Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says a former Brandon-area campground acquired by the province will help educate future generations about the horrors of residential schools.

“We live in an era where people are trying to deny what happened in residential schools,” Kinew said during a Tuesday afternoon visit to Turtle Crossing Campground, near the former Brandon Indian Residential School. “It’s an important part of our national history, and keeping that truth alive.”

Kinew officially announced the province’s plan Tuesday, in partnership with the City of Brandon, to acquire and protect the site where the bodies of more than 50 Indigenous children are located.

The premier said the property has “huge national significance” for education about residential school history because it is one of the “most documented” in the country. He carried photographs, and some 20th century newspaper clippings from the Brandon Sun around the site Tuesday.

Kinew attended a ceremony Wednesday, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, at the site of the former Brandon Indian Residential School.

The graves of at least 56 children who attended the school are located at the campground, Sioux Valley Dakota Nation First Nation has said, pointing to a geophysical study conducted by an archaeology firm in 2018.

Signs were erected at the former campground Tuesday morning declaring the property is “no longer operated as a campground, RV park, or recreational site.” The sign said that the property is now in a period of transition, care and planning under the guidance of Indigenous communities and partner organizations.

Investigation at the site, which will be spearheaded by Sioux Valley First Nation, will be Indigenous-led, its chief said.

“Technical expertise and community knowledge will guide the work, with respect for the children, their families and this sacred site at every stage,” Sioux Valley Chief Jennifer Bone said in a news release.

Chris Mancuso, principal investigator with the First Nation’s Brandon Indian Residential School Missing Children Investigation, said the first goal is to identify the “true” boundaries of the cemetery, which is currently a fenced space within the former Turtle Crossing Campground.

The researcher expects to discover additional signs of burials outside the cemetery’s limits, leading the cemetery to be expanded.

Technologies such as ground penetrating radar, magnetism and electromagnetics, which are non-invasive, will be used at the site to investigate the boundaries of the cemetery, he said.

Sioux Valley has a two-year budget drawn up for research at the site, spanning all four seasons, and work started Tuesday, he said. An archaeologist walked the property and tagged characteristics, such as fence post holes and utility infrastructure, to prepare for future ground research at the site.

Mancuso said the purchase of the land will improve research by enabling it.

“It allows access,” Mancuso said. “For the technical investigation, we need to be physically on site with our tools. And the investigation is not just a one day search. So, having sustained access gives the chance to protect this cemetery.”

Randell Wasicuna, a councillor with Sioux Valley, called the move a “victory.”

“This has been a long-time coming and it’s been a long battle with the owner and I think it’s great to finally have this move forward, as it has been stalled for almost a decade,” Wasicuna said. “It’s a huge relief.”

He hopes the work in Manitoba, and partnerships between First Nations and government, sets an example — and precedent — for other communities and the federal government.

An interview request with Canada’s Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Rebecca Alty was not accommodated Tuesday.

At the campground site, there have been longstanding concerns from Indigenous leaders and community members that people were camping on the resting place of children victimized by colonialism.

The school, which was located about five kilometres northwest of Brandon, operated from 1895 to 1972. It used a grave site near the Assiniboine River until 1912, with grave markers removed in 1921 so the area could be transformed into a park.

The City of Brandon sold the park privately in 2001, and in 2007, it was acquired by Mark Kovatch and his wife, Joan.

The former owner said he made efforts to raise awareness about the graves at the site over the years and took issue with others saying he was limiting access, noting he installed a fence around the site.

He would not disclose how much the province paid for the campground.

“I wish them well. That’s all I can say,” he said.

Brandon’s mayor, who visited the site Tuesday, said the path towards reconciliation has been a team effort between governments and First Nations.

“I believe that there’s a great opportunity for the region and for the community to build on it now,” said Fawcett. “… I know for a fact being out there with leaders today, there’s a great sense of relief and a great sense of optimism in talking about the past and moving into the future.”

Daryl Hapa, another councillor with Sioux Valley First Nation, said he regularly thinks about students at the school — including his late father.

“It was heartbreaking,” Hapa said of the stories he was told by his father.

He is pleased the territory will be under Indigenous control and hopes families will learn more.

“Hopefully, we’ll get all of these children’s names (and get) them back home to their communities,” he said. “Families will have some piece of mind that all these children who attended these residential schools haven’t been forgotten.”

Bone said the announcement was meaningful to the community as Sioux Valley has been working on its residential school project since 2012.

“This is years of work and advocacy, not even just Sioux Valley, but Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and the City of Brandon,” Bone said. “The announcement is a huge step towards reconciliation.”

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“This body of records that has really important information of Survivors … is going to be destroyed,” Connie Walker says.

The Pulitzer and Peabody Award-winning investigative journalist and member of Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan is talking about the 38,000 testimonies from residential school survivors collected by the federal government between 2007 and 2012.

They contain first-hand experiences recounted by some of the estimated 150,000 children who attended residential schools operated by the Canadian government. The schools operated for two centuries; the last to close was Kivalliq Hall, in Rankin Inlet, Nvt., in 1997. Many children experienced physical and sexual abuse, disease, neglect and despair. Over 3,200 deaths at residential schools have been confirmed, a far higher mortality rate than that of non-Indigenous children at the time — and the true number of deaths is likely greater. Those who died in institutions were usually buried there. 

These testimonies are the largest body of residential school records in Canada — an irreplaceable body of evidence, containing more than six times as many testimonies as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And in September 2027, it is set to be destroyed. 

Walker is trying to stop them from being destroyed without giving survivors a choice. As an assistant professor and the Velma Rogers Research Chair at the Toronto Metropolitan University, she is leading the Indian Residential School Records Project, to raise awareness about the imminent destruction of records.

Along with the Yellowhead Institute, her partner on the project is lawyer Kimberly Murray, a member of Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk Nation and a former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 2022, she was appointed the independent special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves and burial sites associated with residential schools.

“We know that some spoke about deaths and burials, and also about having dug the graves of other children that have died,” Murray tells The Narwhal of the testimonies. 

In 2024, Murray’s office released Sites of Truth, Sites of Conscience, a report examining “missing and disappeared” Indigenous children’s unmarked burials and mass graves across Canada. In its introduction, the report reads: “The buildings, burial grounds, and cemeteries on the sites of former Indian Residential Schools are etched deeply in Survivors’ memories. Once places of silence and suffering, they are now sites of truth.”

“Once places of brutal violence and genocide, they are now sites of conscience. Survivors can never forget the memories of trauma and death held in these sites; now Canada and all Canadians must do likewise.”

But the truth is at risk of being lost if Canada destroys the records. Murray says it would not just serve to hide the horrors that happened at the schools, but contribute to the disappearance of stories about Indigenous lives before children were taken from their families.

“They write about how they lived on the land, how they were being taught on the land by their parents and grandparents,” Murray says.  

Why is Canada set to destroy thousands of residential school records? 

The testimonies weren’t collected in an effort to document and preserve the history of residential schools. The process was a response to a tidal wave of lawsuits thousands of Survivors launched against the federal government and churches starting in the 1990s. 

In 2007, the federal government initiated a class-action settlement to deal with them all. It was designed to compensate Survivors of federal boarding schools (excluding thousands that attended day schools, or institutions run by religious orders or provincial governments). The base lump-sum payment was $10,000, plus $3,000 for each year of attendance. 

To receive more, Survivors were required to testify through the Independent Assessment Process, so an adjudicator could determine if their claims were credible and merited additional compensation. The process promised confidentiality to those who testified. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada determined that promise meant the records must be destroyed. 

The court created a 10-year window between the decision and the destruction, during which the government had to notify Survivors, who could choose to preserve their records. Walker and Murray are skeptical sufficient efforts have been made to contact them. 

“We talk to Survivors who don’t remember being notified, don’t remember if a letter came or an email,” Walker says. “Survivors who don’t even know these records are going to be destroyed.” 

Another hurdle is only the survivor can request their records be preserved, leaving no recourse for the many records of those who have since passed away.

Survivors can go through the My Records, My Choice website to request copies of their records, choose to have them preserved at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation or allow their records to be destroyed. An April progress report by the records agent says 70 valid requests for record copies have been received since March 31, 2021, while 39 valid requests for records to be shared with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in the same period.

Important evidence is contained within these testimonies, Murray and Walker emphasize. Survivors’ stories were only used to determine compensation; allegations of abuse were not prosecuted and information about burials or gravesites was not investigated. But they still could be, even informally. 

As Indigenous communities across Canada search for unmarked graves and burial grounds at residential school sites, information about where to search is likely contained in countless testimonies. 

“We know that some may not have been buried on the site of the institution, but in a municipal cemetery or offsite,” Murray says. “These pieces of historical documents, these records that Survivors filed in courts — they may have some of that missing information that can help the communities doing these searches.” 

Residential school survivor testimonies to be destroyed as disinformation rises

The testimonies are also important bulwarks against the residential school denialism that has taken root. Fueled by disinformation, some Canadians have come to believe Survivors exaggerated — or fabricated — their experiences. But the Independent Assessment Process was one of intense, even brutal, scrutiny. 

Those who requested a hearing were required to name their abusers. Walker recounts reading the transcript, with names redacted, of a survivor who was asked to describe in graphic detail the sexual abuse he endured from a priest when he was eight or nine years old, including whether he was aroused at the time. Some Survivors, after recounting everything they could remember about their abuse often decades after it occurred, had their claims denied. 

The evidence in these claims is damning. But no matter how many testimonies were found credible, abusers did not face charges. 

As Walker and Murray fight to delay the destruction of this particular body of evidence, they’re also using the court filings that prompted the settlement process to construct another one.

Between 14,000 and 20,000 lawsuits were filed across the country, Walker says. With the help of law students at Toronto Metropolitan University, her team is pulling some of those court filings to investigate the histories of five residential schools in Ontario, including cross-referencing them with details from the testimonies to try and identify abusers. 

It’s a similar method she used making her 2022 podcast Stolen: Surviving St Michael’s. For that, she and a team of investigative journalists compiled 482 lawsuits filed by Survivors of the St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Sask., to document the widespread, harrowing abuse of children by priests and nuns who ran the school. 

“There’s this idea about the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission], like, ‘Oh, that happened, and now we know the truth.’ “ Walker says. “But actually, that should have been the beginning.”

On Sept. 30, Yellowhead Institute is hosting “The Right to Truth: Protecting Indian Residential Schools” featuring Connie Walker and Kimberly Murray, as well as former commissioner of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission Marie Wilson and former premier of the Northwest Territories Stephen Kakfwi. Registration is free. Attend in person in Toronto or online.

Updated Sept. 28, 2026 at 6:51 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to clarify that Walker and Murray’s project is focused on the survivors’ choice in the fate of their records.

Updated Sept. 29, 2026 at 1:25 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to add a link to the “My Records, My Choice” website.

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Summary

• Indigenous culture camps are happening across Canada this summer. Revitalizing cultural practices, spending time on the land, and participating in ceremonies is the focus of most camps. 
• Despite dozens of wildfires across B.C., organizers are fulfilling their commitments, highlighting the importance of hosting communities and organizations.
• Some culture camps have been happening for decades, while other communities hosted their first camp this year.

For 10 days in July, Qaqaqam Chris Wells spent time on the land camping with Líl̓wat youth, teaching Lil̓wat7úl cultural protocols, songs and stories. The Kwáozán̓tsut cultural summer camps have been “a long time coming,” he said. 

“Bringing our children back onto the land is teaching them land based healing and learning,” Wells told the Narwhal. “It was really awesome to bring back our culture.”

Hosted at Klháka7min, previously known as the Coast Mountain Outdoor School, two separate age groups camped for five days each between July 6th and July 17th. 

Though the youth were a bit shy at first, Wells and fellow camp leaders Ánwasúlmec Brett Wallace and Sík Sík Joshua Anderson say that by the end of each cohort, seeing how the participants had come out of their shells was a highlight.

“It was extra special for me: I had two of my daughters there, one in each age group,” Anderson said. “It was an opportunity to spend more time with them during the busy summer.”

During this year’s culture camp, a wildfire prompted evacuations in Pemberton, located approximately 25 kilometres down the road. Despite the nearby fire, the culture camps were a success — connecting youth with tradition, the land and culture. 

“We were pretty safe from all the fires happening around us,” Wells said. He’s stewarded the territory since he was a youth.

Land-based learning, education and connection

Between the two age groups — 9 to 12-year-olds, and teens — 30 youth attended the camps. 

Líl̓wat Elders took youth out onto the land, teaching them about edible berries and teas that grow in the area during that time of year.

“Every evening we had singing and drumming, and talked about cultural protocols. We talked about the origin of the songs. We talked about our ceremonies,” Wells said. 

Archery, axe throwing and rifle shooting with the older age group all took place with laughter and storytelling throughout. 

Youth had the opportunity to make traditional rattles and smudge bowls, ceremonial items that can be hard to access for a young person. Anderson said numerous parents reached out to him after the camp, sharing how their child went home wanting to practice their culture more through smudging. 

The youth even made a swimming hole to jump into cold glacier water, adding some casual fun into the mix, and relief from the hot summer days. 

“You can’t forget the fun part of it. We had the opportunity to play bone game in the evening time,” Anderson said, which showed the youth “how disputes were settled in a traditional manner.” 

The bone game is a traditional game used historically as an alternative to war by nations along the Salish Sea, and has other names such as “stick game” or “hand game” in other regions of Western Canada.

Youth were also split into three groups and tasked with helping in the kitchen. Local Lil̓wat7úl chef Casey Gabriel taught them how to cook for the group and clean up afterwards. 

The Kwáozán̓tsut Cultural Summer Camps were championed by the organizing trio of Anderson, Wells and Wallace, who are no strangers to hosting culture camps. But despite hosting camps in St’át’imc Nation communities for years, it took some time to prepare and build the trust required to host youth camps in their own nation. 

Now the Líl̓wat Nation wants to host another culture camp this fall. Wells, Wallace and Anderson are all looking forward to sharing their knowledge and helping out.

Now in its 15th year, Nlha’7kapmx annual culture camp is a ‘safe haven’

Excitement for future camps is a sentiment shared by Michelle Isaac, who always lends a helping hand at an annual Nlaka’pamux culture camp hosted at Pasulko Lake, located in B.C.’s Southern Interior.

“My stepmom at the time, Amy Chapman, brought me up to what used to be called the healing gathering. All I remember from there was how much of a difference it made in my life,” Isaac told the Narwhal. 

She attended the healing gathering after surviving a severe car accident, but over the years, the annual gathering lost volunteers and resources. 

Having experienced the healing energy of gathering herself, and meeting with the service agency about how to support community members, Isaac and a group of ladies working for Nlha’7kapmx Child and Family Services decided to spearhead a community based culture camp.

Now in its 15th year, people in the area look forward to gathering at Pasulko Lake each summer, practicing culture and being together on the land. 

This year, a mix of cultural activities, including drum making, cedar weaving and language friendship bracelet making took place, along with activities such as a tug-of-war game between youth and the local firefighting group, the Lytton Rattlers, and a performance by local band Ritchie and the Fenderman.

Isaac attends camp each year with her children, who are part of the Lower Nicola Indian Band community. While Isaac is not Indigenous herself, she still attends with an open heart and mind, supporting in any way she can. When wildfires are burning, she sees the camps as an especially important place for youth. 

“They’re able to come up there and do the activities, do the crafts, I find it takes a lot of stress and fear from the fire away from them,” Isaac said. This year, it’s also been an important refuge for her as well, after she was evacuated in July due to the nearby Brunswick Creek wildfire.

“Fire-wise, for me it was a safe haven. My one daughter came up as well, who was also evacuated, and hung out all week there. It gave me a safe place,” she said.

Across B.C. and Canada, wildfires disproportionately impact First Nations communities. Though they represent only five per cent of the population, it’s estimated that First Nations make up 42 per cent of all wildfire evacuations. 

As wildfires blaze all around the Interior, the camp offered a break from smoke for those in attendance. On event posters this year, air quality warnings were addressed, with evacuation routes marked along the way to camp as a precaution.

People who attended camp were asked to register at the sign in desk daily, to track who was there, and were informed about a muster point in the event of evacuation. 

The decision to continue on with both culture camps was deliberated by organizers carefully, with designated people monitoring surrounding wildfires.

Renegerating the land through fire

B.C. was the first province or territory in Canada to ban cultural burning in 1874, prohibiting generations of Indigenous people from stewarding their territories with fire. In 2024, 150 years later, the province officially amended wildfire regulations to support cultural burns. Today, many nations are in the process of reclaiming this practice, including Líl̓wat. 

“We can’t look at fire as dangerous all of the time. We gotta look at it as an element that helps us regenerate, and help us repurpose the land,” Wallace added.

An example of fire regenerating the land was visible to those at Líl̓wat’s culture camps through an abundance of berries, following a cultural burn several years before.

“That specific area was culturally burnt seven or eight years ago and now finally it’s starting to reproduce huckleberries,” Wallace said. “It’s not just a small piece of land, it’s a really big area, and the whole area was covered in huckleberries and raspberries because of these cultural burns that happened.”

Youth were able to harvest these berries, and surrounding wildlife have a tasty treat. 

And in the era of technology, culture camps give youth the opportunity to disconnect from the internet, and to connect with the natural world. 

“Back in our time, we didn’t have technology to hold us back from being out on the land,” Wells said. “It’s important to return to land-based healing … to be St’át’imc, and to do St’át’imc things.”

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Three hundred years after their ancestors chose peace on the same ground, the Mi’kmaq people returned to the Fort Anne National Historic Site in Mi’kma’ki.

Mi’kmaq leaders and community members gathered at what was then called Port Royal on June 4, 1726, when their ancestors signed a Peace and Friendship Treaty with the British Crown.

Under a bright Nova Scotia sky, they came back to the same ground to celebrate, to grieve, to demand and to hope.

Chief Leroy Denny of Eskasoni First Nation, co-chair of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, said as he stood on the grass, he could feel the weight and power of what happened on the same grounds 300 years ago. 

“This 300th anniversary is a reminder that these were never land-surrender treaties; they were sacred agreements of peace, coexistence and nation-to-nation relationship building,” Denny said. 

“Our ancestors envisioned a future of mutual respect, and three hundred years later, these living treaties continue to guide us as we protect our rights and carry their legacy forward for future generations.”

The Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1726 outlined how Indigenous and European people could establish peaceful coexistence in the Maritime region. 

It was signed by Mi’kmaw, Wəlastəkokewiyik and Peskətəmohkatewey leaders amid rising conflicts as the British pushed to colonize the area and were concerned about relationships between local Indigenous Peoples and the French Crown.

The 1726 treaty was part of a series of Peace and Friendship agreements with the British Crown between 1725 and 1779.

But Mi’kmaq Grand Council Kji-Keptin (Grand Captain) Antle Denny came to speak plainly about what a 300-year treaty relationship has delivered and what it has not.

The relationship between Mi’kmaq nations and the provincial government has deteriorated sharply in the last year, in the wake of raids on Mi’kmaw cannabis dispensaries and the recent criminalization of logging protests.

Tensions were underscored by the notable absence of Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston from the Fort Anne celebration. Many in attendance felt that absence was not simply a scheduling matter. It was a statement.

The treaty signed on this ground 300 years ago was supposed to be a living commitment. What they were watching, many felt, was a provincial government treating it as a historical footnote.

This month’s commemoration at Fort Anne National Historic Site drew Mi’kmaq leaders, community members, Canadian officials and allies for a day of ceremony, cultural performance and the unveiling of a national historic plaque. 

Youth turned out in force. Elders undertook journeys that were not easy to make. And on the sun-warmed grass of the oldest administered national historic site in the country, Mi’kmaq people held a tenacity that textbooks have never quite managed to convey.

Under a tent, Eliza Gould, youth chief from Eskasoni First Nation, spoke quietly about Mi’kmaq history as other young people listened intently. 

Outside, the voice of Kalolin Johnson, a young vocalist and musician from Eskasoni First Nation, carried across the grass of the old fort. Beyond that, the Annapolis Basin shimmered in the heat. It was the kind of day that made the past feel very close.

Gould had learned about the treaties in school in almost every grade, she said. But learning about something and feeling it are different things.

“I’ve heard it so much I kind of became numb,” she said.

“But being here, seeing all the chiefs, all the people that actually care — I kind of wish more people came. Because this is our history. This is very much our history.”

The fisheries question, for Gould, was the sharpest example of how old agreements play out in present-day conflict. As part of the treaty, the British agreed not to interfere with Indigenous fishing rights — however, those rights are something that Mik’maq people have continued to fight to uphold.

“The fisheries, we take only as much as we need, but also respecting everything around us,” she said. “For others it’s greed, it’s money, it’s power.” 

She described watching the same arguments repeat year after year, the treaty invoked and dismissed in the same breath. “There’s no evenness,” she said. “It’s so back-and-forth.”

But as she looked out at the crowd filling the sunny grounds, Gould also felt the living impact of the agreement from hundreds of years ago. 

“It’s nice to see everyone here, not just Mi’kmaq people but others. You know, just like 300 years ago, it’s not just us and the French anymore,” she said. “There’s a better understanding.”

Assembly of First Nations Nova Scotia Regional Chief Andrea Paul brought that meaning into focus. 

“As we celebrate 300 years of treaty, we honour the wisdom of those who came before us, who chose peace and friendship as the foundation of our relationship,” she said. 

“Their teachings continue to guide us today, reminding us that treaties are not relics of the past, but living commitments that shape our future together.”

For JUNO award-nominated Mi’kmaq musician Morgan Toney, the reality of that history did not fully land until he walked the grounds that morning. 

He had read about the treaty, he said. But standing on the actual earth where it was signed was something else entirely.

“I never actually got to go on the grounds until earlier this morning,” he said. “And I was like, I have to tell my bandmates. This is where that treaty was signed. It was here, in this location, where you’re standing right now.”He shook his head slowly. “That’s crazy. That’s beautiful. That’s powerful.”

In a statement, federal Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Rebecca Alty said the Peace and Friendship Treaty “is one of the foundational agreements in the history of Crown-Indigenous Relations in this country.”

In honour of the celebration, the federal government declared the signing of the treaty an event of national historic significance, and unveiled a commemorative plaque at the site.

“Three hundred years later to the day, and on the site of its signing, we honour the leaders of the Wabanaki Confederacy who negotiated this treaty and reaffirm our commitment to the relationship it represents,” she said.

“Designating this treaty as an event of national historic significance is a recognition of its enduring importance to the Mi’kmaq Nation and to all Canadians.”

Kji-Keptin Denny spoke about sovereignty. About his father going before the United Nations in the 1980s to seek recognition of the Mi’kmaq Nation, and foreign ambassadors telling his father privately that he was right, but that they could not move against Canada. 

He spoke about the cod fishery collapse, watching non-Indigenous fishermen exhaust the resource while Mi’kmaq were never compensated. 

He called for a Mi’kmaw treaty commissioner to hold Atlantic provinces, the federal fisheries department and police forces accountable.

“We’ve protected you for over 300 years,” he said. “You never protected us once.”

He called for Mi’kmaq youth to be supported into every professional field, including medicine, law and sport. He described a heart surgeon who had recently saved his life.

He spoke of wanting Mi’kmaq athletes at the Olympics, Mi’kmaq professionals in every sector.

“We need our youth to be working together with organizations and companies. Teach them. Instead of holding them down, we should be lifting them up.”

He ended by looking ahead. 

“It’s only been 300 years. But you have to learn our ways of protecting the environment, of taking what’s needed, of working together and helping each other,” he said.

“We’re human beings. Let’s look at the next 300 years and make sure all leadership helps one another. It does not matter what the colour of your skin is.”

Relationships between Mi’kmaq people and colonial governments have been strained at times, including in recent history. In December 2025, the Nova Scotia government issued a province-wide directive ordering police to raid illegal cannabis operations, which Mi’kmaq leaders have long asserted are protected under their treaty right to trade.

Premier Houston claimed the unregulated cannabis was laced with fentanyl. Both the Nova Scotia RCMP and Halifax Regional Police said that claim was false. Mi’kmaq chiefs called for an apology. None came.

Raids followed across multiple communities, including Eskasoni, shattering relationships between Mi’kmaq communities and police that had taken years to build.

Sipekne’katik First Nation passed a resolution banning Houston and two of his ministers from reserve lands, calling them “undesirables.”

Chief Leroy Denny, speaking for the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, said the raids “only further deteriorate our relationships with these Crown entities.”

Then came Hunters Mountain. Mi’kmaq land protectors established a checkpoint in September 2025 to oppose clear-cutting in Unama’ki, Cape Breton, gathering in what they described as an educational mawiomi to protect moose habitat and forest their ancestors depended on. 

Two weeks after the checkpoint was established, Houston’s government introduced Bill 127. 

On Oct. 3, 2025, two days after Atlantic Canada’s Treaty Day, it passed. The law criminalized blocking forest access roads on Crown land, with fines of up to $50,000 or six months in jail. Mi’kmaq leaders said they had not been consulted.

Former mayor of Annapolis Royal William MacDonald, who attended the commemoration, acknowledged the weight of the moment from the other side of the treaty relationship. 

“This is a live issue,” he said. “As a former mayor of this town, it’s been really important to me that we do everything we can to advance reconciliation. I’m happy to be here to support it.”

Back in the youth tent, as Kalolin Johnson’s voice carried across the grounds outside, the conversation returned to where it began. The youth. The next generation. The ones who will inherit this relationship and all of its weight.

Near the close of the ceremony, four Mi’kmaq youth representatives were called to the stage alongside the assembled leaders for the presentation of treaty medals.

Retired Canadian senator Daniel Christmas, from Membertou First Nation, said the presentation to young Mi’kmaq people and Crown representatives alike “demonstrates the timeliness, the enduring nature of the treaty relationship.”“It also seeks to look forward to the future and the obligation that we all have as treaty partners,” he said.

Christmas said that, in current times, there’s a very high awareness of the treaty relationship.

“People are taking the time to come and actually trying to understand what it means. How did this happen, and why did it happen. An event like today begins to answer some of those questions.”

Gould looked around at the crowd gathered in the June sunshine on the oldest treaty ground in what would become Canada, at the Elders who had traveled far to be here, at the chiefs who had stood and spoken difficult truths, at the young people sitting quietly in the tent around her, listening.

“I think the generation coming up now,” she said quietly. “I think they’re going to be the balance.”

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Nova Scotia’s Kejimkujik National Park and Historic Site is home to old-growth forests, white sand beaches, diverse wildlife and abundant natural beauty. But long before it was established as a national park in 1969, it was the site of Mi’kmaw fishing villages, hunting territories and burial grounds for thousands of years. Now, the Mi’kmaq will once again play a central role in deciding how that land, which is the keeper of their stories and memories, is cared for.

A new agreement between the Mi’kmaq and Parks Canada will allow both parties to govern almost all of Nova Scotia’s parks and historic lands together. Announced in December 2025, the Toqi’maliaptmu’k Arrangement, which means “we will look after it together,” reflects a relationship based in mutual respect and allyship — one that has taken decades to nurture and create.

Roughly 30 years ago, that relationship was essentially non-existent, Eric Zscheile says. He has been a legal advisor to the Mi’kmaq, who operate as one nation, since 1992 and negotiates on their behalf with the federal and provincial governments. 

Nova Scotia’s national parks (excluding Sable Island), as well as many more throughout Canada, were created from land that was directly taken from First Nations, often through “dubious land surrenders,” Zscheile says. For generations, the Mi’kmaq had no say in how unceded land was protected, used or accessed, and there was a deep sense of distrust toward the federal agency as a result. 

 “Most Mi’kmaq refused to even go into a national park because of the past,” Zscheile says. “There was a feeling that it was government appropriation.”

Then came the Marshall Case, a 1999 landmark decision in favour of Mi’kmaw fisherman Donald Marshall that affirmed First Nations’ Treaty Right to fish, hunt and gather for their livelihood. After that, Zscheile says, things slowly began to shift.

“ People within Parks [Canada] started looking at what was happening legally when it came to the rights of Indigenous Peoples and their relationship with Indigenous Peoples, not just in Nova Scotia but across the country,” he says. “There started to be a concerted effort to say, ‘I think we have to do things differently.’ ”

In the years since, progress has been gradual. Mi’kmaw leaders have worked with Parks Canada on a number of projects to help repair the community’s relationship with both the agency and the land they’d historically been excluded from. In 2012, they formed an arrangement to allow Mi’kmaq to enter national parks for free.

They’ve also worked to incorporate Mi’kmaw place names into official signage and interpretive displays, create visitor programs highlighting Mi’kmaw history and culture and organize harvesting, protection and restoration projects. One such project focused on white birch conservation and gave the Mi’kmaq access to white birch for traditional crafts, including building canoes.

Today, Parks Canada is lovingly seen by the community as the “least offensive federal agency,” Zscheile says. That’s thanks to years of collaboration and a willingness to listen and work together as equal partners. 

That status as equal partners is now official, according to the Toqi’maliaptmu’k Arrangement, which took nearly a decade of negotiations to bring to fruition.

The arrangement is unprecedented and monumental in its scope. While similar agreements exist in Gwaii Haanas in B.C., Newfoundland’s Torngat Mountains and Saoyú-ʔehdacho in the Northwest Territories, those partnerships apply only to individual parks. This agreement’s underlying principle is to recognize and implement Aboriginal and Treaty Rights within lands that have traditionally been governed, managed and utilized by the Mi’kmaq. 

Because of that wide scope, it’s the first agreement to apply province-wide and covers all Parks Canada-administered national parks and national historic sites in Nova Scotia.

The only exception is Sable Island Reserve, which was left out because it remains unclear if Mi’kmaq traditionally frequented and used Sable Island, Jonathan Sheppard, says. Sheppard is superintendent of Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site, one of the locations covered by the arrangement. Discussions about the governance and management of Sable Island are ongoing between Parks Canada and the Mi’kmaq.

The choice to create a province-wide agreement, rather than one focused on individual lands, was largely based on the Mi’kmaw preference for a collective approach because the Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia operate as one unified political group, Sheppard says.

“[It was] really important for the ideas associated with self-governance and self-determination that this is a pan-Nova Scotia initiative, because it is ultimately about a nation-to-nation relationship and the nation-to-nation decision-making governance structure,” he says.

A shared vision 

Fundamentally, the arrangement is a framework to formalize the modern-day relationship while recognizing and implementing the Peace and Friendship Treaties, signed in the 1700s between the Crown and east-coast Indigenous communities.

 “This was not about negotiating rights and it was not about creating rights or extinguishing rights,” Sheppard says. “It was really about implementing rights originating from those original Peace and Friendship Treaties.”

In practice, the framework will be guided by a co-management board that will be made up of an equal number of Parks Canada and Mi’kmaw representatives. There will also be technical committees made up of Knowledge Holders, Elders and harvesters focused on specific topics, including language, culture and heritage; archeology; natural resource stewardship and harvesting; and economic opportunities.

While exact details will be developed over the coming months, the arrangement will include opportunities for practices on the land, including in protected heritage places. This will allow for practices such as ceremonies, Indigenous-led conservation activities and place-based learning and knowledge sharing.

The 10-year agreement has an option to extend or renew, although the Mi’kmaq are free to opt out at any point if they are dissatisfied. 

“ It was really clear to Parks Canada that there was a lot of overlap in vision about land stewardship, and that formed the basis for the agreement,” Sheppard says.

The Mi’kmaw concept of Netukulimk teaches about the respectful use of resources and only taking what you need from the land. It’s one of the principles Sheppard says aligns with Parks Canada’s vision for ecological integrity and preservation. Another is Msit No’kmaq, which suggests that all living beings are sacred and interconnected.

Etuaptmumk, or two-eyed seeing, is the concept at the very core of this new partnership, according to Lindsay Marshall, the Mi’kmaq relations advisor for the Cape Breton Field Unit for Parks Canada and a former chief of Potlotek First Nation.

Coined by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, it means “looking at something with your western eye, and also with your Indigenous eye to come up with something truly beautiful and unique, and to understand it more,” he says. It is about combining both wisdoms to create a more holistic, in-depth approach. 

While the timeline to establish this arrangement was long, Marshall says it was the Mi’kmaq who set the pace, not the government. This required patience from Parks Canada at times, patience that helped demonstrate respect. So far, Sheppard says, the public response has been positive.

“ I’m really proud of the way the approach has been at the speed of the communities and not rushing, not being forceful in any way,” Marshall says. “That shows understanding and appreciation for culture.”

For First Nations in other provinces who may want to develop their own arrangements, Marshall suggests a similar strategy: go slow and build a real relationship before rushing into anything. 

And to federal agencies that may want to build partnerships with Indigenous communities, Marshall stresses the importance of doing the homework first. 

“Before you even set foot in the community, you should learn about the community,” he says. “You go at [their] speed and you approach with respect.”

Heal the people, heal the land 

For Clifford Paul, the moose management co-ordinator for the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources, this new arrangement is an opportunity for true healing among the Mi’kmaq.

“The Mi’kmaq language hasn’t been spoken in these areas in a long time,” Paul says. “The language belongs there. Our people belong there.”

It is also a chance to draw on Indigenous wisdom to help heal the land at a time when the environment is in dire need of protection. The Mi’kmaq have a proven track record of helping to improve the ecosystems in Nova Scotia’s parks, Paul says. In recent years, for example, they reintroduced pine martens into the boreal forest and helped to rectify an overabundant moose population through harvesting.

While the latter project was highly controversial — both with people who oppose hunting and non-Indigenous hunters who opposed being excluded — Paul says the Mi’kmaq successfully demonstrated their ability to get the job done safely while providing positive social impacts to their communities.

Restoring the spiritual connection between the Mi’kmaq people and the land is another crucial part of this deal, Paul says. Although the arrangement is about resource management and economic opportunities, it is also about harvesting knowledge from these sacred lands after hundreds of years of severed access.

“ When we go to these places and do our storytelling, it widens the breadth and scope of our Traditional Knowledge,” he says. “ You heal the people by taking them back to the land.” 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

At the top of a squat hill overlooking the Shubenacadie River, Dorene Bernard swings her SUV around to face a building clad in blue plastic siding. It’s a nondescript factory for plastic packaging, but the space it occupies is distinct. “[It’s] sitting in the footprint of where the school was,” Dorene says.

Between 1929 and 1967, more than a thousand Mi’kmaw and Wolastoqiyik children from around the Maritimes, as well as the Gaspé region in Quebec, were sent to this spot in Nova Scotia: the site of the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, the only federal residential school in the region. (The Maritimes includes New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Newfoundland and Labrador had its own residential schools, but these were not part of the federal system and only received an apology from Canada in 2017, nine years after the prime minister apologized to residential school students on behalf of the Government of Canada.)

In 1986, the school was demolished, and the plastics factory built in its place. Still, something of the school remains: in a semi-circle at the bottom of the school’s former driveway, three plaques lay out the history of the Shubenacadie residential school in English and French, as well as two orthographies each of Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqey.

From 1828 to 1997, 140 federal residential schools operated across Canada. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its Calls to Action in 2015, recommendation 79 addressed incorporating reconciliation in heritage work — including developing a national plan and strategy for commemorating school sites. Since then, the federal government has designated a handful of former schools as national historic sites; Shubenacadie was one of the first, in 2020. This fall, a commemorative park will open a short distance from the school, culminating the work of memorialization. 

For survivors and their descendants, many of whom have worked for years to have sites officially recognized, the designations are a complex phenomenon: former schools remain profoundly painful places and some communities have fought to have schools demolished. But while the history of residential schools is indelible for many survivors, collective memory is slippery, and among survivor groups, a patient effort is underway to preserve something of that past — to ensure Canada doesn’t forget what happened in residential schools, and what it took to survive them. 

“We want our descendants, and the ones that are to come to have a place to come learn about who they are … what our ancestors came through, [and] honour that, so that they can take that strength,” Dorene says. “That’s what this work is all about.”

Survivors led process for Shubenacadie commemoration

Dorene’s family bookends the school’s existence. Her father started when it opened in 1929; she and her siblings were some of the last to leave. When Dorene recalls the years she spent there, her voice is quiet. She felt abandoned, she says. Her older sister tried to take care of her, but despite those efforts, Dorene witnessed and was subjected to beatings and other forms of physical abuse; in one particularly awful moment, she remembers a nun sitting her on a stack of phone books while a travelling dentist pulled eight of her teeth without medication, resulting in jaw pain that affects her to this day. 

After the remaining children left in 1967, the imposing brick building sat empty for nearly 20 years, growing increasingly derelict. In the 1980s, a fire tore through the school, and shortly thereafter, the structure was demolished. In her book Out of the Depths, survivor Isabelle Knockwood recalls survivors gathering for the demolition and cheering as the wrecking ball tore through the walls. “There was no sadness, no tears at seeing the building finally being punished and beaten for having robbed so many Indian children of the natural wonders and simple pleasures of growing up,” she wrote. 

The demolition, and the visits survivors made to the school in the days leading up to it, marked a beginning for survivors collectively unpacking their experiences. In 1995, a group of Shubenacadie survivors led by Nora Bernard filed the first class-action lawsuit against Canada for compensation to residential school survivors. The suit precipitated a flurry of additional lawsuits that eventually resulted in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2007, which compensated tens of thousands of survivors. Another outcome of that agreement was the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Years later, when the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre, an organization founded to preserve Mi’kmaw history and historic sites, began to work on the recommendations of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, survivors were once again clear what they wanted: “[They said] ‘We want to make sure Canada — the world — never forgets what has happened to us at this place. So, we want to see the school designated as a national historic site,’ ” Tim Bernard, executive director of the cultural centre, says.

Tim’s own experience is a testament to the importance of having a record. In 1998, an Elder showed him a photograph of residents obtained from the archive of the Sisters of Charity — the nuns who staffed the school — vowing she was going to track down the name of every child in it. When she came back, she pointed out two boys: Tim’s father and uncle.

Tim had had no idea they had been taken there — his father had passed away, after a struggle with alcoholism, having never discussed his experiences. “For me, it heightens my awareness around trauma, and the impacts of trauma,” he says. It also made work to have the school designated personal, though he emphasizes it’s been led by survivors. 

Guided by those survivors, Tim sent a request in 2019 for a designation to Parks Canada, and in 2020, the federal government declared the former school a national historic site. The plaques were unveiled on Truth and Reconciliation Day a year later. Dorene, who led engagement work for the centre, says survivors had a lot of input into the wording — and insisted that it state that survivors considered residential school policy to be genocide. 

Being a national historic site doesn’t come with a lot of resources, Tim says. Still, the designation is a testament to the fact that survivors’ stories are true. 

“Other than us putting the plaques up, you would never know that the school was there,” he says. “I think that was [survivors’] intention, to remind people that this is a dark part of our history.”

Indigenous communities vary in approaches to former school sites

The National Program of Historical Commemoration has existed for more than a century. For much of its existence, its tone was celebratory, but that’s changed in the last several decades, Dominique Foisy-Geoffroy, director of history and commemoration for Parks Canada, says.

“Commemoration was seen as something generally positive, something to celebrate. Now it’s a bit different.”

The program is driven almost entirely by public requests and there are two main sets of criteria: sites must have national historic significance and have existed for at least 40 years. The federal government also designated the residential school system an event of national significance in 2019.

Following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report, Foisy-Geoffroy says, Parks Canada began collaborating with Indigenous communities to determine what they wanted done with former schools. While some wanted a historic site designation, responses ranged, and others turned down federal commemoration: for some, demolishing buildings has been the more important step towards healing.

So far, five sites have been designated. Parks Canada focused its outreach on larger institutions where the main buildings are still standing, though Shubenacadie was prioritized as the only former site in the Maritimes. “It’s the history that is at the core of it, not [the buildings’] architectural value, of course. But the building is still important,” Foisy-Geoffroy says.

Since the 1960s, many school buildings have been torn down, though roughly 50 are still standing and in use — as gymnasiums, staff residencies and other outbuildings, including as schools. Others serve as offices, cultural centres or housing. At one — the former St. Eugene Mission School, on Ktunaxa territory near Cranbrook, B.C. — the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council applied for a national historic site designation in 1996. That application was rejected after the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs intervened, arguing commemoration decisions should be delayed until after the release of the final report by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, according to an essay published in the Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada. So instead, the five bands who share the land turned the school into a golf course and resort owned by the Ktunaxa Nation.

At other sites, communities have set aside school buildings as testimony to the residential school era, including the Portage La Prairie Residential School in Manitoba, which operated from 1891 to 1975. It’s on the Treaty 1 territory of the reserve lands of Long Plain First Nation, for which Dennis Meeches served as chief for 20 years, starting in 1998. 

By the time Meeches entered politics, the federal government had transferred the 45-acre school site to the nation, as part of a treaty land entitlement claim. For a time, the building hosted Yellowquill College, Manitoba’s first Indigenous-owned and operated post-secondary institution. Then, in the early 2000s, a Knowledge Keeper told Meeches the building should be converted to a museum. 

“I thought that actually made really good sense, in terms of being able to provide some education and awareness to [not only] Indigenous people … but everybody in general,” he says. “It was a sacred project in my eyes.”

In 2003, Long Plain declared the former school a historic site and began amassing material for the collection of what it named the National Indigenous Residential School Museum. Seventeen years later, the federal government issued its own designation— a step Meeches says was important, given the federal government’s role in the residential school system. Ultimately, he hopes being a national historic site will serve to bolster the vision for the museum.

Watching the plaque unveiling this past August, Meeches thought of what it took for his parents and grandparents to survive the system. Survivors are aging and passing away, he says, even as denial about the reality of residential schools continues to circulate — making it important to preserve a record of that history.

Nonetheless, not every community has wanted schools preserved. For years, c̓išaaʔatḥ (Tseshaht First Nation) on Vancouver Island has been demolishing the buildings of the former Alberni Indian Residential School. Today, just the gymnasium and the main building, called Caldwell Hall, remain, with demolition of the hall set to happen within a year. 

Elected Chief Councillor Wahmeesh (Ken Watts) says the presence of Caldwell Hall is an open wound in the community. While the nation’s leadership has had discussions with Parks Canada about a designation, they haven’t made a formal decision about how to proceed. “We were a little bit worried about what that actually meant … does that restrict us?” he says. “Even internally we asked ourselves, ‘Why should we let somebody designate something a historic site they were a part of creating in the first place?’ ”

Watts says they haven’t closed the door on a designation eventually, but for now, they’re listening to the community — and the community has been clear they want the buildings gone. “More important than giving some place a designation is actually tearing down and rebuilding new so that our community can heal.”

Other existing schools, like Shingwauk Indian Residential School on Robinson-Huron Treaty territory in Ontario, accepted a designation but turned down a plaque; survivors opted to use the money to restore an existing monument instead. 

Federal funding allocated to supporting national historic site designations ended in March 2025, but Foisy-Geoffroy says Parks Canada is committed to continuing to work with interested communities, with several more designations in the works. 

“All this is part of who we are … so it’s a way for us to make sure people — non-Indigenous and Indigenous alike — better understand their own history, and eventually try to build a better future, she says.

Commemoration honours survivors, keeps history alive

When Elmer Lewis started at the Shubenacadie residential school, he was five years old. He was given a number — one — which also put him first in line for punishments like humiliation for wetting the bed. “It’s hard to ever forget anything,” he says. “It’ll always be with me.”

For three years, Elmer stayed at the school year-round. It wasn’t until he was eight that he was allowed to return home for the summer, via the “freedom road” — the school’s driveway, which Elmer still dreams about, decades later. 

In 2021, on June 21— the annual date children were allowed to leave for the summer — survivors and their descendants gathered on that driveway and walked the half-kilometre route children once took to the train station that would take them back home.

The march now takes place every year. Elmer’s daughter Tara Lewis, from Eskasoni First Nation, started the event to honour her father after he shared a dream about a march on freedom day. Tara grew up visiting the site with her dad, and now takes her own children there. She says it’s important to keep the history of residential schools alive, and seeing survivors and descendants travel the route from the school to the train station made that history real. 

“I was so moved, because I could just picture my dad as a little boy. And I could see my dad, you know, 75 years old, walking and marching, not with sadness but with pride because he’s resilient and he’s a survivor,” she says.

This fall, Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre is unveiling a commemorative park and monument to celebrate the resilience of survivors and descendants, close enough to the school to see the former site, but far away enough that people feel safe. Tim says when the centre asked survivors what they wanted out of a commemorative park, they talked about a place that centred not on the school, but on hope and reclamation and how despite “everything that’s happened to us, look at all the good news stories … that we’ve been able to achieve.”

For Dorene, the park is the culmination of a long journey: first as a survivor, then as someone who’s spent over a decade working on commemoration. “This has been a long process and I think maybe it had to be that way,” she says, watching heavy equipment prepare the park in early September. 

She says it’s hard that in the time it’s taken to get the designation and start commemoration projects, so many survivors of the school have passed. There are at most a few hundred left. But the monument will stand as a reminder for future generations of what their ancestors came through.

Back by the school site, Dorene puts down tobacco at a place set aside for ceremonies on the banks of the Shubenacadie River. The day before, she had drummed for a baby-and-me group. Watching children do the things residential school had once taken from her, Dorene says, was like seeing her prayers come to life in front of her. “That’s where we should be,” she says. “That’s the power of our people coming, and I don’t see that going away ever again.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On a swath of frozen ocean outside Cambridge Bay, Nvt., a company has been testing an approach to thicken sea ice to prevent it from disappearing as the climate warms.

The U.K.-based company, Real Ice, is wrapping up its second season of tests outside the Arctic community, which lies on the coast of Victoria Island alongside the Northwest Passage. Its experimental approach involves drilling holes through the ice to pump water to the surface during the coldest months of winter, where it quickly solidifies in the freezing air.

Ice thickening is an example of a category of highly controversial interventions aimed at modifying the climate to combat warming. Real Ice has drawn sharp criticism from scientists, who question the environmental impacts of the company’s experimental efforts and the feasibility of scaling up. 

But unlike many geoengineering projects, Real Ice’s experiments have garnered local support so far. According to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, the work to date is unlikely to cause adverse environmental impacts. Although not all Cambridge Bay residents are aware of the project, those who have heard about it tend to be on board with the initiative.

The community—known as Ikaluktutiak in Inuinnaqtun, which is often translated as “place of many fish”—is home to nearly 1,800 residents, roughly 80 per cent of whom are Inuit. Located on Victoria Island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Cambridge Bay sits above the Arctic Circle and serves as a hub for the western Arctic. Sea ice forms the backdrop of life for much of the year. As the climate warms, residents have been witnessing drastic changes.

For some, the goal of saving sea ice resonates because it supports the continuation of cultural and traditional practices. Others see applications for sea ice thickening besides fighting climate change. At a smaller scale, it could be useful for building roads, reinforcing snowmobile routes or supporting fish and wildlife populations.

Five Cambridge Bay residents tell us what sea ice means to them, as well as how they see their home changing and, if they have heard about Real Ice, what they think about the effort.

The following interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Talia Maksagak, executive director of the Kitikmeot Chamber of Commerce, born and raised in Cambridge Bay

There’s a lot of things that the sea ice provides to our communities. People travel on the ice to harvest on the mainland, a.k.a. Canada. People travel from Cambridge Bay to Kugluktuk on the sea ice, too. My sister is one of them. They camp along the way, so they go for about a week. It’s better than spending so much money on airline tickets.

Here in the bay, the ice is all smooth. But once you get out into the ocean, to the actual sea ice, it’s like all of these boulders. The way that the ice freezes and moves, you have to really be careful where you drive your Ski-Doo. Cracks in the ice happen earlier and in different areas than they used to be. It’s terrifying because there’s fresh snow that covers the cracks so you can’t always see them.

What we were taught as kids growing up is that there’s a sea ice monster called the Qalupalik who will steal you and take you under the ice forever and eat you. We teach our kids that because we don’t want them to get into dangerous situations. The Qalupalik have really long, stringy hair and really long hands.

I don’t remember the other sea ice legends, but that’s one of the ones where it’s like, ‘Do not go near black ice. Do not go near ice cracks because they’re gonna steal you.’ Terrifying — especially as a little kid.

I was part of some of Real Ice’s engagements. I also put them in touch with my grandfather, and we had a separate meeting. He was sharing cool stories about how they used to sell ice to Japan. They would go out to lakes and harvest all this ice and ship it by cargo to Japan for a special drink they had there. This was in the 1970s. He had some really good stories to share that I honestly don’t think I would have ever heard if Real Ice hadn’t been doing engagements.

We have a bunch of Elders who tell us stories about when they used to go on the ice. From their time to our time, we can’t go at the same time. I’m hoping that when I tell my kids stories, that they can have a similar experience and it’s not drastically changed. I’m very supportive of the Real Ice project because I do have a legacy and a family. I would like them to experience sea ice. But who knows how much it’ll change between now and then.

Henry Ohoilak, a Cambridge Bay Elder who was born in Igloolik

Long ago, we used to live in tents or snow houses in the winter. That’s how I grew up. I was mostly out on the land until I was 14. I would go into town only to resupply. We would fish, hunt, do chores. I was never bored and never lonely. You always have something to do when you’re out on the land.

One of the best parts was when my parents would bring a sled-load of fish to the co-op in Paulatuk. We would make an ice house to keep the fish in. We would build ice walls and then cover the top with plywood, so no animals could get in. Once in a while, we would go out in the ocean and go seal hunting.

We would go by dog team and see what kind of animals we could see. Dogs, they can find where the seal area is. When you find that area, you make the dogs go away a little bit and stand there really quiet, until you hear breathing. When the water comes up, you harpoon. The last time I went seal hunting like that was around 2003. I miss being out on the land.

The weather’s been changing quite a bit. The decreasing ice is kind of hard to detect with snowmobiles, but with dog teams it’s okay. Snowmobiles, you can’t hear the ice cracking, but dog teams know which way to go. They know when the ice is too thin. They just feel it. I grew up using dog teams, then I tried snow machines, and I don’t like machines. There was a dog slaughter, so the dogs are just coming back slowly.

I worry about melting sea ice for the younger people. It doesn’t matter to me because I can’t go out anymore. I worry about how the younger people are going to survive. Most of them are only playing with their phone, not paying attention to who’s teaching them. I feel sorry for the generation to come. When we’re gone and they want to do something for themselves, who’s going to teach them?

I only heard about Real Ice for the first time recently. That could be a good idea, but I don’t know. They can try. If the youth can learn about ice, it could be good for the future.

Navalik Helen Tologanak, a journalist and Elder in Cambridge Bay

I was born in that time before Cambridge Bay was ever built, or when it was just being built. It was quiet back then. Less people, there were no vehicles, barely any snowmobiles. No housing. Planes once a month. I was just a young girl, so I never really knew the difference, but now I know the difference, that it was very quiet and peaceful.

I went to school from kindergarten to grade three by dog team. We would travel across the bay to the federal day school. By that time, we all had to go to school as little kids. Then I was forced to go to residential school and move away from my family and my grandparents and my Elders, my community.

I’m not a hunter, but I’ve seen changes on the land. We don’t have any caribou anymore. I used to sit and watch caribou go by, heading from the ocean up towards the calving grounds. You don’t see that anymore. Muskox used to be everywhere. When you drive out onto the roads or out to the ocean, you could see muskox grazing everywhere. Not anymore.

We’re finding more grizzly bears coming to the island. They live more in the tree line area, but now they’re coming further north because it’s warming up. We never had that before. The grizzlies are very wild. They’re starting to wreck tents and cabins and look for food.

I went on a cruise ship a few years ago. What I saw really saddened me. The ice breaker was crushing the ice to make a trail for the fancy cruise ships coming through the Northwest Passage. That’s not right, that’s too much noise and pollution. It’s scaring all the animals away. I was at a hamlet meeting yesterday with the manager there, and he said we had 14 ships here last summer. That’s a lot.

I haven’t heard about Real Ice. But the changes make me sad. Breaks my heart. I miss the good old days. Life has changed here. But at same time, there’s lots of good things too.

Brent Nakashook, board member of the Ekaluktutiak Hunters & Trappers Organization and general manager of Kitikmeot Foods

Seeing if you can thicken ice from the bottom by flooding the top, that’s something that’s definitely interesting. There’s a project that’s proposing a road from Yellowknife right to the Northwest Passage, which potentially could connect us to the mainland by road. I think this project may play a role in that. There’s a lot of funding that’s been committed to the road project. They’ve been coming to the community. I actually asked one of the representatives jokingly, ‘When’s the earliest I’ll be able to drive from here to Las Vegas?’ Having something other than access by air would definitely help us as far as cost of living.

Having ice around longer could help our fish stocks too. The best fishing happens when the ice is melting and still there. The invertebrates that localize under the ice feed on the bugs that die on top the ice, and then the whole chain starts basically with ice.

There was a project that I took part in that took climate change into consideration and actually measured the biodiversity that’s happening from it. They said that there’s more life happening because of the warmer temperatures.

The polar bears are doing better. Grizzly bears are obviously doing better. The only things that are struggling are the herds of muskox and caribou, which seem to be, for the most part, struggling because there are more wolves and grizzly bears. And I guess humans play a role, too. But I think the more active environment might have a little more pressure on them because they’re not used to having all these other animals in their environment. That’s something that I’ve noticed personally. 

The ocean seems to be having more life right from the bottom up. So that’s something that needs to also be considered. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and paint everything grim. I’m not saying it’s a great thing happening. I’m just saying there are some winners in this and there’s losers.

Jim MacEachern, chief administrative officer of the Municipality of Cambridge Bay

I’ve been with the municipality since 2010. I also help coordinate with search and rescue. The ice melts sooner and it freezes up later in the year, which for travellers out on the land causes life and safety issues. When individuals are travelling, whether it’s on the ocean or across a lake, if the ice is not as thick as it should be at that time of the year, there’s more of a chance that the traveller is going to go through the ice. We’ve had that happen several times now in the past four or five years.

It takes a significant toll on the community, especially on the search and rescue crews. It’s challenging for them. It’s not easy work. And it takes an emotional toll as well. Almost everybody is related in one way, shape or form. When they’re out there, they’re rescuing their family members, their relatives.

Real Ice did a presentation up at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. They explained a little bit about what they were looking for, and they were taking feedback on who they should engage with and who they should talk to.

My initial thinking about the project, and it’s still the same [now]: Anything that we can do to improve the safety and the ability for the Inuit to get out on land, anything we can do to improve that, the better. One hundred per cent.

This story was supported by a field reporting grant from the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, funders have no editorial input.

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Stuck in traffic on Highway 401, heading out of Toronto on a humid waabigwani-giizis afternoon, sweat begins to trickle down my forehead as the two frozen deer hides in my back seat begin to thaw.

Squished amid a tent, clothes and camping supplies, a blue tote bin houses the waawaashkeshiwayaanag. Each one is neatly folded into a square, flesh-to-flesh, and wrapped in a black industrial-strength garbage bag. Six months ago, the deer roamed the bush in Keswick, Ont., before they were hunted by the father of my fellow camper Alessia, an annual family tradition he has taken part in since childhood. 

Alessia’s father carefully cut off all the meat and generously saved us the skins, packing them into a deep freezer. “I saved you girls the brain too,” he proudly declared through the phone after returning from his hunt, a sentence that would undoubtedly concern anyone unaware of the context.

For the third year in a row, I’m attending Niizh Manidook Hide Camp, a week-long hide tanning revitalization camp for Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ Indigenous youth. Niizh Manidook means “Two-Spirit” in Anishinaabemowin, a term used by some Indigenous people to describe their sexual orientation, gender or identity. Campers learn the process of traditional hide tanning using the “brain tan” method, which is exactly what it sounds like: the brains of an animal are used to transform its hide into leather.

For generations, Indigenous Peoples tanned hides and used the soft, supple leather for moccasins, gloves, clothing and bedding. What was once necessary for our survival and a form of currency has become an old way that persevered through devastating colonial policies like the Indian Act, residential schools and the ’60s Scoop — all of which aimed to eradicate our culture. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of brain hide tanning across Indigenous communities and there are now a handful of tanners across the country who are teaching the process to generations both young and old, through camps, workshops and social media. 

Animals are honoured at hide camp — but it’s not for the faint of heart

Growing up in my home communities of Garden River First Nation and Batchewana First Nation, I was no stranger to wildlife. Both of my parents are skilled fishers, and various critters like bears, deer and foxes routinely ate the vegetables in our garden. But I had never heard about hide tanning. Each fall, I peered with awe at the massive, brown and bloody moose that would hang from my neighbour’s tree during hunting season. In the Anishinaabe worldview, it’s important to honour the life of an animal, including by using all its parts to leave minimal waste. At Niizh Manidook, I had the opportunity to follow this teaching by giving the deer a new life and purpose.

In my first year, I was overwhelmed by a sense of hesitancy, and my stomach fluttered over my abysmal knowledge of tanning compared to some of my peers. I asked our camp Knowledge Keepers and teachers a million questions about the steps in the process, how they learned, what not to do and everything in between — questions they happily and patiently answered. But as I approach the campgrounds for my third year, I feel I have something to prove. It’s my first time tanning my own deer hide.

Within a few hours, I pulled onto the dry, dirt rez roads of the Delaware Nation at Moriviantown, fittingly nicknamed “Bucktown,” about a 30-minute drive northeast of Chatham, Ont. A small craft shop sits at the bumpy entrance to the grounds of Niizh Manidook, which is hosted on the family property of Beze Gray, a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and one of the camp’s co-founders. A large white canopy, two tipis, a smaller canopy and a variety of wooden frame configurations make up the work area. I pull up alongside the row of cars parked on the grass and within a few minutes I’m embraced in the arms of fellow campers and teachers who I’ve come to consider family. 

In 2019, Niizh Manidook was founded by Two-Spirit hide tanners, artists and activists, Hunter Cascagnette and Beze. The pair had a bit of hide tanning experience, a small batch of tools and the dream of creating a gathering space for Two-Spirit youth to become immersed in hide tanning. Since then, the camp has grown to host around 20 youth each year from Indigenous Nations across Ontario. This year, one participant even flew in from Alaska to attend.

“If you wanna get started on your hides you better get going,” Beze says, gesturing towards the workstation under a canopy. “It’s 2 p.m. now and you’ve got a few hours before we stop for the day.”

I quickly weave my hair into a braid and pop the lid off the blue tote bin, bracing myself for the smell of the thawing hides. With a quick tear, the hides are unfurled with a thump, landing on a blue tarp sprawled across the grass. Mary Ann Maiangowi-Manatch, one of the camp apprentices, pulls a knife from a sheath and precisely removes chunks of fat, meat and stray skin to square off the edges. Blood, flesh, veins, bug bites, hair follicles and even rib marks can be traced across the underside of the skin. Each hide tells a story, and if you look close enough, you can see yourself in it.

Wearing thick waterproof aprons and black rubber gloves, Mary Ann and I drape the hides over a long wooden beam to “flesh” them. Standing at the end of the beam with one foot braced behind me, I hold a steel rod tool with both hands and push down against the hide using my body weight. The remaining meat and fat peels off with a tearing noise and are discarded into a “bits” bin.

After an hour or so of the repetitive downward scraping, the hides are ready to be rinsed in clean water and prepped for the next step. They’ll soak for a few days in a solution that will cause the hide to swell and loosen the hair follicles, making it easier to remove.

Brain hide tanning isn’t exactly for the faint of heart — it’s messy, smelly and labour intensive. Tanners get covered in animal fluids, hair and flecks of skin. In comparison, commercial tanning uses toxic chemicals to tan the hides in large batches. 

After the hair is removed, the membrane layer from the inside of the hide will need to be scraped off. Next the hide will be stretched on a frame, dried and scraped to remove the grain layer from the hair side. Each animal has enough brain to tan its own hide, which is made into a mixture with laundry soap and water and spread on it for a few days for softening. Afterwards the hide is wrung out and softened by hand before the final smoking.

Processing hides connects us to the land, but also to ourselves

Over the next few days, campers work alongside teachers on hides in various stages: some are removing hair, some are scraping off skin, others are rolling the hide into a doughnut shape to wring it out before it is stretched. We all take turns at the different stations, not only to gain experience but to avoid too much sun and strain on our muscles. I wander between the stations, trying my hand at doughnut wringing, stretching and softening while taking notes and socializing. A few campers retreat to the shade of a picnic table, carefully beading sets of earrings, medallions and even a full purse. A roar of laughter erupts from their direction every few minutes or so.

According to Beze, hide tanning helps youth to understand nature in a different way and build community. “I think it’s really healing. When you’re processing a hide, you get to process yourself,” Beze tells me. “It’s a good practice for youth to learn because it’s so interactive and thoughtful and is [connected] to a part of an animal that is usually discarded.” 

After a few years with the camp, I understand more about what Beze means by “processing yourself.” In the repetitive, scraping motions, I feel the heaviness of my body and the weight of learning this practice. It’s not just about softening a hide, it’s about softening into yourself. We share stories, speak our languages, put in our blood, sweat and the occasional tear, accidentally cut holes, sew up those holes and celebrate the small victories of each step. Hide tanning teaches us to slow down, listen and be in relation — reminding us that to return to the land, is to return to ourselves.

In the crisp, dewy morning hours after a cup of coffee, I lug my soaking wet hide over to the scraping beam. Donning protective gear, I push a metal scraping tool down into the hide and the hair slides out with ease, each movement splashing murky water and fur onto my boots. As I carry the hide and bin over to the hose to rinse off and change the water, the opening chord progression of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” calls out from a speaker. It feels as though everyone pauses their work as a blend of voices from all directions join in to chant the lyrics. Gathered on the rez in the glaring heat, a song celebrating a queer space made up of chosen family, community and self-expression makes Niizh Manidook feel like a “Pink Pony Club” in its own right.

For the last task of the day, a few campers and teachers help me to string up the hide on a frame to dry overnight. The sun is starting to go down, so Alessia and I return to a clearing where a small village of colourful tents are set up alongside the Thames River. My body is heavy from the strain of continuous scraping, lifting and sweating. Unfortunately, my tent also waged its own battle of wills, losing against a heavy rainstorm that left the poles in shards and the ceiling collapsed. Alessia and I lug our sleeping bags, lumpy air mattress and backpacks into Niizh Manidook’s tipi for the night.

A small group of us settle down in our flimsy ten-dollar camp chairs for an evening fire. The sweet smells of roasted marshmallows and salty hot dogs fill the air as we swap stories from our home communities, plans for the summer powwow trail and, for some, upcoming drag shows. Overhead, waawaate dance above our heads in shades of green, red and purple as the stars illuminate against the backdrop of the night sky. 

Hides are a testament to resilient Indigenous knowledge and science

On our last day, I sit under a canopy and with guidance from camp co-founder Hunter, use a scraper to remove my hide’s grain layer, which holds the hair follicles. As I press hard against the hide and pull down, the dry skin peels off with sh-sh-sh sound and falls to the ground in the shape of pencil shavings. This is as far as the hide will get for now as there isn’t enough time to fully tan it within a week. Even for experienced tanners like our teachers and Knowledge Keepers, the full process can take between five days for a deer hide and up to two weeks for a moose. 

A few hides are ready for the final step in the process, smoking. Brenda, one of the teachers, demonstrates to campers how to sew a hide to a canvas material and create a “smokestack.” The final smoke gives a hide a beautiful amber colour and a water-resistant “seal.” I haven’t seen the smoking process yet, so after spotting a tipi with smoke billowing out the side, I head over to get a closer look. To satisfy my curiosity, I lay flat in the grass with my feet in the air and peer under the tipi’s tarp. Met with heavy grey smoke, my eyes sting and brim with tears. I see a moose hide strung up in the poles as punky spruce wood burns in a metal garbage can below. 

“Is the wood supposed to be flaming?” I ask Hunter, who immediately runs over to smoulder the fire into coals. “Don’t put that in the story,” they say with cheeks beaming and a wink. “Can’t have people thinking we don’t know what we’re doing.” The smoke wafts upwards to penetrate the hide, preserving the work done to soften it before the final smoke. 

Every camper takes home a piece of luxuriously soft, sturdy, caramel-brown deer hide. As I run the hide between my hands, breathing in the gentle smoke, I’m reminded each hide was touched countless times by dozens of hands and is a physical testament to generations of traditional Indigenous knowledge and science. Despite long-standing efforts to eliminate our culture and remove us from the land, our people are creating spaces of resurgence and this is where I feel most connected to who I am as an Anishinaabekwe. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

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Jacob Beaton’s name has become closely tied to food sovereignty and food security in British Columbia. His successful training program at Tea Creek Farm in Kitwanga, B.C., — a 1,200-kilometres drive north of Vancouver — has equipped hundreds of First Nations trainees in trades, food production and project management since it launched in 2021. 

In 2023, 140 trainees graduated from the program. More than 60 First Nations across Canada have reached out wanting to partner with Tea Creek and learn from its holistic model, which aims to provide the tools graduates will need to pursue food sovereignty projects in their own communities — from growing seeds to carpentry to bookkeeping — all while maintaining a culturally safe space. 

Beaton says the demand is so strong the program can hardly keep up. In addition to trainees, the farm hosted more than 1,000 visitors last year.

Food security is top of mind for First Nations. Tea Creek has quickly become a leader in the food security world, but despite the energy and excitement — graduates have found the program empowering — Beaton says it’s still “fragile,” like a seed that’s just taken root. The program has largely been relying on private donations.

In the documentary Tea Creek, released this month as an episode of CBC’s Absolutely Canadian, Beaton highlights how Indigenous people are showing passionate interest in the program, but it still faces difficulty scaling up.

He says the root of First Nations food insecurity is the systematic dismantling of Indigenous food systems by the Crown. The Indian Act restricted Indigenous people from hunting, fishing, farming and selling goods. They were restricted from buying land and equipment and paid less for work than settlers. As Indigenous people were pushed into poverty, keystone species — animals especially crucial to the survival of an ecosystem, like caribou and salmon — began to decline drastically. The ongoing impacts of these policies continue and Canada has done little to assist in the repair of generations of damage, Beaton says.

“I do see it as an issue of justice. Wrong was done — very clearly — and so there needs to be repair done,” he explains.

Beaton, who is Tsimshian and carries the name Dzap’l Gye’a̱win Skiik, emphasized Tea Creek isn’t looking for piecemeal grants. 

“We’re just looking for fair contracts to deliver services,” he says. “Holistic services that work.”

Tea Creek’s main training contract is with SkillsTrade BC, a Crown corporation, through which it provides training and services for unemployed and underemployed Indigenous people.

He says 2024 is the first year the organization has a small federal contract, and it received a two-year grant from the B.C. Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation in 2023 that is ending. While they did receive a grant through New Relationship Trust this year, Beaton and his team have been unable to secure any new or additional contracts or funding directly from the provincial government in the past two years.

“Not a single penny provincially this year, and not for lack of trying,” he says.

Tea Creek seeks core funding to sustain mental health services, free meals and more

Beaton says one of the most misleading and persistent tropes about First Nations is that they were solely hunter-gatherers. In reality, he emphasizes, First Nations in what is now called B.C. have cultivated many foods at large scales for generations. They managed individual species, like clams and camas, and entire ecosystems through practices like controlled burns and selective logging. 

While B.C. and Canada interfered with First Nations accessing traditional food sources, First Nations were also excluded from the new system, Beaton says. They often got taxed, fined or just simply pushed out of opportunities to prosper in the new economy, all while being confined to reserves.

When Beaton first bought 140 acres of land to start his farm off-reserve, he “didn’t realize it was an act of resistance” in the shadow of all that history, he says. Three and a half acres are actively farmed, and 50 acres are covered by a Gitxsan food forest.

Today, food insecurity is exacerbated by climate change and biodiversity loss. It’s daunting to take on an issue as mammoth as food insecurity, and it’s hard for local projects to scale up. On top of that, Beaton’s priorities include having the initiative be Indigenous led, culturally safe and inclusive. He says Tea Creek needs core or multi-year funding to support its services. The program also addresses issues that continue to impact many of their trainees’ communities: food insecurity, addiction and higher rates of suicide, all of which are linked to discrimination. Tea Creek provides access to counsellors and therapists for trainees, and served more than 11,000 free meals in 2023. Indigenous families can also receive free seeds for their home gardens.

“We’re not just a farm,” he says. “We’re a restaurant that serves free meals. We’re a taxi service that picks people up. We’re a university that provides post-secondary education. We’re a healing centre.” 

At the end of day, the program’s goals come down to the personal level, helping each person who comes to the farm to bring back skills to their community. 

“It’s too overwhelming for us to go, ‘Yeah, let’s go and solve even just this region’s food problems,’ ” he says. “But what we can do is we can take you [on as a trainee]. … And you’re going to be able to build a team in your nation and you’re going to be able to get going on Indigenous food sovereignty.”

Practices to exclude First Nations from economy remain ‘embedded in institutions’

Tea Creek has other funding partners including the Real Estate Foundation of BC, United Way, the Vancouver Foundation and MakeWay. In March, the BC Assembly of First Nations passed an unanimous resolution calling on the province to provide Tea Creek with additional support. Tea Creek also received accreditation from SkillsTradeBC as a horticulture training centre in 2023, making it the first designated Indigenous provider in the province.

But Beaton is still waiting to see sustained support from the provincial and federal governments. 

“There’s no hand reaching out from the government side to say, ‘We want to partner, we want to be a part of this reconciliation,’ ” he says.

“My main complaint is that reconciliation is all talk, no action.”

First Nations still face barriers participating in farming and food production across the country, he says. According to Statistics Canada, there are 4,830 First Nations farmers nationwide, and 16,705 Indigenous farmers total. Beaton is willing to bet that most are “micro-scale.”

In the Tea Creek 2023 impact report, the top issues reported by visiting First Nations were “access to land, money and training.”

Beaton points out banks don’t like to loan on reserve since they can’t seize collateral, and says First Nations people can still face issues getting loans to buy land off-reserve.

“Often, policies that are embedded within institutions are a result of the old Indian Act and the old colonial policy and practice of disenfranchising First Nations people and keeping us out of the economy,” he says.

“We are not looking for any special treatment. We just want fair access to all that money that’s already there,” he says.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada told The Narwhal in a statement it is “working to improve access to funding and resources for Indigenous individuals and organizations” through initiatives like the Local Food Infrastructure Fund and the AgriDiversity program (which has supported Tea Creek) and through implementing the federal United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

“While we acknowledge there is still work to be done, [Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada] remains committed to ensuring that Indigenous communities have improved access to the tools and funding necessary to thrive in the agriculture sector.”

Becoming community leaders and ‘working on your voice’

Justice Moore, a Gitxsan and Tsimshian horticulture apprentice at Tea Creek, began as a trainee. He’s from Gitwangak Village, just a few minutes up the road. Learning to care for a seed and watch it grow “helped me take care of myself,” Moore says in the documentary as he digs his hands in the soil.

“Everything up here I’m trying to bring down to the village. I want to make people down there feel the way I feel up here — comfortable, safe, secure. Up here is a constant. You’re always appreciated, you’re always valued, you’re always respected,” he said.

“We don’t have a constant in most villages. Everyone’s dealing with their own past traumas … part of that is colonialism. A lot of that is losing our Elders, because residential school taught them to keep to themselves. Their knowledge didn’t get passed down as much as it should have been, and it impacted us a lot.”

“I go out of my way to try to communicate with everybody now,” he says, smiling. “I found out recently it doesn’t matter how educated you are, where you are from in the world, what minority you are, if you can communicate healthily with everybody, you’ll become a leader because you’re working on your voice.”

In a survey for Tea Creek’s annual impact report, 86 per cent of respondents said they felt an improvement to their mental health after participating. Many First Nations communities are still facing immense struggles due to the ongoing impacts of colonization, including residential schools.

As director Ryan Dickie was working to get the film off the ground in 2021, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc announced survey findings about unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. It was a raw and emotional moment, and the history of residential schools is closely connected with the work Tea Creek is doing, Dickie said. That year the filmmaker, who is of Dene and Kwakiutl descent and a member of Fort Nelson First Nation, saw many non-Indigenous people were still not aware of the full impacts of these institutions, and the trauma and disruption in cultural knowledge they caused. What reconciliation really means was top of mind when making the documentary.

“[Tea Creek] created essentially a healing center and a place where people feel safe, a place where people feel empowered because of the skills that they’re learning. And it really harkens us back to the way things used to be in our communities,” he says.

At community screenings, he says several viewers stood up and spoke about how their people need programs like this one. 

“Our people are dying, they need something to grasp onto, because we need them here. We need them to stay here.”

Dickie says he hopes Indigenous viewers feel a sense of empowerment looking at the history of food production among Indigenous people. He hopes people see the healing in people like Moore and see “what can be done when we’re given an opportunity, and what can be done when we’re given a safe space to really break free of all that trauma.”

Updated on Oct. 24, 2024, at 2:30 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to clarify the size of Tea Creek Farms, which is 140 acres. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated three acres, which refers to the area currently being farmed and not the total property.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Thirty-four years ago, Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel was thrust into the spotlight when she was chosen as the spokesperson for the Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) communities of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke, as they resisted the planned expansion of a golf course on into their sacred lands and burial grounds in southern Quebec and police and military attempted to subdue them by force. 

“You do not call it the Oka Crisis,” Gabriel tells me, of the village near the golf course that media and Canadians generally use to refer to the confrontation. “Oka caused the crisis. It was Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke that were under siege, and were attacked because of the municipality of Oka and the private corporations behind the project.”

In the decades since the 78-day standoff ended, Gabriel has remained a steadfast defender of Indigenous homelands and an advocate for Indigenous Rights and sovereignty, particularly the rights of women. She has spoken at the United Nations and addressed Parliament, and served for more than six years as president of the Quebec Native Women’s Association, drawing connections between the protection of Indigenous lands and the rights, dignity and future of Indigenous nations. 

In a new book, When the Pine Needles Fall, Gabriel and settler historian Sean Carleton chart a course from the events of 1990 to the present, while extending into a generous and expansive vision of the future. The book, which they began writing in 2019, evolved during the pandemic, taking shape as a series of conversations that articulate the urgency and necessity of Indigenous resistance. Centring Gabriel’s own words through dialogue, Carleton writes, was a way to “divest my power and authority as an academic to create space for Ellen’s brilliance … to hold space and amplify Ellen’s voice, while also co-creating through conversation.” 

In a conversation with The Narwhal, Gabriel discussed the intentions behind the book, what’s changed (and what hasn’t) since 1990, and her vision for the future.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In the book, you discuss the biased and incomplete media coverage during the 1990 crisis in Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke. How can media do a better job of covering acts of Indigenous resistance and Indigenous land rights?

Learn about Canada’s real genocidal history. That’s one of the frustrations that I had, and that many of my community members had about the media, is that sometimes they had no clue. You know, there was the assumption that we didn’t exist anymore, that everything was taken care of, everything was settled, right? Media just took that at face value. But armed resistance is not new to Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island. It was the way of the land when the colonizers came. 

So the approach by journalists was very naive and racist and ignorant, especially the French media. Overall [the media] is just a propaganda machine, as far as I’m concerned, for Canada and the provinces and the corporations. And we’re deemed to be the radical, ridiculous ones for defending our rights. So they didn’t see our rights as human beings, they didn’t see our rights to self-determination. 

All the commissions and reports that had gone out — from the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples — there are recommendations for everyone at every level to learn the truth about how Canada was formed. But we see today that this is still not the case. They’re still teaching history the way I learned it in the ’70s: that we’re savages, and all these stupid stereotypes. So I think the media has a responsibility to search for the truth, and to dig deeper.

There have been some very significant victories in the recognition of Indigenous Rights and title, like the legislative recognition of Haida title over Haida Gwaii. But we’re still seeing Indigenous land defenders met with militarized violence in nations like Wet’suwet’en, and the same kind of justifications for that state violence provided by the media. Do you think that things have changed, in terms of how Indigenous struggles for recognition of rights are understood by non-Indigenous people? 

I think we’ve come a little further in the public understanding. But in terms of sovereignty and what that means, or land back and what that means, it’s superficial. And government has not changed. They just repackaged colonization. We’re still at the same point in regards to our land rights, our rights to self-determination, as we were in 1990 — and as we were since Canada’s inception. 

I see that there are more opportunities for Indigenous artists, filmmakers, writers — but how do you change the curriculum in the schools that would teach future lawyers, judges, policemen? To be sensitized to the history of colonization that we’re aware of, that we know and feel on a daily basis? If I look at my community, and it’s lawless, there’s nothing that has changed. We’ve lost more land. I don’t see anything as far as where I’m from — I don’t see any improvement whatsoever. In fact, I see us going backward. The community that was directly affected [by the siege] is still reeling from that trauma.

There’s so much more work to be done in regards to education, in regards to respecting our human rights. There’s a lot of rhetoric about inherent rights, but I don’t hear any politician talking about respect, and that’s a vital part of reconciliation. That’s a vital part of reparations. 

If I respect you, I will respect your personal space. I’ll respect your right to have peace, to live in security. I won’t interfere in that right. I’m not going to push you around. That’s not what Canada does. Canada creates a police force that continues to brutalize our people and laws. There is no justice when we go to court. 

If there was respect for our human rights, we would be getting land back without having to pay for it. We would not have the provinces interfering in the education of our children and youth. And we would have the resources needed to restore all of our pre-contact institutions, and to restore the authority of women in our communities. There’s a long way to go. It’s nice to think that everything has changed, but it really hasn’t.

You write about how the understanding of the crisis focused on the Mohawk men who were at the forefront of the standoff, whose photos appeared in media, while women were marginalized — both in the immediate and long-term narrative. Can you talk about the role of women and how decolonization, as you say in the book, requires restoring that balance?

I heard something really interesting, which is that instead of using the word decolonizing, it’s “Indigenizing”. And I think that really goes to the point of what we’re talking about as Indigenous Peoples, in the restoration of those values and institutions that helped our people survive for centuries. 

I can only speak for Haudenosaunee women — I can’t speak for your nation or other nations — but we have title to land. The clans are passed on through women. The women choose the chiefs. The women had an equal role in the Constitution of Kaianere’kó:wa, the Great Law of Peace. 

That summer, the men looked to the women for decisions. And the women would be the ones who were leading, through the words that were being said, and the support given to the men who were defending the people. But you never really saw that in the media; the focus was on the men, not the women who were negotiating and trying to help people not lose their minds. 

You know, people forget it was two communities that were under siege, denied our basic human rights. [In Kanehsatà:ke, closer to the golf course,] we went without food, water, medicine, that kind of stuff. And in Kahnawá:ke, there were 40 women on Highway 207 blocking Canadian Army tanks from coming in to raid the Longhouse. So the women were out there physically as warriors, but we were not recognized as that. 

It was this whole patriarchal perspective, but actually the women were in charge. 

As I was reading, I was thinking about the connections between extractive resource economies and violence against Indigenous women — which is an epidemic everywhere, but is concentrated in these regions where there are resource-based industries. 

Indigenous women who have been working on this issue for a long time — in 2004, my good friend Beverly Jacobs and Amnesty International wrote Stolen Sisters — have talked about the root cause, which is colonization and the dehumanization of Indigenous women. For us, this is not a woman’s problem. This is a man’s problem. The majority of the violence is by men. And the man camps are no different than when the first explorers came to Turtle Island and wanted to have women for sex, right? We’re seen as a commodity. We’re not actually equal to them as human beings. 

I think the rape of the land is personified in the rape of the women, and the murdered and missing Indigenous women, because we are not valued. The Earth is a commodity only — they don’t respect the land. They dig. They create destruction and devastation, and prevent future generations from enjoying those lands. And one of the things that I think is important to connect is that if there is a healthy environment, then there are healthy people.

The babies inside the mother’s womb, the water that keeps them growing and floating, all those aspects for us as Haudenosaunee — all those things that the women are responsible for — have been attacked by colonial laws and policies. [Mohawk scholar] Dawn Martin-Hill [is working on] a map of the majority of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and they are all near man camps. It goes to the respect of women, which is a value that is not taught to the little boys and young men, and that’s where the change needs to come from. Along with Indigenizing Canada’s laws.

I’ve noticed commitments to Indigenous people being framed as “economic reconciliation,” the idea that prosperity and security will come from getting a cut of resource projects. In the book, you say many Indigenous leaders are challenged by the real urgency in many communities to meet basic needs. How do you think Indigenous nations can resist those short-term economic survival prospects in order to protect their homelands?

Well, colonial-rooted poverty will not be solved by more colonial solutions. On our traditional homelands — which extend far beyond the reserves that we’re allowed to live on — the government’s perspective is always “accommodating concerns” of Indigenous people, and talking about consultations rather than free, prior and informed consent. There are many court decisions that talk about the different levels of consultation. But free, prior and informed consent is much stronger, because you cannot be coerced into accepting, like: well, this will create jobs. That’s a form of coercion. What are the consequences of having this in our communities? 

I think often the band councils are making choices as politicians, and not as Indigenous Peoples — as if their role as an Indigenous person is secondary to their role as a leader in their community. So you have these rich corporations coming in and saying: ‘Oh, you’ll benefit from this.’ But what will it mean for picking our medicines — will that area be gone? What about the biodiversity? What about the long-term consequences? 

We are not creating sustainable economies. Service providers are the majority of our employers. I hear, ‘You’re against every kind of development.’ Well, I’m not against sustainable development. But if we’re looking at the climate crisis, the desertification, the floods that are erasing good agricultural soil … there has to be a better way to get out of this colonial root of poverty, where we’re not accepting these destructive forms of extraction. 

For traditional people — I’m not talking about all of the Mohawk Nation, I’m talking about traditional people — we think about the faces not yet born, and how our decisions today will impact the future, as our Elders did when we were those faces not yet born. We need to come up with a better approach if we’re going to be part of that solution for your children, your grandchildren. I think we’ve lost that. We’re just duplicating what Western society wants us to duplicate. 

What’s the way out of that?

Understanding your own culture. Having a strong sense of identity. And having discussions like, how are we going to get out of this? How are we going to survive? How are our teachings, our identities, our languages, our cultures going to survive? 

And we need to start using our minds for better purposes, other than trying to survive and doing whatever is the priority of the Canadian government to issue grants and financial arrangements.

Looking beyond our Indigenous nations, in the book, you and Sean discuss how important allies are for Indigenous resistance. What would you say to non-Indigenous people who want to be allies? 

Educate yourself. Don’t try to speak on our behalf. Support us. But more important, change the laws of Canada. Indigenize the laws to the First People’s values, those original values that helped us survive colonization. 

I have always believed that we should be assimilating the settlers and not the other way around. In small ways, we’re doing that, and getting them to understand who we are and our perspective.

But as human beings we’re flawed. We can be of the same nation but have different approaches, different beliefs. We’re not a monolithic culture, or a static one. And we have to have our rights respected, which includes our right to self-determination on our lands.

There need to be better discussions. There has to be stuff out there that they can use to Indigenize their institutions. Because reconciliation is not our job. Reconciliation is their job. They have to step up to the plate, and not be afraid to say, ‘You know, the Indian Act is pretty racist. Why are we still using it?’

Learning the genocidal history of Canada, but also looking at Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal: all those countries that came and killed our people. Then they’ll understand why we’re so angry sometimes.

One last question: what is your vision and hope for the future?

I go back to the constitution that I’m a part of [Kaianere’kó:wa]. The main mission of it is peace. And what does that mean? For me, I hope that the people on this beautiful little planet will wake up and see what really matters. Not just here on Turtle Island, but everywhere. I hope the Indigenous youth will start learning their languages and cultures. 

And I hope that we have time to heal. Every day, I see that in people who have been traumatized. You know, the six people who were killed in two weeks by the RCMP — some had mental health problems and probably some, if not all, had residual effects from the Indian residential school system. There’s a whole issue of feeling worthy, right? Our people need that, in order to have this future. But we don’t have time. Because what is coming will be worse than what we’ve seen. 

We need to help those who will survive, the faces not yet born. We need to do that today. To make that road a little bit easier for them. To push back against corporations, against corrupt politicians. We need to change our lives, to change how we consume. We need to learn how to love the Earth again. We need to respect her. 

I just hope that there will be peace — peace, love, compassion, respect. Those are some of the elements that our people believe in. I know it sounds like a really lofty dream, but it’s okay to dream.  That’s what people need to know: you don’t have to feel so alone, if you feel like something isn’t right in this big, capitalistic, colonial world we’re living in.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.