Leading on-the-land Science Camps with Indigenous Youth: Towards Reciprocity in Research

Perspectives

Leading on-the-land Science Camps with Indigenous Youth:

Towards Reciprocity in Research by Andrea J. Reid, John-Francis Lane, Stephanie Woodworth, Andrew Spring, Renee Garner & Kristen Tanche

O

n a chilly day in mid-March 2019 in Ottawa, Canada, we attended the ‘Ottawa-Carleton Student Northern Research Symposium’ and sat in on a session entitled “Indigenous Knowledge and Community-based Research”. We knew the topic would appeal to us, but we did not expect to find a coupled research and outreach program in Willow Lake, Northwest Territories (NWT), which mirrored our own in Northern British Columbia (BC) despite the 1,200 kilometers distance between them.

“We” refers here to one Indigenous graduate student in fisheries biology at Carleton University (Andrea Reid of the Nisga’a First Nation; lead author) and Parks Canada Heritage Interpreter and Carleton graduate student in conservation science (John-Francis Lane; co-author). Since 2016, we have been co-leading Nisga’a Youth EcoScience Camps in the Nass River Valley, on BC’s North Coast and home of the Nisga’a Nation. These camps share Andrea’s PhD research on Pacific salmon migrations with youth in her nation, to get them excited and prepared to learn science in Nisga’a Territory. These camps are a chance for Andrea to give back to her community who supports her studies and are partners in her research, and for Andrea and John-Francis to do something they love – get youth curious about

 Nisga’a youth from the Village of Gingolx, BC, searching for plant and animal forms and functions across ecosystem types as part of a “biodiversity bingo”. Credit: Andrew Stewart.

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