Why Mountains Matter
Bringing Indigenous Knowledge and Science Together for International Mountain Day
The Reconciling Ways of Knowing: Indigenous Knowledge and Science Forum (RWoK) was pleased to partner with the Canadian Mountain Network (CMN) in hosting “Why Mountains Matter: Bringing Indigenous Knowledge and Science Together for International Mountain Day,” a set of dialogues on the need for a multi-evidence approach to sustaining biological and cultural diversity, in the spirit of this year’s focus for International Mountain Day on biodiversity.
This Dialogue on originally aired on Friday, December 11.
Please note that broadband connectivity varies for some of our speakers in this video, reflective of different broadband connectivity levels that are available in rural and remote communities across the country. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants were welcomed to the program by Miles Richardson O.C. (RWoK Co-chair, Haida Nation) and Norma Kassi (CMN Co-Research Director, Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation) and moderator Lisa Charleyboy facilitated the panel discussions.
The first panel, “Assessing our Understandings of Mountains”, brought together Indigenous knowledge keepers Elder Ira Provost (Piikani First Nation) and Kathryn Teneese (Ktunaxa Nation) with climate change and adaptation researcher Dr. Graham McDowell. They discussed approaches to assessing and caring for the biological and cultural diversity of mountain regions, including the approaches that will be used in the Canadian Mountain Assessment.
The second panel, “Drawing on Two-Eyed Seeing to Sustain the Biocultural Diversity of Our Mountain Regions,” brought together Indigenous knowledge keepers Norma Kassi (Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation) and Eli Enns (Nuu-chah-nulth Nation) with geography and community planning professor Dr. Pamela Shaw. They discussed how understandings of Ethical Space and Two-Eyed Seeing, contextualized through their own experiences, are critical to meeting our international commitments to sustain biological and cultural diversity.
Each panel included a 15-minute Participant-Engagement section, in which moderator Lisa Charleyboy fielded questions from audience-participants to the panellists.
Norma Kassi, Canadian Mountain Network Convenor
Norma was raised and educated in Old Crow, the most northerly community in the Yukon. She is a citizen of the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation (People of the Lakes) and a member of the Wolf Clan. She gained her depth of traditional, scientific and ecological knowledge in Old Crow flats where her grandfather, mother and the land were the bearers of this invaluable, ancient knowledge, which was passed on to Norma at a very young age. Encouraged by her Elders, Norma entered politics shortly after leaving school. In 1985, Norma was elected into Yukon’s Legislative Assembly as Member for Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation, a position she held until 1992. During this time, Norma was selected by the Elders of the Gwich’in Nation to act as a spokesperson on behalf of the Gwich’in people for the preservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. From 1995 to 1998 Norma was the Environmental Manager for the Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN). In this capacity, she headed the CYFN Northern Contaminants Program and was Chair of Centre for Indigenous People Nutrition and Environment – CINE at McGill University. In 2007, Norma co-founded the Arctic Institute of Community-Based Research and served as Director of Indigenous Collaboration to May 2019, to promote community-based northern-led research aimed at improving the lives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of the north and promoting the health of their environments. In addition to her role as CMN co-Research Director, Norma is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Science at McGill University in Montreal, where she has co-led community-based research and training initiatives focussed on climate change adaptation. She also serves as Senior Advisor to the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which advocates for Indigenous-led land use planning, Guardians programs, and the creation of Indigenous Protected Areas.
Miles Richardson, Reconciling Ways of Knowing Convenor
Miles G. Richardson, O.C., is a citizen of the Haida Nation and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Early in his career, while serving as Administrator for the Skidegate Band Council, he directed the establishment of the Haida Gwaii Watchmen program. Then, while serving as the youngest President of the Council of the Haida Nation (1984-1996), he led the drafting of the Constitution of the Haida Nation; development of the first comprehensive Haida Nation land and marine use plan, enacted under Haida law; and negotiation of the Gwaii Haanas Agreement, the first Nation-to-Nation agreement between the Haida Nation and Canada, which protected the Gwaii Haanas area of his people’s homeland, Haida Gwaii. He was a member of the BC Claims Task Force recommending negotiations to build a new relationship. He served as a delegate of the First Nations Summit Task Group (1991-1993) and was subsequently nominated by the Summit and appointed as a Commissioner to the BC Treaty Commission for two terms. He served as Chief Commissioner of the BC Treaty Commission (1998-2004). Mr. Richardson serves and has served on the boards of directors or advisory boards of several influential Indigenous organizations and non-governmental organizations, including the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, David Suzuki Foundation, New Relationship Trust, HaiCo, Gwaii Trust, Bill Reid Foundation, Institute on Governance, and BC Indigenous Clean Energy Initiative, amongst others. He currently serves as Director of the National Consortium on Indigenous Economic Development, a joint initiative of the Gustavson School of Business and Faculty of Law, at the University of Victoria.
Lisa Charleyboy, Moderator
Lisa Charleyboy is Tsilhqot’in from Tsi Del Del First Nation in the interior of BC, and is now living in the unceded traditional territory of the Secwépemc people near Shuswap, British Columbia. She is a writer, editor, storyteller, and television and radio host who found her calling through her blog ‘Urban Native Girl.’ While in Toronto attending university, she gained cultural connections, which led her passion to focus on Indigenous youth in urban environments. Lisa is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Urban Native Magazine, co-creator and host of Urban Native Girl TV, and co-editor of Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices. She has been called an “Aboriginal storyteller for the digital generation” by the National Post. Lisa has also received an EMBA in Aboriginal Business & Leadership program from Simon Fraser University.
Ira Provost, Panelist: Assessing Mountain Ecosystems
Ira Provost is from the Piikani Nation, a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy, in Southern Alberta. He is the Manager of Piikani Nation Consultation representing the Piikani Nation in External Government Relations as intermediary between external proponents (industry & government) and the Nation to facilitate and conduct relationship in Piikani ancestral land development. Ira has a Master’s Degree in Indigenous Studies with a focus on the impact and examination of consultation and Indigenous knowledge application in land and land use planning as these relate to the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Ira has also developed innovative technologies for his nation in Traditional Knowledge data capture and meaningful implementation into business development. Ira is also an educator, multi-talented musician, performer and songwriter working and contributing to many educational initiatives in the past few decades. Ira’s music reflects his profession as an educator and scholar of Native American (Indigenous) awareness and understanding. His songs tell stories of gaining strength from culture and heritage by restoring identity in Indigenous people of all ages, everywhere.
Kathryn Teneese, Panelist: Assessing Mountain Ecosystems
Kathryn is the Ktunaxa Nation Chair as well as Chief Negotiator for the ongoing treaty negotiations with Canada and British Columbia. Ms. Teneese's active participation in public service began in the late 1960's at the Columbia Lake Band (now known as the Akisq'nuk First Nation) as a Band Councillor and Band Manager, and then later as the Area Coordinator for the organization now known as the Ktunaxa Nation Council. She was also employed in the area of Adult Education at EKCC, now the College of the Rockies. From 1981 to 1998 Ms. Teneese lived away from the area to pursue employment at a senior level with a number of provincial Aboriginal organizations based in Vancouver. She returned to the Ktunaxa ʔamakʔis (territory) in August 1998. Ms. Teneese’ s recent public service includes being a member of the First Nations Summit Task Group, serving as the Chair of the New Relationship Trust and most recently, as a member of the British Columbia Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council. Ms. Teneese currently resides in ʔa·kisk’aqǂiʔit (Cranbrook), BC.
Dr. Graham McDowell, Panelist: Assessing Mountain Ecosystems
Graham has studied lived experiences of climate change in high mountain regions, with a focus on vulnerability and adaptation to changes in glacial hydrology. He has led community-level projects in the Nepal Himalaya, Peruvian Andes, Rocky Mountains, Greenland, and Baffin Island as well as numerous global-scale evaluations of climate change vulnerability and adaptation in cold regions. Graham is also active in publishing and presenting his scholarly contributions and is committed to the mobilization of scientific knowledge, including through his work as a Contributing Author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is currently the Project Leader for the Canadian Mountain Assessment, as well as a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the University of Zurich and holds degrees from the University of British Columbia (PhD), the University of Oxford (MSc), and McGill University (BA Hons).
Eli Enns, Panelist: Assessing Mountain Ecosystems
Eli is a Nuu-chah-nulth Canadian political scientist who has focused in Constitutional Law, International Dispute Resolution and Ecological Governance. Co-founder of the Ha’uukmin Tribal Park in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Eli is the great grandson of Nah-wah-sum - public speaker and historian for Wickaninnish, Tyee Ha’wiih of Tla-o qui-aht. A proud father of five, Eli holds himself accountable to Future Ancestors and invests his time in several related capacities: Committee Member - Canadian Commission for UNESCO Man and the Biosphere National Committee; Director - Plenty Canada; Business Development Liaison - Ecotrust Canada; and as the North American Regional Coordinator for the Indigenous Peoples' and Community Conserved Territories and Areas Consortium (ICCAs).
Through the natural education (Ha’huupa) provided by his elders, Eli has gained an appreciation for the profound simplicity of Hishuk-ish Tsawaak (everything is one and interconnected) - applying this perspective in his life and work through the pursuit of common ground, alternative pathways to economic certainty, environmental stewardship and assertion of Aboriginal Rights and Title. Building on experience in a variety of community development areas at the Tyhistanis Equilibrium Community Development site in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and at Opitsaht in the Meares Island Tribal Park, Eli has developed an Indigenous Watershed Management Area Program which aims to compliment an Ecological Governance approach with a well thought out Ecological Economics component.
Dr. Pamela Shaw, Panelist: Assessing Mountain Ecosystems
Pamela Shaw PhD MCIP RPP FRCGS is a 2018 3M Teaching Fellow, Geography Professor, Director of the Master of Community Planning Program, Research Director of the UNESCO Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Research Institute (MABRRI), Senior Editor of the International Journal of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, Senior Editor of VIU Press, and a Fellow with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She is also an elected member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Institute of Planning and Vice President of the Canadian Biosphere Reserve Association. Pam has won multiple awards for teaching and is known for creatively engaging students in applied, community-based research. Many projects have developed in partnership with First Nations on Vancouver Island, with the research questions shaped by the Nation to address practical issues. Pam’s current research focuses on the human/nature relationship in biosphere regions, as these regions are intended to serve as model sites for how people can coexist with nature.
Dr. Murray Humphries, Panelist: Assessing Mountain Ecosystems
Murray Humphries is a Canadian wildlife ecologist based at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, whose research has successfully linked fundamental ecological research to the priorities and engagement of Indigenous communities in northern regions. Murray was born and raised in Brandon, Manitoba, has degrees from University of Manitoba (BSc, hons), University of Alberta (MSc) and McGill University (PhD), and was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Aberdeen, Scotland before returning to McGill to commence a faculty appointment in 2003. He is currently an Associate Professor of Wildlife Biology in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University.
Murray’s career teaching contributions at McGill combine his love of teaching, passion for wildlife, and respect for people and livelihoods that depend on natural resources. Murray teaches under-graduate classes in organismal biology, natural history, and wildlife management. Most recently his teaching has expanded to a new Indigenous success pathway program, developed in partnership with Cree organization based in northern Quebec, to provide professional development training in fish and wildlife sciences for community officers.
Murray’s research focuses on environmental determinants of wildlife physiology, behaviour, and trophic interactions, as well as the contributions of wildlife conservation to the traditional food systems of Indigenous Peoples. This focus has led him to studies of the evolution of participatory methodologies in the natural sciences, the nature of community-university research partnerships, and documentation of the food knowledge and wildlife stewardship of northern Indigenous Peoples. As a scientist and researcher, Murray extends beyond academia by engaging Indigenous, government, and non-government organizations, in partnered research and graduate training that includes the knowledge and addresses the priorities of local people.
The Reconciling Ways of Knowing: Indigenous Knowledge and Science project is grateful to The Canadian Mountain Network for the opportunity to bring our initiatives together in this event.