Category Archives: Indigenous Nations

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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Family, Indigenous Nations

Kwakwaka’wakw doulas reclaim birthing traditions

the Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A group of newly trained Indigenous doulas reclaim their future bringing back birthing traditions

The first birth Indigenous doula Roberta Williams attended also happened to be the first child born in Kwagu’ł territory in over 30 years. Williams, 23, is one of 17 Indigenous doulas trained last year, in what is a new wave of traditional birth knowledge and reclamation.

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Indigenous Nations, Politics

Rachel Blaney appointed NDP Deputy Critic for Crown-Indigenous Relations

Our local Member of Parliament, Rachel Blaney, was appointed the NDP Deputy Critic for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Indigenous Services. 

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Health, Indigenous Nations, Women

The necessity of reclaiming Indigenous birth practises

the Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Sage Thomas recalls the first birth she witnessed as a doula in training, using the traditional ways of her people. 

“When I walked into the room, they had some juniper burning on the stove and they had the lights low and it was just really quiet and calm,” she says.

This is what birth can look like, Thomas says, when it is supported with culture and traditional knowledge. Thomas speaks of the importance, and necessity of reclaiming Indigenous birth practices.

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Indigenous Nations History

Delving into the lives of her First Nations ancestors

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Archeologist Christine Roberts’ work takes her up densely forested mountainsides and down coastal beaches as she delves into the lives of her First Nations ancestors.

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