodlands of the Niagara escarpment and Carolinian forest regions that contain suitable temporary or vernal pools ideal for breeding (COSEWIC, 2010). The former church Land contained the perfect environment for the salamanders. As a site of mixed forest including maple, oak, beech and some pine trees, White Owl leaders recognized the potential for holding community gatherings and ceremonies, and knew that the Wisahkotewinowak Collective would be interested in harvesting maple sap. It took a year for the legal process to transpire. A ceremony was held between leaders of White Owl and the United Church of Canada to mark the official transfer of Land ownership in 2017. The site is now known as the White Owl Sugar Bush.

In 2020, one hundred maple trees were tapped on the White Owl Land, providing the sweet water to community Elders for ceremonial purposes and boiling the rest of the sap into 110 litres of maple syrup, which was shared in the White Owl food distribution program, that supports access to Indigenous and other local foods for Indigenous community members locally (Wisahkotewinowak, 2021b). The mating season of the Jefferson Salamander coincides with the warming days of early spring, when the sweet water begins to flow into the maple trees. When Wisahkotewinowak gathers in the Sugar Bush to honour this annual awakening, we come into relationship with both the Maple and the Jefferson. That is, we engage in relating to these non-human beings from a place of respect, reciprocity and kindness, which are maintained through continued communication, consent, and advocacy. By producing maple syrup, we are establishing a sense of place and Land sovereignty– strengthened by concurrently nurturing and protecting the diversity of life that resides in the bush, which preserves this piece of forest from nearby development. Furthermore, we are working to protect maple trees as they are threatened by climate change (GreenUP, 2021). As Indigenous understandings and lived realities of relationship with the environment are inherently nature-based, they provide a number of solutions that mitigate climate change and work to support and advance reconciliation that will benefit the wellness of the larger community. 

Video credit: Christina De Melo. 

The development of surrounding farmlands into suburbs is a constant reminder of the importance of cultural and natural preservation that moves towards ecosystem restoration. By finding and seizing opportunities in natural urban spaces (i.e. what some may call underutilized spaces) to restore relationships to Land, we move beyond conservation by helping to safeguard our remaining biodiversity and support the revitalization of Indigenous Knowledge, which teaches us regenerative, relational ways of being and doing towards climate action.

2. Learning on the Land: Partnering with Educational Institutions

The increasing recognition of climate change can be paralysing, especially for Indigenous youth and other young adults (Majeed & Lee, 2017; Mackay et al., 2020). We can ease this distress for young people in our communities by engaging them in projects that promote connectedness to place, culture, and community (Clayton et al., 2017). Indigenous Land-based learning has been taken up in recent years by a number of post-secondary institutions within Canada (Peach et al., 2020; Brandon, 2012). According to Indigenous ways of knowing, we are only as healthy as our environments. As such, our Collective addresses sustainable Land-based practices in a diversity of settings, including working with academic institutions such as the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo and Conestoga College. Beginning in spring of 2018, we have established garden sites, with the assistance of the local Indigenous community, at the University of Guelph Organic Farm, University of Waterloo campus, and are in the planning stages at Conestoga College. The aim is to address food access and knowledge barriers and explore innovative Land-based education and sustainable practices that reinforce the wellbeing and decolonization of our built and social environments.

  • Photo by Levi Moore

With the support of Indigenous community partners, students engage in hands-on work tending Indigenous food and medicine gardens within these postsecondary institutional spaces. This work allows us to focus on reconnecting with the Land within diverse urban spaces and embark on reciprocal relationships in developing partnerships with the local Indigenous community in the region, as well as working with Elders from Six Nations of the Grand River as part of a larger research project (Roberts, 2018). The collaborative knowledge produced throughout this ongoing research will contribute to reducing knowledge barriers by way of advocacy, extending reach and changing perceptions of physical or built environments beyond clinical and institutional spaces. 

We have also begun working with the Waterloo Region District School Board and are establishing a garden at the Blair Outdoor Education Centre. This garden expanded threefold from 2019 to 2020, from 11 square metres to 270 square metres in size, increasing both its food growing capacity and teaching opportunity for the students that spend time in this space. As an outcome, 475 students were able to learn at the centre between September and December 2019. Although program attendance numbers were reduced due to strike action in the region and COVID-19, a total estimated 1,625 students would have attended from September 2019 to June 2020. Additionally, this garden space has provided a bounty of foods included in the weekly White Owl distribution program. We estimate that about 730 lbs of food was harvested from this space from August to November 2020 to be shared with 31 households and approximately 250 people. 

Gardens and Land-based camps have also been operating in south Kitchener at the Steckle Heritage Farm since the spring of 2017. The now-urban farm is an educational site operated by a non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to providing agricultural, environmental and cultural programs to children and families in the Region of Waterloo. Along with school tours and day camps, camps for Indigenous youth organized by White Owl Native Ancestry Association have taken place on site, with a focus on Indigenous gardening and food preparation practices. These practices include diverse processes such as nixtamalizing Haudenosaunee white corn, tanning deer hides, and preserving Cherokee tomatoes. On a deeper level, these Land-based practices mitigate and strengthen local environments, and provide a means for urban Indigenous youth (and others) to reinforce their innate connection to the Earth that sustains us, by caring for the Land, learning with the ancestral seeds that they plant, and meaningfully interacting with the foods they consume and share with others.

3. Building Community within Urban Spaces: The Uniroyal Goodrich Park 

Uniroyal Goodrich Park in Kitchener, Ontario, lies nestled in a community-oriented neighbourhood not far from where a central highway runs alongside the Grand River. It boasts a thriving community garden with a variety of trees surrounding the perimeter. In 2018, the park was slotted for reconstruction to enhance the retaining wall, assess a still-water pond and add new plantings with a new trail being established there by the city. As conversations around these plans developed, the neighbourhood group wished to establish relationships with the local Indigenous community and engage their perspectives as the park underwent this reconstruction phase. One of the neighbourhood group leaders and city liaison, Sarah Anderson, connected with Dave at this time, who embraced this relationship, seeing the possibility for an orchard to support local Indigenous food sovereignty efforts.

In 2019, these relationships continued to build, with the park leadership offering to create a ceremonial fire space. White Owl held summer day camps for Indigenous children and youth in the space. A maple syrup event was planned for the spring of 2020, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the lack of an in-person gathering, community and municipal representatives have remained committed to the park’s transformation. They reimagined the park as a more naturalized area, and set out to incorporate more native species, add new infrastructure and community art; and ultimately create a space for Indigenous plants and community to grow. In the fall of 2020, maple, paw paws and serviceberry trees were planted, with plans to increase local biodiversity underway. 

This story demonstrates how the Land can bring together different groups and relationships to act and make decisions in the best interest of the local environment or community habitat. The Land provides the literal common ground to come together. As this process unfolds, relationships continue growing between the City of Kitchener, the local neighbourhood group, and our Indigenous Collective. Because of this, Wisahkotewinowak is currently engaging in conversations about other municipal sites that can be collectively transformed for community benefit (both human and non-human). These connections seed other relationships, and further pollinate ideas for reconciliation—with each other and with the Land. We continue developing these relationships (human and non-human) and envision future additions of pollinator plants and fruit trees to the space (Anderson, 2020). Through these processes of adaptation and restoration, we aim to account for All Our Relations, who deserve a place to belong and thrive, thereby slowing biodiversity losses associated with the impacts of climate change. We look forward to a time soon when we can gather in community, celebrate these relationships together and continue to establish these moral qualities of responsibility to the Land and each other.

Continuing to Grow and Learn from the Land and Community

As illustrated across the stories presented, the Wisahkotewinowak Collective is engaged in innovative projects that show how Indigenous-led efforts can encompass sustainable environmental action and activities supporting local movements, such as O:se Kenhionhata:tie. Throughout its evolution, the Collective has seized opportunities by creating places and spaces for Land-based community learning, and safeguarded and enhanced local biodiversity. These actions were achieved by processes of environmental action such as establishing relationships that support collective ecological wellness with All Our Relations: people, plants, animals, and the Land. Our three stories exemplify how relationships establish processes that form the basis of transformative actions to benefit our shared social, built and ecological environments. 

As a Collective, we continue to reflect on our responsibilities and our position in relation to the local Territories. We will carry on caring for the Land and encourage others to add to this evolving story of relationship-building and decolonization. Relationships require time, energy and accountability, and when successfully engaged they can seed other relationships and ideas for reconciliation with each other and the Land. We see this work as transferable to urban Indigenous communities, with the potential to inform all levels of policy making and other systems of governance beyond colonial structures. Our recommendations are framed by the seed story model below that encompass four essential stages: receiving the gift of the seed, planting the seed, nurturing the seed, and harvesting, saving and sharing the seed. 

1. Receiving the gift of the seed establishes a relationship rooted in understanding responsibilities, recognizing opportunities, and envisioning possibilities. Before the seed is planted, we must assess the local environment to ensure the seed has a good chance of thriving, while acknowledging our responsibility to help carry out the seed’s purpose or intention. At the community level, we can initiate relationship-building processes by engaging with local Indigenous organizations and local leaders to support the generation of ideas and networks supporting environmental action. Initial steps can include:

  • At the local level: identifying resources, such as funds or natural areas perceived as underutilized spaces, and offer their use and related decision-making authority to Indigenous groups.
  • At a policy level: creating opportunities for building networks and partnerships across jurisdictional spheres, and building new frameworks supporting Indigenous governance. 

2. Planting the seed takes place when we are ready to act on the emerging vision. The necessary resources are secured, relationships are established, and the responsibility to support the seed’s journey is accepted. The time of planting requires that conditions of these elements come together and progress through the following steps:

  • At the local level: establishing a community that can commit to project goals and see them to fruition, including ensuring that all project partners understand and agree to project conditions such as duration, decision-making power and securing adequate resources.
  • At a policy level: eliminating barriers to Land access and creating space for Indigenous governance by simplifying legal processes and documentation to support the transfer of Land agreements and trusts.

3. Nurturing the seed is an ongoing process through the growing season as the seed’s needs and components of its surrounding environment are established through a cycle of planning, monitoring, assessing, responding, and upholding the emerging network’s responsibility towards the seed. At this stage of the cycle, mutual trust is fostered within the web of relations residing in this cultivated space and place, where the seed relies on these reciprocal relationships to emerge and support its ongoing maturity. We can practice this process by:

  • At the local level: establishing and upholding commitments to Indigenous groups through continued relationship-building, and navigating challenges with the intention of preserving shared goals. 
  • At a policy level: supporting the expansion of the work through Land-based learning, with Indigenous organizations through institutional and other advisory groups with diverse representation (i.e., organizational, cultural, gender).

4. Harvesting, saving and sharing the seed can occur when the mature plant brings new opportunities. When these gifts are offered seasonally, seeds can be harvested for saving and sharing. In this way, we must recognize opportunities to expand the life of the original seed, and continue the cycles of growth and connection in our communities by:

  • At the community level: identifying ways that elements of the project can be replicated or expanded by renewing and investing in existing—as well as developing new—relationships to preserve these opportunities until there is local capacity.
  • At the policy level: centring Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Knowledges in these emerging opportunities that cut across all forms of governance.

The seed cycle continues, as do these relational processes towards sustainable Land practices. These stages continue to expand across all forms of knowledge towards the improved health and wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples within diverse urban environments. Just as the seed metaphor frames our shared experience, the seed is a gift that must be consistently cared for, as are the relationships shared in these stories. Both are tangible entities we intentionally compare in this way, as seed and relationship require continual energy and intention, and both have the potential to bear fruitful opportunities for the future. Most importantly, the seed and its evolving story need to be treated as the gift that it is, inspiring us to pursue meaningful pathways towards reconciliation and ecological action.

About the authors

Written by members of the Wisahkotewinowak Collective21

Elisabeth Miltenburg, MSc 
Applied Human Nutrition, University of Guelph

Hannah Tait Neufeld, PhD
Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health, Wellness and Food Environments, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo

Laura Peach, MA
Research Project Manager, School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo

Sarina Perchak, BA
Land-based Education Coordinator, White Owl Native Ancestry Association

Dave Skene, MA
Executive Director, White Owl Native Ancestry Association

References

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Brandon, D. C. 2012. “Indigenous teaching gardens open.” Illuminate: Faculty Education Magazine. Retrieved from: https://illuminate.ualberta.ca/content/indigenous-teaching-gardens-open.

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Ayookxw Responding to Climate Change

Published as part of our Indigenous Perspectives series featuring Indigenous-led initiatives to address and respond to climate change.

Introduction

The Gitanyow people of the Middle Nass and Upper Skeena watersheds, located on unceded territory in northwestern British Columbia, are governing ourselves and exercising jurisdiction over the Lax’yip (territory) through the Ayookxw (Gitanyow laws). The ability of the Gitanyow to carry out these responsibilities is impeded by ongoing colonialism and the decisions of the settler state, primarily the Province of British Columbia, to permit activities in Gitanyow Lax’yip without the consent of the Gitanyow. The cumulative impacts of forestry, highways, mining, proposed pipelines and the Northwest transmission line have spurred Gitanyow to develop contemporary expressions of our Ayookxw to counter the colonial administrative apparatus. A comprehensive land use plan and other legal and policy instruments have been developed to establish Gitanyow standards for the behaviour of industrial proponents in the Lax’yip.

A key part of this sustainability approach is acknowledging the broader impacts of climate change on Gitanyow territory. Gitanyow understand that water flow from glaciers is an important part of the ecology of some watersheds, which will change over time as glaciers recede. What has historically been good fish habitat may no longer serve the same fish populations, and other streams may become more suitable fish habitat. While the land use plan has been a foundational policy instrument in addressing cumulative effects, its signing in 2012 predates the more significant impacts of climate change in the Lax’yip that are now more common.

To address these changing conditions, Gitanyow established a Sustainability Director position and have embedded climate change assessment criteria and adaptability into policies and practices. Examples of this attention to climate change include evaluating environmental flows and water quality throughout the Lax’yip, glacier surveys, and developing a water quality and quantity policy. The overall objective of this work is to set standards for activities and cumulative impacts in the Lax’yip and require proponents to demonstrate that their proposed project or activity will not exceed those standards.

Glossary of Gitanyow terms

Lax’yip: The ancestral territories of the Gitanyow.

Wilp: House group—the primary political, social, and decision-making unit of the Gitanyow, each with its own well-defined territories managed according to a strong and enduring system of land management.

Huwilp: The collective of eight Wilp that collectively constitute the Gitanyow People.

Ayookxw: Gitanyow laws that ensure peace and order for the Huwilp.

Adawaak: The oral history of each Wilp.

Ayuuks: Crests that codify the oral history of each Wilp.

Li’ligit: A formal public gathering and feast initiated by a Wilp to conduct its business.

For more information, see “Legal Principles Underlying the Gitanyow Lax’yip Land Use Plan.”

Gitanyow Nation: Governance and Territory

The Gitanyow people are collectively known as the Gitanyow Huwilp. The Lax’yip (territory) is located primarily in the Middle Nass and Upper Skeena watersheds and covers a total area of 6296 square kilometres. The Gitanyow Huwilp refers to the collective of eight Wilp (house groups), organized into two Pdeek (clans), the Lax Gibuu (Wolf) and the Lax Ganeda (Frog/Raven). The Lax’yip of each Wilp is embedded in the Git’mgan (totem pole) and is rooted in Adawaak (oral history of each Wilp), Ayuuks (crests), and Ayookxw (Gitanyow law). Each Wilp has jurisdiction and exclusive rights to Wilp names, Adawaak, Ayuuks, Git’mgan and Lax’yip.

The Gitanyow Huwilp are an autonomous, social, economic and political unit of the larger cultural group the Gitksan peoples. Each Wilp has well defined territories managed according to a strong and enduring system of land ownership and management. Individual Wilp exercise jurisdiction over their territory and Wilp members on issues such as access to land and water, succession in the use of land and water, protection of land and the environment for future generations, and reaffirmation of authority and responsibility over the territory. The Gitanyow histories, laws, territories and institutions have always existed and will continue to exist forever, and are recognized by the Province of British Columbia and Government of Canada pursuant to section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. In addition, the Gitanyow people have entered into a number of government-to-government agreements with British Columbia where the Province has recognized the Gitanyow people’s authority and jurisdiction to make decisions based on our own laws, policies, responsibilities and protocols.

The Ayookxw are Gitanyow laws that ensure peace and order for the Huwilp. Ayookxw set out ownership of the land, use of and care for the environment, conduct of a Li’ligit (feast), relationship with one another, and inheritance. Ayookxw are founded on knowledge, experiences and practices that are thousands of years old and are recounted in the Adawaak and Ayuuks. Ayookxw is reaffirmed and confirmed through testimony on the Adawaak and the Li’ligit. A Wilp and the Huwilp may adopt new Ayookxw in order to meet new and evolving challenges of the contemporary world. Recognition for Ayookxw is part of the framework of section 35, Constitution Act, 1982, put forward by the people and governments of Canada. The Gitanyow have documented our oral Ayookxw into The Gitanyow Constitution, 2009, to help the provincial and federal governments better understand the Indigenous laws of the Gitanyow.

A key feature of the Gitanyow Lax’yip and culture is the annual return of several species of salmon throughout the watersheds. The many small catchments that contribute to the ecology and flow of eight major watersheds—the Bell-Irving, Cranberry, Kinskuch, Kispiox, Meziadin, Nass, Skeena and White Rivers watersheds—ultimately connect to either the Skeena River or the Nass River. Watersheds in the Gitanyow Lax’yip typically follow a seasonal pattern where snow and ice mean low flows in the winter, the spring freshet results in maximum annual flows, summer flows are variable but warm in July and August depending on the amount of rain, and autumn flows uneven. Groundwater is a variable and largely unknown factor as it interacts with surface water bodies, but it can provide cooling in summer months. 

In addition to salmon, other important species to the Gitanyow include trout, moose, cedar, grizzly bear, mountain goat, furbearers such as marten and beaver, pine mushrooms, and berries and medicinal plants such as devil’s club, hellebore and Labrador tea, among others. Gitanyow also trade extensively with coastal First Nations for seafood, seaweed, oolichans, and sea lion.

Contemporary expressions of Gitanyow authority are carried out through the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority and the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs’ Office. In addition to managing the salmon fishery through the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority, Gitanyow’s Lax’yip Guardians provide environmental monitoring services for forestry, major projects development, water quality and quantity, hunting permitting, and other wildlife related monitoring throughout the Lax’yip. A combination of fish and wildlife biologists and trained Gitanyow field technicians provide territory-based services for the good of the Gitanyow Huwilp under the direction of the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs.

Figure 1: Map of Gitanyow Lax’yip and Simgigyet (used with permission of the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs’ Office)

Wilp Sustainability Approach

The Gitanyow have a direct and longstanding relationship with the land, water and all of the watersheds within the environment that sustains us. We depend on healthy watersheds to exercise our aboriginal rights to activities such as fishing, hunting, trapping, food and medicinal plant gathering, and spiritual practices. This strong relationship to the land and waters makes protecting and managing land and water critical to Gitanyow culture. 

In response to the cumulative impacts on the Lax’yip from non-Gitanyow forestry activities, in 2012 the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs enacted the Gitanyow Lax’yip Land Use Plan as a physical expression of Ayookxw that translated legal responsibilities into site-specific directives for anyone – including colonial governments and non-Indigenous natural resource users – permitting or undertaking activities within Gitanyow territory. The Gitanyow Lax’yip Land Use Plan provides management direction for a variety of land use objectives largely oriented to habitat, zones of special designation and protection given threats from forestry activities. Examples of these designations and objectives include Water Management Units, Ecosystem Networks, and the Hanna Tintina Conservancy (a protected area designation in Gitanyow and colonial law that provides for collaborative management and the exercise of aboriginal rights). Objectives and designations also mention monitoring, identifying, and maintaining target or baseline values of water quantity and quality. 

The Plan is a fusing of western science and Indigenous Gitanyow knowledge, and was negotiated with the Provincial Government over a ten-year period. Previous to the Plan, forestry consultation was an ad-hoc process and was done primarily at the site-specific level, cut-block by cut-block. There was no overarching landscape level plan to address cumulative effects or to provide greater certainty to both industry and the Gitanyow that consensus was being achieved on development plans. This uncertainty led to multiple court cases brought by Gitanyow in the late 1990s and early 2000s to address these issues. The BC Supreme Court provided critical recognition of Gitanyow culture and rights and gave government instructions that would help inform the mandate for the negotiation of the Plan.

While the Plan contains key water protection spatial zones including Water Management Units and Ecosystem Networks, which are now protected from logging and industrial activity, it does not deal directly with water flows needed for salmon habitat and ecosystem function in the face of climate change, or water quality standards in the face of impacts from upstream mining activity in Tahltan Nation territory. In 2017 the Gitanyow Chiefs made the decision to commence drafting a Gitanyow Water Policy Law to address these impacts. 

For the past nine years we have been building from our Gitanyow Lax’yip Land Use Plan to develop legal and policy instruments that express our Indigenous rights, direct how activities in our territory will occur, and establish baselines for ecological function in light of climate changes impacts, particularly with regard to flows in our creeks and streams. Bringing together Indigenous knowledge and western science, this work includes establishing ecological baselines, setting standards and developing processes. Ecological baselines include evaluating environmental-flow-needs thresholds for several creeks affected by climate change while setting standards and processes include creating a water quality and quantity policy and assessment process.

Responding to the Complexity of Climate Change

The development of additional outward-facing legal and policy tools and ecological baselines involve water because the cumulative effects of climate change in the territory, including an increase in temperature and decrease in water flows in salmon-spawning rivers, makes proactive water management a necessity. Three projects, in particular, draw Gitanyow knowledge and western science together into policy frameworks for adaptation and mitigation of climate change risks. First, the Gitanyow Sustainability Director has worked with a number of staff and consultants for three years to define environmental flows in some creeks, both in ones that already have reduced flows due to climate change and in others where flows are still healthy for fish. The second project involves glacier surveys and mapping to better understand the extent of water potential held in glaciers and evaluate the rate of climate change based on changing water flows into the territory from glaciers. Third, the Gitanyow Sustainability Director is working with the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria and consultants to draft a Gitanyow Lax’yip water policy/law to state Gitanyow’s objectives for water management, and identify water quality standards and environmental flows that maintain and enhance ecological health. Similar to the Gitanyow Lax’yip Land Use Plan, the water policy will outline responsibilities for colonial governments and proponents when operating in Gitanyow territory, including protection and restoration of watershed function.

Environmental Flows and Water Quality 

Fish are a central part of Gitanyow culture, and the cumulative impacts of forestry, climate change and mining, in particular, have resulted in changes to water flows and quality that have struck at the heart of that culture. Sockeye stocks have decreased consistently over the past decade, and Gitanyow were concerned that declining water quality and quantity were damaging salmon health and reproduction. Moreover, scientific studies commissioned by the Gitanyow indicated the importance of healthy freshwater for overall ecosystem function in sensitive areas such as old growth forests. Over the past five years, Gitanyow has witnessed largely unprecedented droughts and forest fires in the majority of summer seasons. 

While forest fires can play an important role in the health of ecosystems, droughts in northwest B.C., especially during July and August when salmon are migrating to their upriver spawning grounds, can have devastating and long-lasting impacts on populations. The recent Preliminary Strategic Climate Risk Assessment for British Columbia predicts that going forward to 2050, the risk of seasonal water shortage, glacier mass loss, and long-term water shortage is high throughout the province.

With very limited western science data available for water quality or quantity in the Gitanyow Lax’yip, the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority and the Gitanyow Lax’yip Guardians initiated a baseline water monitoring program. Building on the three hydrometric stations operated by the Water Survey of Canada, the Gitanyow added and operate seven stations, and have used the resulting data to develop preliminary environmental flow needs for three important watercourses in the Lax’yip – Hanna Creek, Tintina Creek and Cranberry River. Future plans include developing environmental flow needs for other high-priority systems, where there is significant risk to the water, or where proposed projects may have an impact on the watercourse.

For the three years of 2018-2020 staff collected year-round water quality data at sites representing five watersheds, contributing to the development of specific water quality parameters at these locations. The Gitanyow Fisheries Authority has also conducted limnology surveys for multiple years from May to October on several lakes, sampling nutrients and establishing physicochemical parameters with a view to developing water quality standards for these lakes. 

Both Hanna and Tintina Creeks are important spawning creeks, but they have both been significantly degraded by logging. The dual impacts of historic logging impacts and climate change have meant that some years there is virtually no flow in some parts of the creeks. Now designated within a protected area called the Hanna-Tintina Conservancy that encompasses nearly the entirety of both watersheds, the purpose of the conservancy is to protect the high-value salmon spawning habitat that historically supported 80 per cent of Nass River sockeye.

Gitanyow staff are evaluating the value of recognizing other waterbodies, such as Strohn Creek, as important current and future spawning areas, given the impacts of climate change and relatively consistent flows in some of these waterbodies. 

In 2016, Gitanyow began efforts to expand the Hanna Tintina Conservancy to include Strohn and Surprise Creeks, as well as the smaller streams that feed into Meziadin Lake. Despite five years of ongoing efforts from Gitanyow through the reconciliation table of the Joint Resources Governance Forum, however, the province has not taken any concrete action to protect the areas around Strohn and Surprise Creeks. A joint process to explore various provincial legal designations began in 2017, but to date no option has been selected by the province. Gitanyow is now seeking to establish the entire Meziadin area as an Indigenous Protected Area and communicate management direction to industrial proponents, specifically mineral exploration companies.

Glacier Surveys and Mapping

In support of developing the Gitanyow Water Policy, an inventory of glaciers in the Gitanyow Lax’yip was commissioned in 2019. Understanding the extent, size and rate of recession of glaciers in the Gitanyow Lax’yip is critical information to plan for and mitigate against climate change. As annual snowpack declines due to climate change, glaciers become even more critical in providing flows and cooling in summer months. Partnering with the Coast Mountain College in Terrace, the Gitanyow Lax’yip Glacier Inventory, 2020 provides the current state of glaciers in the Lax’yip, their rate of recession, and their meltwater contribution to various watersheds. Future work will include modelling for future further recession and potential implications for salmon ecosystems.

Water Policy 

Most recently, Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs staff have merged Gitanyow Ayookxw with the water quality and quantity data to create a draft Gitanyow Lax’yip Water Policy. The intent is to establish watershed-specific standards that anyone undertaking activities within the Lax’yip must adhere to. The policy establishes a classification of surface waters, procedures for evaluating water quality using water quality standards and assessment of biological communities, procedures for evaluating environmental flow needs, and a water management technical process. The policy was motivated by growing awareness among the Gitanyow around 2017 that water was becoming a scarce resource in many parts of B.C. and globally, and that future declines in water availability caused by climate change, compounded with the potential impact of upstream mining contaminants, could have significant impacts on salmon and salmon ecosystems. 

Waterbody classification involves assigning Type I, Type II or Type III status to all waterbodies of the Lax’yip (see Figure 2). Type I waterbodies are the most sensitive or at highest risk due to ecological, hydrological and/or cultural significance or specific use. Type 1 waterbody characteristics include human consumption, high fishery or cultural value, are in protected areas and/or are highly vulnerable to climate change and its cumulative effects. In Type I waters, the natural flow regime must remain unaltered and water quality must meet or exceed current conditions. Type II waterbodies are at high risk or sensitivity and “provide critical upstream or downstream connectivity and processes that support human health, aquatic and terrestrial communities, and ecosystem function but may not currently directly support criteria/characteristics of Type I waterbodies”. Type II waterbodies provide important connectivity with Type I waterbodies, support other waterbodies or areas of ecological or cultural importance, and are vulnerable to climate change and cumulative effects. Flows in Type II waterbodies cannot be altered more than 10 percent and never below environmental flow needs. While additional human activities are permitted in Type II waterbodies, no alteration or degradation of instream conditions is allowed, and natural flow regimes must be maintained. Type III waterbodies are at lower risk or sensitivity. Water flows in Type III waterbodies may be altered up to 10 percent but never below environmental flow needs without “extensive additional field-based assessment to develop robust environmental flow needs and flow management planning”. Water quality in Type III waterbodies must meet or exceed water quality standards for the protection of aquatic, terrestrial and human health.

Figure 2: Map of preliminary designated waterbody classifications within the Gitanyow Lax’yip. This map is subject to change. (used with permission of the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs’ Office)

In addition to cultural, fishery and water supply values, there are also a number of climate-related criteria: thermal refugia, climate change risk and glacier conservation. Climate-related criteria emphasize the connection between decreasing snowpack, glacier mass, and summer-time droughts and the compounding risk this entails for already sensitive waterbodies. In many cases, climate change alone is all the impact that a sensitive waterbody may be able to tolerate, meaning that any water extraction or industrial use may be prohibited. 

The policy also acknowledges the importance of restoration efforts, with one of the waterbody classification criteria being the need to develop and implement a recovery plan, and defines Gitanyow environmental flow needs:

Gitanyow “environmental flow needs” (EFN) are defined as the desirable conditions of streams on the Lax’yip that maintain natural in-stream flow regimes and sustain healthy ecosystems. This includes flows that allow for maintenance of flow-related watershed processes (e.g., flood plain maintenance).

The policy establishes water quality standards for specific sites based on the water quality data collected by Gitanyow Fisheries Authority and the Gitanyow Lax’yip Guardians. The standards represent annual maximum criteria that will require the development of site-specific, seasonally representative standards for specific project proposals. 

Finally, Gitanyow recognize that climate change will make some waterbodies less suitable for fish and others more suitable. Therefore, they are working towards a high degree of protection for both types of waterbodies.

Conclusion

The integrated approach taken by the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs is creating a watershed governance approach based in the Gitanyow legal order expressed in a contemporary form to address 21st century water management challenges, including climate change.

Led by the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, the Huwilp is creating a comprehensive understanding of the ecological health of our territory using both Indigenous knowledge and laws (Ayookxw) and western science, and translating that knowledge into policies that respond to the impacts of climate change. 

This case study highlights the interconnectedness of climate change and water management, and the significant risks facing species of cultural significance that Indigenous peoples rely upon. Land use plans are foundational to addressing the cumulative effects of industrial development, providing spatial zones that highlight environmental values common to both Crown and Indigenous governments. However, climate change calls for greater conservation and management specificity around water management, in order to connect land and water planning in an integrated and holistic manner.

Recommendations

For Indigenous governing organizations:

  • Develop or adapt watershed/land use plans based on your Indigenous legal orders that specifically assess climate change impacts and risks, including environmental flow needs;
  • Consider how governance instruments like policies or governance processes can address constraints and opportunities related to climate change;
  • Declare your environmental flow needs publicly as a statement of your Indigenous laws;
  • Require state governments and proponents to provide details on how proposed projects will exacerbate climate change impacts and how they will mitigate those impacts.

For Indigenous and settler watershed managers:

  • Gather Indigenous knowledge on ecological baselines in your territory, in particular water quality and flow;
  • Continue to formally document the existing climate change impacts your community is experiencing. Consider reporting to leadership these impacts in an annual report or state of the territory report;
  • Establish ecological monitoring programs that include both Indigenous knowledge and western science methodologies;
  • Monitor the impacts of existing activities in the territory and evaluate proposed activities using a climate change screen.
  • Consider how future projected climate change will impact water and ecological resources, and plan for these in management strategies.

For Crown governments: 

  • Incorporate climate change screens and assessment criteria into all land use and water management planning and approvals processes;
  • Revise land use and water management parameters, such as orders under forestry legislation, to account for territory-specific anticipated climate change impacts;
  • Enter into consent-based agreements with all First Nations or Indigenous governing organizations for all planning and approvals processes that enable adaptive assessment, monitoring and evaluation processes for cumulative impacts—including from climate change— throughout a territory;
  • Fund community-led data gathering, monitoring and assessment using both Indigenous and western scientific knowledge;
  • Create an interactive and public data management platform that will house non-confidential data on which all parties can rely.

About the authors

Tara Marsden holds the name Naxginkw and is a member of the Gitanyow Huwilp and acted as Wilp Sustainability Director for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs for nine years. Deborah Curran is a lawyer with the Environmental Law Centre and professor at the University of Victoria and co-writes in allyship, therefore the article is written in first-person.

References

The Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11.

Gitanyow Fisheries Authority (Kevin Koch and Jeffrey Anderson). 2018. Hanna, Tintina and Strohn Creeks Habitat Assessment and Restoration Initiative Year 4.

Gitanyow Nation and Province of British Columbia. 2016. Gitanyow Huwilp Recognition and Reconciliation Agreement. 

Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs. 2021. Gitanyow Lax’yip Water Policy (Draft). 

Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs. 2009. Gitanyow Constitution.

Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs. Legal Principles Underlying the Gitanyow Lax’yip Land Use Plan.

Gitanyow Huwilp Society. 2018. Gitanyow Lax’yip Water Quantity and Quality Plan: Scoping Document and Proposed Framework Phase 1 Scoping Document.

Matthew J. Beedle, PhD and Monica Jeffrey. 2020. Meziadin Lake Watershed and Gitanyow Lax’yip Inventory.

Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. Preliminary Strategic Climate Risk Assessment for British Columbia 2019.

Unnatural Disasters

Published as part of our Indigenous Perspectives series featuring Indigenous-led initiatives to address and respond to climate change.

Summary

Indigenous communities in Canada face disproportionate levels of risk from climate change—but not only from climate change. In Canada, there is very little research within the Indigenous context on the connections between the unnatural disasters of colonialism, land dispossession, and climate displacement. Through community-led research, we seek to document in this case study the long-term impacts of land dispossession, disaster displacement, and climate change in Siksika Nation, on Treaty 7 territory in southern Alberta, through interviews conducted with community members by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro, a Siksika Elder. 

Following the devastating 2013 flood event, Siksika evacuees experienced multiple phases of disaster displacement. Six long years after the disaster, some of the evacuees had not returned to their homes. Recovery has been an ongoing process with uncertain outcomes.

In June 2013, eight communities along the Bow River, which flows west to east within the Siksika Nation, were devastated by a flood.

Through this case study, we challenge the widely used notion of a “natural disaster.” When examined from an Indigenous community perspective, and bearing in mind targeted long-term risk creation through colonial land dispossession combined with anthropogenic climate change, there is very little that is “natural” about flooding disasters in First Nation communities.

Our case study shows an example of self-determination in the community-led, culturally safe response to disasters of the Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Centre, a unique Siksika-led disaster recovery approach that addressed the physical, mental, cultural, and spiritual health needs of evacuees.   

Introduction 

The frequency and severity of disasters has been increasing over the past 30 years in Canada. In 2020 alone, insured damage for severe weather events across Canada reached $2.4 billion (IBC, 2021). Such floods, hurricanes and wildfires are often presented by the media, government, and response organizations as “natural disasters.” However, this notion of a “natural” disaster fails to tell the full story of the social determinants of risk and how disasters are exacerbated through inappropriate land use, fragmented governance systems, and activities prioritizing short-term gain and short-term electoral benefits (Lavell & Maskrey, 2013; Oliver-Smith et al., 2016). In particular, the “natural disaster” framing omits the ongoing unnatural disasters of denial, displacement, dispossession, and loss in Indigenous communities (Howitt, 2020; Howitt et al, 2012). 

In this case study, we examine the unnatural impacts colonization continues to have on communities as they recover from disasters. Specifically, through community-led research, we document the long-term impacts of land dispossession, disaster displacement, and climate change in Siksika Nation based on interviews conducted with community members by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro. Darlene is a Siksika Elder, a former community nurse, the former Chief, and the Former Director of the Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Centre. It is also based on Darlene’s reflections as a community leader. 

Our research and writing team for this case study also included Emily Dicken, MSc, PhD, a woman of mixed Indigenous and European descent with over 15 years of experience working in the field of emergency management, and Lilia Yumagulova, MSc, PhD, a Bashkir woman with over 15 years of global experience in Indigenous community resilience. Our team met through the Advisory Circle for the Preparing Our Home program, an Indigenous youth-led program for community resilience. 

Grounded in Indigenous methodologies, this community case study sought to create a culturally safe space to explore colonial land dispossession and disaster evacuations within the context of climate displacement. Climate change is projected to continue to drive increased risks over the coming decades, risks that will be compounded by non-climatic factors such as social, economic, cultural, political, and institutional inequities (IPCC, 2016). It is important to understand how disaster response and emergency planning measures can play a role in reducing harm and promoting healing instead of perpetuating vulnerabilities and inequities.

Disaster response and emergency planning measures can play a role in reducing harm and promoting healing instead of perpetuating vulnerabilities and inequities.

Our case study highlights the long journey home for Siksika evacuees who have been dealing with the long-term physical and mental health consequences of displacement, loss, and trauma. In this long journey, we focus on highlighting best practices of Indigenous self-determination in disaster recovery. These include providing culturally appropriate, community member-led services to address the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional needs of evacuees throughout disaster displacement. 

The unnatural disasters of colonialism and displacement 

Indigenous Peoples have lived on the land now known as Canada since time immemorial. However, the past 400 years of colonization in Canada can be understood as a political ideology that legitimated the modern European invasion, occupation, and exploitation of inhabited Indigenous lands and devastated Indigenous culture (Coates, 2004). To meet the perceived economic and political needs of imperial powers, colonization was rationalized as a way to bring Christianity and ‘civilization’ to Indigenous Peoples by universalizing a specific set of European beliefs and values (Deloria, 1969; Howe, 2003; McMillan & Yellowhorn, 2004). 

The enduring and unnatural disaster of colonialism in Canada has been catastrophic for Indigenous Peoples. Rapid depopulation and pervasive forms of physical, mental, and social abuse contributed to substantial losses of identity, language, cultural practice, spiritual belief, and territory (Howitt et al., 2011). As a mechanism for furthering the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples, in 1876, the federal government of Canada developed the Indian Act, bringing a coordinated approach to ‘Indian policy’. With the intent of assimilation—the erasure of Indigenous Peoples as distinct nations—the priorities of the Indian Act addressed three main areas of legislation: land, membership, and local government (Morris, 1880; Reading and Wien, 2009). As explained by Duncan Campbell Scott, Indian Affairs Deputy Minister from 1913 to 1932, “our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole objective of this bill” (TRCC, 2015, p. 54). 

For Indigenous Peoples in Canada, colonialism represents a painful chronicle of broken treaties, stolen lands, Indian residential schools, and the Indian Act. Of vital note to this case study is the way the Indian Act undermined the ability of Indigenous communities to self-govern and gave the federal government the authority to strip the power of chiefs and councillors and overturn decisions made by band councils. As the legislation became further entrenched, the government also began to assume greater authority over how reserve lands could be allocated (Reading & Wien, 2009; TRCC, 2015). Under this paternalistic approach, entire reserves were relocated against the will of communities.

Forced relocation disrupted Indigenous settlement patterns that accommodated seasonal opportunities and hazards (e.g., winter villages were often located in areas of refuge from winter storms and other seasonal hazards). Traditionally, many Indigenous communities lived in multiple settlement sites that were utilized at different times of the year (Dicken, 2017). The selection of these sites was dependent on seasonal hunting and fishing practices and environmental factors such as weather and access to fresh water. Through the Reserve section of the Indian Act, however, communities were forced to settle and remain in one location. Although many Indigenous communities did not surrender their land, through federal legislation the Canadian government created small reserves for each community in the late 19th century. By limiting access to land, this act also curtailed hunting and fishing, which essentially deprived Indigenous Peoples of food security and economic viability. 

Today, much of the reserve land across Canada is exposed to and experiences a disproportionate level of risk and hazards compared to their neighbouring non-Indigenous communities, and lacks the flood protection infrastructure such as dikes needed to mitigate this risk (Yumagulova, 2020). This is due to historical and present-day complexities associated with lack of infrastructure, marginalized lands, and other socio-economic factors (OAGC, 2013). The establishment of reserves caused land displacement (the forced relocation from and the loss of traditional lands, and/or loss of access to traditional lands) and environmental dispossession (the process through which traditional access to the resources of the environment is reduced though displacement, environmental contamination, unprecedented resource extraction, or land rights disputes), both of which are detrimental to the health and wellness of Indigenous communities (Lewis et al, 2020).

Disproportionate levels of risk in Indigenous communities

First Nation communities are 18 times more likely to be evacuated due to disasters than people living off-reserve and fire-related death is more than 10 times higher (Government of Canada, 2019). Disaster displacement impacts are further compounded due to gaps in emergency management practices such as lack of evacuation preparedness (Asfaw et al., 2020) and insurance gaps (Public Safety Canada, 2020); meanwhile, lack of self-determination in disaster response can result in externally imposed emergency management practices, further deepening marginalization, trauma, and conflict within communities (Yumagulova et al, 2019a). More than a fifth of residential properties on Indigenous reserves are exposed to risks of one-in-a-hundred-year flooding (Thistlethwaite et al, 2020). Inadequate housing further exacerbates social vulnerability: the proportion of First Nations people with registered or treaty Indian status who lived in a dwelling that needed major repairs was more than three times higher on reserve (44.2%) than off reserve (14.2%) (Statistics Canada, 2016). For more information, see Yumagulova, Yellow Old Woman-Munro, MacLean-Hawes, Naveau, Vogel, 2021. 

Through disasters such as flood and fire, standard emergency management practices can inadvertently bring about forced evacuation or relocation for the purposes of public safety. Both evacuation and relocation negatively impact community resilience and can cause irreparable damage to members of Indigenous communities when they become separated from their traditional lands (Howitt et al., 2012). Forced evacuation, in concert with colonial legacies associated with loss of land, speaks to the urgent need for pre-disaster recovery planning that supports the cultural needs of Indigenous Peoples, informed by both historical and present-day needs. 

First Nation communities are 18 times more likely to be evacuated due to disasters than people living off-reserve.

Shaped by Canadian history and entrenched in present day society, colonialism remains an ongoing process, with continuous influence on both the structure and the quality of the relationship between Canadian settlers and Indigenous Peoples. To explore the experiences of colonial displacement from land and the present and future state of climate impacts, we draw on lessons from the flooding of the Siksika Nation and the wisdom with which they have responded and recovered. 

Climate change and disaster displacement 

Climate change presents unique challenges for Indigenous Peoples, exacerbated by historical and ongoing processes of land dispossession. Climate change can further exacerbate political and economic marginalization, loss of land and resources, human rights violations, discrimination, and unemployment (International Labour Organization, 2017). Indigenous communities in Canada are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to Indigenous People’s intrinsic connection to and reliance on their traditional territories (e.g., for sustenance through rights to hunt and fish), remoteness in relation to access to essential services, infrastructure deficits, and exposure to climate risks (CIER, 2009; CIER, 2020). Both disaster and climate displacement present unique challenges for Indigenous Peoples given their dependence upon, spiritual connections to, and identity-forming relationship with the land—a relationship grounded in intergenerational place attachment that extends over millennia (Middleton et al, 2020). Evidence collected by Indigenous scholars and community members suggests that even well-intentioned emergency management practices, if externally imposed and culturally unsafe, can further deepen marginalization, trauma, and conflict within communities, exacerbating disaster impacts and pre-existing vulnerabilities (Yumagulova et al, 2019a; CIER, 2019). And the urgent need to adapt to climate change can resurface previous traumas for some Indigenous Peoples (Middleton et al, 2020).

The history of Siksika Nation

The Siksika Nation is located 87 kilometres southeast of Calgary and is the second-largest Indigenous reserve in Canada with a land area of 696.54 square kilometres and a total population of over 7,500. The Siksika are a part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which also includes the Piikani and Kainaiwa of southern Alberta and the Blackfeet in the State of Montana (Siksika Nation, 2020a). The traditional Blackfoot territory includes northern Montana and North Dakota, and extends north as far as Edmonton in Alberta and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan (see maps). 

Click on maps to enlarge.


Traditionally, Iiníí (Buffalo in Blackfoot language) was the way of life for the Blackfoot as a source of sustenance and spirituality. Iiníí took care of the Blackfoot Peoples by providing lodging, clothing, and food. It was the foundation of spiritual and social relationships and it guided the nomadic Blackfoot Peoples across their vast traditional territories. Families were central to the Siksika way of life and extended family systems nurtured shared responsibility. Traditional governance and leadership roles included such prerequisites as the individual’s capacity to share and care for all people, especially the very young and the aged (Siksika Nation, 2020b).

Prior to the 1800s, the Siksika Government structure was made up of 36 clans with a total population of 18,000. By 1890, the North Blackfoot population had been decimated by the introduction of disease from Europe, falling to approximately 600 to 800 members (Siksika Nation, 2020b). 

In 1877, Isapo-muxika (Chief Crowfoot), the legendary leader of the Siksika, signed Treaty 7, which forced the Siksika to a reserve at Blackfoot Crossing, east of Calgary (Siksika Nation, 2020b). The nomadic way of life was forever changed and some Siksika members became farmers, ranchers, and coal miners on the reserve (Dempsey, 2019).

Reserves ended traditional ways of life. The Blackfoot Confederacy struggled to survive on reserves without the ability to hunt buffalo. The winter of 1883–84, the “starvation winter,” brought widespread hunger (Siksika Nation, 2020b; Dempsey, 2019). 

In 1910, facing pressure from the federal government and developers, the Siksika surrendered a significant portion of their reserve for sale, an agreement that was detrimental to the Nation. The funds were held in trust by the government for administering the construction of new homes and other activities on reserve (Dempsey, 2019). 

Siksika lands. Photos supplied by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro.

The modern day Siksika Peoples continue to advocate for autonomy and self-government that is rooted in the land. The traditional territory and its diverse land had many uses for the Blackfoot Peoples. For example, the Miistukskoowa located within the area now known as Banff National Park were part of the Blackfoot’s traditional territory used for winter camps and harvest of timber for tipis. In 1908, the land was taken from the Siksika without consent or proper compensation. The Castle Mountain Settlement, reached in 2017, provided financial compensation, economic opportunities inside the park, and ongoing access to the land for Siksika Peoples (Government of Canada, 2017). It took 57 years to settle the agreement. Under the settlement, the Siksika Nation has the option to purchase on the open market up to 17,491 acres of land outside of the boundaries of Banff National Park and apply to Canada to have the lands added to its reserve (Government of Canada, 2017).

The 2013 flood disaster in Siksika Nation

In June 2013, eight communities along the Bow River, which flows west to east within the Siksika Nation, were devastated by a flood. Two main bridges and 171 homes were damaged by the flood, with over 1,000 people displaced from their homes (Yumagulova et al., 2019a). Recovery has been an ongoing process, with some of the community members still displaced from their home at the time of the interviews (spring-summer 2019), six and a half years after the event. To describe the long-term impacts of the flood on the community, we draw on Darlene’s reflections as the Director for Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Centre and community interviews conducted by Darlene with the flood evacuees six years after the disaster (Yumagulova, Yellow Old Woman-Munro, Dicken, 2019b).

Environmental and land-use changes have brought new flood risks to Siksika. There is no historical record or living memory of a flood disaster of similar magnitude on Siksika lands. As Siksika Elder Darlene reflected: 

“My mother would say the biggest event prior to this flood was around 1948. The community, my parents and other families lived along the river, it was in the spring, and my mother had told me they had big icebergs flowing right through the communities. In those days, we had cabins or smaller homes so the icebergs that floated overland totally destroyed some homes. All they could do was to move up the hill, which wasn’t too far from their home, but they were devastated to see their homes, in those days too, get destroyed. But since the 40s there was nothing major, as far as flooding. And everybody went back to living in the valleys, including us.” 

Over the coming decades, climate change is projected to further increase the frequency and magnitude of flooding across Alberta (Zhang et al., 2019).

A long road home: Five phases of disaster displacement 

Phase 1: Initial response from evacuees – confusion and makeshift housing (June 21–end of June, 2013) 

Immediately following the flooding on June 21, 2013, evacuees lived in tents, RV’s, teepees and makeshift shacks close to the community they fled due to the flood, and due to the lack of adequate lodging and infrastructure in the area. Many people did not want to leave their homes unattended due to incidents of looting, and as a result, sought refuge as close to their homes as possible. This initial time was described as deeply challenging by the majority of the evacuees who lost their homes. As a single parent with children with disabilities described: 

“It was my sanctuary, my home…where I raised my children; the only thing I had was my vehicle and what we could pack in the vehicle and then we left, so we had to start all over. The most difficult was seeing all the people and our — as a Nation, lose what was personal to them, you know; a place to lay their head, a roof over their home, how to provide with their food and how to provide on a day-to-day basis…people didn’t understand where to go, or when to go, what to do.” 

Phase 2: Hotel lodging and gaps in access to services (July–August, 2013)  

Inclement weather following the flood meant that evacuees had to move to hotels. Once the flooding subsided, additional supports started to arrive; however, the information about the supports that became available following the flood did not reach those who needed them the most. Sometimes this information was only shared through social media, a platform that was challenging to access for Elders and the chronically ill. For others it was family members that brought them the information. 

The impacts of losing a home were particularly hard for single parents who had children with special needs due to the children’s difficulty understanding the complexities of relocation and loss of home. As a single parent with a teenager with Down syndrome described: 

“…[they are] non-verbal so [they are] used to a lot of structure. [The flood] threw us out of our routine, our daily routine, our daily living life, and it was stressful …when we were coming ‘home’, we had no home to come to, so it was tougher for [them] to understand. [They] did take it hard, wanting to come home but I had to explain ‘No, we’re going to stay over here for now’. I wasn’t able to have an ATCO trailer home just because I was away for school [off reserve], when I came back, they were all full. Thank God I had family that opened their doors towards us and took us in for the time that we were out of a home.”

Phase 3: ATCO trailers (September 2013–2015) 

As part of the recovery process, evacuees were moved from hotels to ATCO trailers (modular mobile office trailers often used as temporary accommodations for resource industry workers) at three different sites. All of the trailers were used and had numerous issues that made them unsuitable for families and children. Problems included unreliable heating, no cooking was permitted in the units, there were no refrigerators to store food, and there were no retrofits available for people with mobility challenges or special needs. Each unit had one small double bed, a place to hang coats and jackets, a small dresser, a washroom, and a television in each room. 

ATCO trailers. Photo supplied by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro.

Community members found the environment very controlled and made complaints such as, “It is like residential school all over again, regimental environment,” and “My children are not safe, their rooms are down the hallway therefore we must constantly ensure they are safe.” There were curfews, and security check-ins each time they left and returned to the ATCO sites. One interviewee said, “I just felt like I’m in prison there, so I get up in the mornings, I eat and then I’m gone maybe till supper or sometime then I go back.”

A single parent who was displaced expressed concern that the ATCO trailers were not suitable for people with disabilities. Some of the highly vulnerable members of the community had to move off-reserve to accommodate the special needs that were not being met in temporary housing, which further displaced them from their home community and removed them from services that were being provided. 

“We couldn’t go in [ATCO trailers] because my son is in a wheelchair, so we ended up in Strathmore. We kind of moved from [one motel] to the other one there next to it. Then they couldn’t accommodate us because there was no elevator there. So, we finally ended up at [another motel]. We were actually there for almost a year and a half… For a while there, my kids were being transported by Siksika disability, until the Board of Education couldn’t do it anymore because they said we were off the reserve… So, Disabilities took over and they started taking my kids to school.” 

Phase 4: New Temporary Neighbourhoods (Starting June 2016) 

After approximately 18 months at the ATCO sites, two-thirds of the community members affected by the flood (in total, 771 people were forced into temporary housing (Jarvie, 2016)) were moved again to the New Temporary Neighborhoods (“NTN’s”). Their new housing was again trailers and again identified as substandard quality. In the NTN’s, one service provider identified an increase in substance abuse and vandalism:

“[the evacuees] were highly monitored in the ATCO trailers, because of security guards and people would be asked to leave if they were caught drinking. But once they moved into the trailers, it just seemed like – people were already struggling with alcohol, and it became worse. And you started to see lots of other stuff surface: violence, the vandalism.”

The vandalized NTNs further reduced the housing stock available: “[Of the] 120 NTNs that came, about 30 of them were vandalized so no one’s living in [them] right now.”

The trailers brought a strong feeling of isolation for families and communities. Some of the families only stayed in NTNs for a few months as the larger families got split apart. As a result, managing and paying for utilities became unaffordable for many families: 

“You’ve got to remember that some of these families—we could have had four families in one house, and when the flood hit those families in that one house, those three other families got their own unit. And when they got their own unit, some of them were ‘this is the first time I’m on my own, I am now responsible for the home’ and they couldn’t maintain that.”

As of June 2016, only 13 new permanent homes had been built, while more than 600 people were still living with family, friends, temporarily repaired houses, or in one of the 144 NTN trailers (Patrick, 2017).

Phase 5: Still searching for home after disaster displacement (Starting in 2017)

At the time of the interviews, it had been six years since the flood, yet the journey home was still ongoing for some evacuees. Some evacuees had moved back into their old homes, other families were still moving into their new houses. For some of the evacuees that lost their homes and had to move off reserve to accommodate special needs of vulnerable family members, returning to the community was a challenge: “We’re not on the map on the reserve, so they’re having a hard time relocating all the people that moved.”

Some of the evacuees that were eventually able to return to their homes noted significant mould, flooded basements, and drinking water issues following the flood. Numerous house deficiencies had to be fixed after the flood: “They had moved into their new home [and] the water was not tested right and so they had to be retested and the water lines had to be re-dug, because they didn’t do the proper testing.” 

For others, moving into their new homes took a long six and a half years following the flood. Due to poor workmanship, most of these community members are experiencing issues with their new homes. These continuing challenges include windows installed backwards, stairways that do not meet the code and houses built without wood stoves meaning a cost-intensive transition over to electric baseboards. 

Although flood waters have long receded and new housing is available, disruptions to sense of place and of home have not gone away. This speaks to the importance of understanding what “returning home” really means and of the trauma and grief that is bound within the impacts of climate-related disasters. 

Reflections from an Elder: What we have lost due to the disaster

The flood disaster further dispossessed the community of land, culture, sense of safety, and traditional ways of life.  

Loss of land: It is estimated that a quarter of the Siksika land base has been lost or is now uninhabitable due to the flood. There were three communities that were affected by the flooding, about a thousand homes, and many families. Darlene reflected that most community members are not happy where they are now. In one community, the community members did not have any input into their relocation and recovery: decisions were made by the disaster recovery committee and the leadership regarding where the communities would be located. She identified that every time there is a disaster, more people are being moved into smaller areas where there remains a potential and risk for other disasters to occur.

Loss of sense of safety: A major highway runs through Siksika lands, so when post-flood community rebuilding occurred, the disaster recovery committee used the road as the central infrastructure to rebuild the community around. This choice has resulted in further trauma to the communities, as Darlene reflects on the many deaths that have occurred along the highway. She further states, “the individuals who agreed to build more houses did not negotiate to ensure the highway was safe for children and people who didn’t have transportation and walk down that highway. Darlene believes Siksika leadership is in negotiations with Alberta Transportation to install lights and post reduced speed limit signs. But for many families, there is the reality of compounding grief, trauma, and loss as several community members have been killed on that highway by semi-trucks, many of which were not adhering to speed limits. The current speed limits through the community are set at 80 km/hr, but Darlene identified that the community is advocating for further reductions, so semi-trucks and other vehicles do not speed through the community. This shows that the recovery process can introduce further risks through rebuilding, especially when the options for relocation sites are limited. 

The trauma of disaster: The trauma of disaster carried on long after the flood waters subsided, especially for the children, as shared by one of the interviewees: “When vehicles drive by, [the grandparents, parents and grandchildren] hear a rumbling. Is that the river coming through the trees? We would jump up and look out at night with a flashlight, just to see if water was coming again. And [children] would have all these continuous dreams of flooding again and that fear of the flood coming through.” In interview after interview, community members spoke of re-traumatization, fear of the unknown, increased stress levels due to the need to pack up and move belongings, feelings of loss each time they moved, depression, sadness, and loss of income due to employment disruptions during displacement. 

Loss of access to traditional medicines and foods due to contamination of water, soil, and silting: The flood also caused contamination of water and soil. This resulted in reduced access to traditional seasonal foods and medicines, especially for the elderly, who relied on these medicines for their well-being. As one service provider suggested: “Seasonal harvests – the berries, the mints, and the medicines – some of the people that would pick in these areas didn’t want to pick anymore. They didn’t know how long they were to wait. Someone told them they should wait five years, but people were still scared.” As climate change contributes to more frequent and severe flooding across the Siksika territory, this disruption to accessing traditional medicines and food will have devastating cultural consequences. 

Several interviewees also raised their concerns about contaminated soils that the new sites were built on. As Darlene shared: 

“The one community which is referred to as Washington, they lived in a valley on the east end along the Bow River. The newly built Washington community members were moved onto land that was previously farmland, and we all know that the farmers sprayed onto the fields. My biggest concern is, how could they move this whole community on land that is possibly contaminated. There’s been evidence of that in our community before where houses were built on farmland and those families had died from cancer. They did not remove the topsoil; they just built their houses right on the existing soil. There are a lot of environmental issues that nobody pays attention to, we need to teach our youth regarding possible contaminants within our community and possible disasters due to climate change.”

Loss of home community and traditional way of life: It was not only homes that were lost in the flood, but entire communities and a way of life. Some of the evacuees engaged in a peaceful protest over the relocation process that did not consider their concerns. Led by Ben Crow Chief, the community members established a blockade of a new permanent housing subdivision near an existing NTN that lasted over 226 days (Jarvie, 2016). The community members wanted to reside on traditional clan lands or near where they had lived before in low-lying flood prone areas. A band member (who declined to be named for fear of loss of work on the reserve) commented in Aitsiniki, Siksika Nation’s newspaper: “When you create these big subdivisions with people living on top of each other, that’s when you have all the social problems. This is not how we traditionally live (Jarvie, 2016).” Concerns about crime and disrupted clan structures were also raised (Jarvie, 2016; Patrick, 2017). 

Self-determination and disaster recovery

Cultural continuity, or “being who we are,” and self-determination, or “being a self-sufficient Nation” (Oster et al, 2015), are foundational to Indigenous community resilience. Several key cultural continuity initiatives connected the evacuees to their culture, serving as their ‘home’ by creating culturally safe spaces throughout the phases of displacement.

Historically, the Siksika way of life for families, friends, and neighbours can be summarized in a Blackfoot word ispommitaa (help out, assist). Ispommitaa connects members of the community with each other, revitalising co-operative cultural traditions and creating a sense of belonging through participation in shared events and through crises (Yumagulova et al, 2019a). These Indigenous community-held values became the foundation of flood recovery and community care throughout the displacement. 

Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Centre staff. Photo supplied by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro. 

One particularly unique Siksika organization, the Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Centre (DDDRC), focused on “rebuilding families and communities through hope and healing” (Siksika Nation, 2014). The Centre consisted of a multi-disciplinary group of Siksika professionals, youth, and a Siksika traditional Elder. The team assisted the evacuees on their journey to recovery by providing culturally safe supports and services for physical, mental, and social well-being. The diverse professional background, experience, and knowledge of this team ensured that the multiple needs of the evacuees were addressed in one place, as a centralized service, instead of having to visit multiple departments. The other unique feature was that the team provided these services within the temporary housing of the evacuees, thus serving as a critical link for cultural continuity between the community and changing housing locations of the evacuees. An Indigenous service provider stressed the importance of this ability to meet people where they were at: 

“Meeting the people in their own homes, their temporary situations, temporary housing, hotel or trailers…it allowed for a lot more trust building that people would be willing to open their doors to you, to be able to be seen in that situation, you know? I think it was more of a cultural thing. It’s like, you went home – you went to visit these people in their homes. Rather than them seeing you as a psychologist or as a professional coming to do counselling, they saw me more as somebody coming in to visit and checking in on them. In a much safer, non-intrusive way, you know?” 

Meeting the evacuees in their temporary homes and proactively delivering services based on established trust and relationship by Blackfoot-speaking professionals was a culturally safe practice that met the needs of the most vulnerable (such as elderly, chronically ill, and children with disabilities). 

Siksika children’s feelings in a disaster. Photo supplied by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro.

By being the boots and the eyes on the ground, the centre staff were able to respond to community-identified gaps in recovery such as the impacts of disaster displacement on children. Throughout the early phases of displacement, there were reports of children misbehaving in schools, exhibiting anger through the destruction of property at the ATCO sites, and later at the NTNs. In collaboration with Save the Children, training on assessment and appropriate activities for children who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was provided to the various youth workers within Siksika. DDDRC youth commenced youth programs at the three ATCO sites such as art therapy, cultural craft (making hand drums), parfleche (buffalo hide) bags, and outdoor activities in the spring and summer to pick and identify various medicinal plants and berries. The programs continued for two to three years into recovery as the DDDRC changed locations.

Children’s activities during displacement. Photos supplied by Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro

By providing culturally appropriate, community member-led services to address the physical, mental, and social needs of evacuees throughout the various phases of displacement, DDDRC serves as a model of self-determination in a post-disaster recovery context that could be used in other Indigenous communities. 

Listen to Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro reflect on her flood recovery experience

Conclusions 

The Siksika case study shows the disproportionate impact of climate change on Indigenous communities due to climatic and non-climatic factors (social, economic, cultural, political, and institutional inequities).

This case study acknowledges that disasters and climate change impacts in Indigenous communities need to be understood within the context of targeted risk creation through colonial and racist policies of land dispossession, cultural erasure, and destructive actions such as the residential school system and the Indian Act.

The stories shared by Siksika evacuees shows that disaster displacement has multiple stages, and that recovery is an ongoing process with uncertain outcomes. Six long years after the disaster, some of the evacuees had not returned to their homes, while many others did not feel safe in their new homes and experienced fear and increased stress due to inclement weather (e.g., increased rain, wind, and wildfires).

Through this case study we challenge a widely used notion of a “natural disaster.” When examined from an Indigenous community perspective, and bearing in mind targeted long-term risk creation through colonial land dispossession combined with anthropogenic climate change, there is very little that is “natural” about flooding disasters in First Nation communities.

Our case study shows examples of wise practices for community-led and culturally safe responses to disasters through the Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Centre. It is evident that community organizations engaged with long-term Indigenous-led disaster recovery can address the gaps in supporting physical, mental, cultural and spiritual health needs of displaced Indigenous peoples.   

This case study is in part based on Yumagulova L, Yellow Old Woman-Munro D, Dicken E. (2019b) report titled “Honouring the Voices of Long-Term Evacuees Following Natural Disasters in Ashcroft Indian Band and Siksika Nation”. Data for this project was collected under University of Manitoba Health Research Ethics Board HS22640 (H20019:096) “Long-term Public Health Responses to Evacuation Due to Natural Disaster in Canada.” Production of this report was possible in part due to a financial contribution from the National Collaborating Centres for Public Health. The views herein do not necessarily represent the views of the NCCs or the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

About the authors

Darlene Yellow Old Woman-Munro is a Siksika Elder born and raised on the Siksika Nation; she is the oldest of 10 children. Darlene has served her community through many roles as a community nurse, Treaty 7 Zone Director, Medical Services Branch and Chief.  In 2013, Darlene came out semi-retirement to assist Siksika Nation with the flood disaster as a night shift volunteer and became Manager of Dancing Deer Disaster Recovery Program and Project Manager for Community Wellness (Psychosocial) Recovery Program.

Dr. Lilia Yumagulova is a Bashkir woman with degrees in engineering and risk analysis and a PhD in resilience planning. Lilia’s passion is in building community resilience to climate change and disasters. With over 20 years of work experience with government, NGOs, media, Indigenous communities and supranational organizations in Europe and North America, Lilia is the Program Director for the Preparing Our Home Program that empowers Indigenous youth leadership in community resilience.

As an Indigenous scholar and practitioner in Emergency Management, Dr. Emily Dicken has over 15 years of experience and has held roles in organizations such as North Shore Emergency Management, First Nations Health Authority and Emergency Management BC. Across all areas of her work, Emily seeks to understand colonialism as an unnatural and enduring disaster impacting Indigenous communities. When not working, Emily can be found enjoying time in the Coast Mountains with her husband Jeff and their two young sons, Keegan and Bowen.

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