Tag Archives: Heiltsuk First Nation

Food Security, Indigenous Nations

First Nations reawaken ancestral agricultural practises

By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As a kid, Delbert Good remembers that he would come home from a day of picking potatoes to find a meal made from the fruits of his family’s garden.

“While I was growing up, we were pretty self-sufficient,” said Good, economic development officer for the Gitanyow Band and a lifelong resident of Gitanyow, a community northeast of Terrace, in northern B.C.

“We had garden plots everywhere. Our family stuck to growing potatoes — we had about 100 rows of potatoes every year — but everybody shared in the community and everybody had their own strengths when it came to growing vegetables.”

Not anymore. In the past hundred years, a suite of colonial policies suppressed traditions that were essential to many Indigenous people’s access to food, including agricultural ones that were practised for generations. For Good, reawakening them could help pave a better-fed future for his community.

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Health, Indigenous Nations

First Nations grapple with COVID-19

the Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As of July 31, the percentage of First Nations individuals living on reserve reported positive for COVID-19 was one-quarter of the rate of the general Canadian population, according to Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). “The work that communities have done, to ensure the safety of their citizens, of their Elders and of their communities generally has been phenomenal,” says Dr. Shannon McDonald, who is the Chief Medical Officer at the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA). McDonald is Metis and Anishinabe, and introduces herself as a guest on Tsawout territory. But as COVID-19 cases continue to increase across B.C., several First Nations have also announced increasing numbers of positive COVID-19 cases.

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Tourism, Waste

Small ship operator’s beach clean-up

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“If we can go out and clean up – helping another set of communities like the Heiltsuk, Kitasoo Xai’xais and Gitga’at – we can certainly start cleaning up our community. That’s what I’d really like to see coming out of this,” said Jonas Fineman. 

He was one of nine eco-tour captains who had just returned from a beach clean up along BC’s central coast. 

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Health

COVID 19 rates of Indigenous peoples living on reserve is one quarter of the general populations

the Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

First Nations individuals living on reserve had COVID-19 rates that were one quarter of the rate of the general population — what can be learned from this?

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Finances, Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

fish that rarely feeds British Columbians – they are exported

By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

James Lawson catches fish. Fish that rarely feeds the B.C. coast. 

He’s not alone: Roughly 85 per cent of seafood caught in the province is exported, yet B.C. fish harvesters can’t get their catch to local markets — and the provincial government is doing little to change that in its plans to increase food security post-pandemic.

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