Category Archives: Indigenous Nations

Education, Indigenous Nations

Land-based learning: These schools spotlight culturally immersive education

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Pen? Check. Paper? Check. Fishing rod, canoe paddle, and weaving wool? Check, check, check. For the students of land-based learning schools, education facilities that bring culture to the classroom, school supplies extend beyond the classic pencil case, binders and backpack.

Run by educators who believe schools should nurture the innate needs and wants of young people, rather than put them into a cookie cutter student mould, you would be hard pressed to find a youth hunched over their desk, scribbling notes monotonously from a whiteboard.

“Kids need to move. If they move, they are learning,” says Tanya O’Neill, principal of siʔáḿθɘt, a K-12 Tsleil-Waututh Nation school in North Vancouver.

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Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

52,000 Chum eggs come to Cortes Island

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The Klahoose water taxi brought 52,000 Chum eggs to Squirrel Cove yesterday. ‘Goat 1’ tied up at the Klahoose dock around 11 AM. 

“The eggs come from Tla’amin Fish Hatchery in Powell River. I think the amount is probably based on what they get on returns, because they have their own creeks and rivers where they get their Chum eggs,” explained Klahoose Fisheries Officer Byron Harry.

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Indigenous Nations

New federal funding buoys First Nations’ efforts to protect Great Bear Sea

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Coastal First Nations striving to protect to B.C.’s Great Bear Sea got a boost after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced $800 million in funding for Indigenous-led conservation projects.

Spread over seven years, the funding will support projects in B.C., Ontario, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories and is expected to protect a total of one million square kilometres, said Trudeau. The prime minister made the announcement at the global United Nations biodiversity conference, known as COP15, underway in Montreal. 

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Environment, Indigenous Nations

Can Canada juggle biodiversity, conservation, resource projects and Indigenous land rights?

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s opening speech at COP15 was interrupted by a group of Indigenous protesters playing drums and singing “Canada is on native land” and “climate leaders don’t build pipelines.”

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Indigenous Nations History

Ni’isjoohl memorial pole is coming home

Windspeaker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Nisga’a Nation, and especially the house of Ni’isjoohl, is celebrating a Dec. 1st announcement from the National Museum of Scotland. It will return a memorial pole that was stolen from Nisga’a territory and later acquired by the museum.

“In Nisga’a culture, we believe that this pole is alive with the spirit of our ancestor,” said Sim’oogit Ni’ijoohl, Chief Earl Stephens.

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