THE ORGANIC ISSUE
WRITING CONTRIBUTORS
EVANGELINE MICHELL, LILY DYKSTRA, KAYLA PRICE, ALEX BROZNITSKY
VISUAL CONTRIBUTORS
WANT TO ? E T U IB R T N CO
MESH DEVKOTA, APSARA COEFFICNEOU, LILY JONES, SCARLETT SIDE, TRICIA TANG, VIOLET OSBORNE, CAROLINE ZHANG, MIA ANTINORI, KYLA SEGUIBAN, RAE BECKETT, RYAN COOMBER, EUGENE LEE, EMILYN LAI
COVER ART
LETTERS 4 EL PUEBLO SALVA AL PUEBLO
OF
ARTS & CULTURE 14 MUSEAM OF
VANCOUVER CONFRONTS ITS COLONIAL PAST
NEWS 6 TREEHOUSE 8 THE RESTORATION
16 BACK TO BASICS 18 SYNTHETIC
10 NO MORE VP
COMMUNITY 20 HOW TO GROW
ORGANICITY
OF WHEY-AH-WICHEN
FINANCE?
11 DREDGING THE INLET
Email Laura Morales at EDITOR@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM
ARTISTS & PHOTOGRAPHERS
Email Andy Poystila at PRODUCTION@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM * ILLUSTRATORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE REQUIRED TO SUBMIT EXAMPLES OF THEIR WORK
ALEX BAIDANUTA
TABLE
WRITERS
A COMMUNITY: 3RD SPACES IN THE LOWER MAINLAND
23 LOCAL EVENTS & CULTURE CALENDAR
CONTENTS
27 LAND BACK SCHOOL AT WILD BIRD TRUST OF BC 29 FOOD
AFFORDABILITY CRISIS
31 ORGANIC LUXURY HUMOUR 32 THE CARBON
FEATURES 37 GROUNDSKEEPER
JO-ANN COOK: PLANTING SEEDS FOR A GREENER CAMPUS
39 “ORGANIC”
GROWTH IN VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS
42 BOBBI-LEE
COPELAND: TEACHING RESISANCE
PROBLEM
34 HUMOR COMIC 36 CORPORATIONS HATE THIS NEW MARKETING TACTIC
MEET THE CREW 46 WRITERS &
VISUALS / THE C.C. ZINE TEASER
24 CENTERFOLD POSTER: HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR RECONCILIATION?
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COMMUNITY
ignore Indigenous sovereignty of lands, and therefore ignore the needs of the lands itself.”
were accumulated into the report shared with the WBT upon completion.
As the WBT story shows us, Land Back can be the Where there’s an RA doing critical research, there’s first step towards repairing usually an instructor integrating the outcomes to an relationships and restoring unconventional course. natural spaces. If the 2025 Aguirre’s supervisor Dr. B.C. Supreme Court decision Fenn Stewart was not STEWART EXPLAINS HOW THE that recognized Aboriginal the exception. Along , BY INSTITUTION IS “ENRICHED title over privately held land with Arts & Sciences AND HELD ACCOUNTABLE TO, THE in Richmond didn’t have the faculty Brian Ganter, S IENCE EXPERTISE, LIVED EXPER same reparative effect, it’s they facilitated a section S NITIE COMMU OF ITIES PRIOR AND because of the fear-inducing of INTS 110—a first year BEEN LLY THAT HAVE TRADITIONA misinformation campaign Interdisciplinary Studies DARY SECON POSTFROM DED EXCLU that came afterwards. In other course called “Making EDUCATION.” words, the opposite of a Change: Regional Research Land Back School initiative. and Action.” The course Conservative platforms focused on work towards exploited the uncertainty brought by the historical ecosystem health and climate justice initiatives that centre Cowichan ruling, given that 95 per cent of land in this Indigenous sovereignty and governance. province was never legally handed over by First Nations. “I think universities ought to be something akin to a public WBT made the decision to move from acknowledging First library—an accessible hub of resources, research, art, Nations to being held accountable. “We don’t believe that inspiration and support,” responded Dr. Stewart, when we have to wait asked about the importance of or the Canadian state community-engaged learning. or overworked First Moreover, just as the university BUT LOSING EXCLUSIVITY TO THIS Nations to do Land directs resources into the POWER, IN ORDER TO RIGHT A Back,” stated community, Stewart explains HISTORICAL WRONG, IS NOT THE Oostindie, arguing how the institution is “enriched SAME AS SUFFERING OPPRESSION, that Land Back can by, and held accountable to, DESPITE WHAT THE PROPERTY-RIGHTS be done by our the expertise, lived experiences MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN WOULD own organizations. and priorities of communities HAVE US BELIEVE. Although today’s that have traditionally been settlers are not the excluded from post-secondary ones who committed education.” the colonial atrocities against Indigenous communities, they have continued to At the beginning of the course, students were introduced benefit from the systemic oppression and exclusion to the WBT’s work by Oostindie and Mauti. They then that followed. spent a day on-site, where they were greeted by a deer eating roses in the rain, as shared by Dr. Stewart. Students Transferring power can feel like a loss to those who were learned from Karen Thomas—səlilwətəɬ archaeologist used to holding it. But losing exclusivity to this power, and president of the WBT—about the Nation’s ancestors, in order to right a historical wrong, is not the same as histories and futures. They also learned from ethnobotanist suffering oppression, despite what the property-rights Senaqwila Wyss, who led them on a plant walk through misinformation campaign would have us believe. We are the Maplewood Flats forest. Lastly, students completed “losing” something we were never entitled to in the first some service work for the WBT’s native plant nursery, such place. We cannot separate ourselves from the harms of as repotting plants and trimming dead leaves. “It was the past while clinging to the privileges those harms important for the students to reciprocate in this way, giving produced for us at the expense of the land and the back to WBT through work and time,” shared Stewart, who people who have stewarded it since time immemorial. also confirmed that the organization was remunerated by the university for their time, space and expertise. Transferring governance through Land Back is a departure from performative nods toward reconciliation, and the At the end of the class, students completed a research project foundation for places like the Wild Bird Trust to thrive, around Land Back organizing, a priority for the WBT. The “where the local ways of knowing are honoured and shared outcome was a list of environmental-focused organizations in culturally appropriate ways,” as the WBT states on its across different areas of B.C., northern Canada, Alberta website. and the Pacific Northwest in the United States. Students also tried to assess whether these organizations were Indigenous-led, and to what extent they were committed to supporting Land Back initiatives. These evaluations
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