#canada indigenous

[reasonsforhope]

"In a historic “first-of-its-kind” agreement the government of British Colombia has acknowledged the aboriginal ownership of 200 islands off the west coast of Canada.

The owners are the Haida nation, and rather than the Canadian government giving something to a First Nation, the agreement admits that the “Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai” or the “islands at the end of world,” always belonged to them, a subtle yet powerful difference in the wording of First Nations negotiating.

BC Premier David Eby called the treaty “long overdue” and once signed, will clear the way for half a million hectares (1.3 million acres) of land to be managed by the Haida.

Postal service, shipping lanes, school and community services, private property rights, and local government jurisdiction, will all be unaffected by the agreement, which will essentially outline that the Haida decide what to do with the 200 or so islands and islets.

“We could be facing each other in a courtroom, we could have been fighting each other for years and years, but we chose a different path,” said Minister of Indigenous Relations of BC, Murray Rankin at the signing ceremony, who added that it took creativity and courage to “create a better world for our children.”

Indeed, making the agreement outside the courts of the formal treaty process reflects a vastly different way of negotiating than has been the norm for Canada.

“This agreement won’t only raise all boats here on Haida Gwaii – increase opportunity and prosperity for the Haida people and for the whole community and for the whole province – but it will also be an example and another way for nations – not just in British Columbia, but right across Canada – to have their title recognized,” said Eby.

In other words, by deciding this outside court, Eby and the province of BC hope to set a new standard for how such land title agreements are struck."

-via Good News Network, April 18, 2024

[biophonies]

when I drew this comic 3 years ago I had NO idea how far it would reach. I'm happy to finally share a corrected version with proper abbreviations, and even MORE state names of indigenous origin ♥️

however, the goal of this comic was to inspire people to do your OWN research on indigenous history. To question everything we have been taught, and everything that has been pointedly left out. This erasure, this “forgetting”, of history is not just of the past… it is happening now. - Across so-called Canada, the US, and US-occupied islands, native women are victims of murder at 10-12x the rate of non-native people, and are the most likely to go missing without being searched for by the law. - Native reservations have the highest rates of poverty in the US, with over HALF of tribal homes with no access to clean water (with more joining this list by the year) - Native people are 6-10x more likely to be unhoused than the rest of the population, and native teens suffer suicide rates higher than any other demographic. This list of modern day genocide goes on (thank you for compiling @theindigenousanarchist <3) and yet take a look at those environmental stats!

Native people manage to do SO much for the planet as a whole - thanklessly - and with all this stacked against them. Don't even get me started on kin fighting in south america. Could you imagine if there was help? #landback is resistance to genocide, and it is the key to saving our warming earth.

So look into it and the other hashtags, cuz a cartoon goose ain't a substitute for a proper education. Love to my grandparents who always kept a map of tribal territories of turtle island on their wall, to speaking on our Tsalagi & Saponi heritage. Love & solidarity forever, happy research, and happy #indigenouspeoplesday

LANDBACK.ORG

(Also, if you care to support the artist, I'm publishing a book ! and writing another - a fantastical afroindigenous graphic novel - that I post exclusively about with tons of other art on my patreon.)

[givemearmstopraywith]

funds for indigenous communities affected by the canada wildefires *updated*

grassy narrows first nations (ontario) needs funds for an escape route

odawa first nations (quebec-ontario) is raising funds for evacuees

algonquins of barriere (mitchikanibikok inik in alberta) lake mutual aid request 

you can drop donations for the odawa first nations at 815 st laurent blvd in ottawa

you can drop off food donations for mitchikanibikok inik at the ramada plaza in gatineau; you can also email info/@/health.rapidlake.com with mutual aid donations. please note that the maniwaki native friendship center is now closed to donations

if you’re directly affected, the pueblo action alliance has developed a guide for DIY filtration for the smoke

updates (as of 6 june 2023):

donate funds for evacuees from little red river cree nation (via kahkakow)

k'atl'odeeche first nations needs funds to rebuild homes and businesses lost (via aelabee)

i’ll update this as i find more fundraising initiatives and please free to share your own. reblogs with anything than sharing resources/mutual aid requests/fundraising opportunities get blocked. 

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Indigenous peoples continue to struggle to access complete and timely records about Indian Residential Schools, according to a new report by the Senate standing committee on Indigenous Peoples. The report, Missing Records, Missing Children, was released Thursday and includes 11 recommendations to improve access to residential school records, including for the Canadian government to compel Catholic entities to release documents to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. "It's extremely important for the support of the survivors and the family members to bring closure because everyone is aging on," said Sen. Brian Francis, who is Mi'kmaw from Lennox Island First Nation and is chair of the committee. "The sooner we can get answers the better."

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[artschoolglasses]

Americans not giving a shit about the wildfires burning down forests and homes in Canada until smoke starts spreading across the border. Meanwhile Indigenous communities across the country are far more likely to be impacted by the fires and I’ve seen all of one link to a charity and about nine million memes. 🙃

[wachinyeya]

CA Redwoods to Be First National Park Co-Managed with a Native American Tribe That Used to Own it https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ca-redwoods-to-be-the-first-national-park-co-managed-with-a-native-american-tribe-that-used-to-own-it/

questionable headline aside this is good news

The Yurok will be the first Tribal nation to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed on Tuesday by the tribe, Redwood national and state parks, and the non-profit Save the Redwoods League, according to news reports.

The Yurok tribe has seen a wave of successes in recent years, successfully campaigning for the removal of a series of dams on the Klamath River, where salmon once ran up to their territory, and with the signing of a new memorandum of understanding, the Yurok are set to reclaim more of what was theirs.

[admiralexclipse]

A Statistics Canada study in 2023 has found that Indigenous women in Canada are killed at a rate 6x higher than non-Indigenous women, and yet police charged 1st degree murder half as often, typically recommending manslaughter or 2nd degree.

Non-exhaustive estimates have suggested that over 4,000 indigenous women and girls (along with 600 men and boys) in Canada have gone missing between 1956 and 2016.

Further reading under the Read More:

[leftistfeminista]

"The Anicinabe Park Occupation" began in mid-July 1974.. and lasted until late August, approximately, 39 days. For a month, armed Ojibway militants (mostly youth) occupied a 14‐acre park in the resort town of Kenora, in northwestern Ontario, to call attention to long‐standing grievances against the white authorities. The embattled Ojibway in Kenora Park, led by 24‐year‐old Louis Cameron, the head of the militant Ojibway Warriors Society, marked the new phase of their campaign, by "destroying a collection of fire-bombs, in a clearing. They then placed eight rifles and handguns, on a blanket and turned them over to Mayor James Davidson of Kenora, at the barricaded entrance to the park. In return, the 80 young Indigenous people were given a city permit, to spend 10 days more in the park. The Ojibway People say, that the park is Indigenous land, that was sold "illegally" to the city of Kenora, by the Department of Indian Affairs, in 1959. They also demanded social reforms for some 7,000 Indians, most of them impoverished, in Kenora and in nearby reserves.

[folklorespring]

Love this story of cultural exchange between Cree people and Ukrainians 💛

[ravensvalley]

#TheRavenKeeper

I'm still very busy but I always have the time between 2 trails for a quick stop to say hi.

So Hi Folks! And hope you all having a good day so far.

[telekitnetic-art]

Wanna purchase some beadwork? Live in Canada but have conflicting feelings about it's history and want to support the Indigenous people that live here? Do you just feel fed up with Canada Day nonsense?

Here are some beadwork artists in MY neighborhood that you should check out!

C'eldzïn Beadwork! I've bought her work before (the bisexual earrings) and she was kind enough to change said earrings to clip-ons for me! Her work is gorgeous and I highly recommend it!

Small Town Earrings!! They have very cute beadwork pieces, including some Pokemon and LOZ themed ones!!! I highly recommend their work as well!

Strong Blood Creations!! They're a trio of Indigenous women that create and distribute beadwork; I bought a hair clip from them recently that was absolutely gorgeous!!

Carmen Redunante! She's a Nisga'a/Chilean artist who sells absolutely gorgeous beadwork as well as other jewelry, prints, and and tapestry!!

More artists may be added later!!

This post was brought to you by: an almost exact same thread I did on twitter that I posted right as the entire site imploded so I decided to share the artists here so that they'd actually get traction! Twitter sucks

[reasonsforhope]

For years, the people of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation watched over their waters and waited. They had spent nearly two decades working with Canada’s federal government to negotiate protections for Kitasu Bay, an area off the coast of British Columbia that was vulnerable to overfishing.

But the discussions never seemed to go anywhere. First, they broke down over pushback from the fishing industry, then over a planned oil tanker route directly through Kitasoo/Xai’xais waters.

“We were getting really frustrated with the federal government. They kept jumping onboard and then pulling out,” says Douglas Neasloss, the chief councillor and resource stewardship director of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation. “Meanwhile, we’d been involved in marine planning for 20 years – and we still had no protected areas.”

Instead, the nation watched as commercial overfishing decimated the fish populations its people had relied on for thousands of years.

Nestled on the west coast of Swindle Island, approximately 500km north of Vancouver, Kitasu Bay is home to a rich array of marine life: urchins and abalone populate the intertidal pools, salmon swim in the streams and halibut take shelter in the deep waters. In March, herring return to spawn in the eelgrass meadows and kelp forests, nourishing humpback whales, eagles, wolves and bears.

“Kitasu Bay is the most important area for the community – that’s where we get all of our food,” Neasloss says. “It’s one of the last areas where you still get a decent spawn of herring.”

So in December 2021, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans withdrew from discussions once again, the nation decided to act. “My community basically said, ‘We’re tired of waiting. Let’s take it upon ourselves to do something about it,’” Neasloss says.

What they did was unilaterally declare the creation of a new marine protected area (MPA). In June 2022, the nation set aside 33.5 sq km near Laredo Sound as the new Gitdisdzu Lugyeks (Kitasu Bay) MPA – closing the waters of the bay to commercial and sport fishing.

It is a largely unprecedented move. While other marine protected areas in Canada fall under the protection of the federal government through the Oceans Act, Kitasu Bay is the first to be declared under Indigenous law, under the jurisdiction and authority of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation.

Pictured: "In some ways, I hope someone challenges us" … the Kitasoo/Xai’xais stewardship authority.

Although they did not wait for government approval, the Kitasoo did consult extensively: the declaration was accompanied by a draft management plan, finalised in October after three months of consultation with industry and community stakeholders. But the government did not provide feedback during that period, according to Neasloss, beyond an acknowledgment that it had received the plan...

Approximately 95% of British Columbia is unceded: most First Nations in the province of British Columbia never signed treaties giving up ownership of their lands and waters to the crown. This puts them in a unique position to assert their rights and title, according to Neasloss, who hopes other First Nations will be inspired to take a similarly proactive approach to conservation...

Collaboration remains the goal, and Neasloss points to a landmark agreement between the Haida nation and the government in 1988 to partner in conserving the Gwaii Haanas archipelago, despite both parties asserting their sovereignty over it. A similar deal was made in 2010 for the region’s 3,400 sq km Gwaii Haanas national marine conservation area.

“They found a way to work together, which is pretty exciting,” says Neasloss. “And I think there may be more Indigenous protected areas that are overlaid with something else.”

-via The Guardian, 5/3/23

[mapsontheweb]

Indigenous people in Canada

by geoglobal_

[allthecanadianpolitics]

One of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in this country is now available through Google's translation service, the first time the tech giant has included a First Nations, Métis or Inuit language spoken in Canada on its platform. Inuktut, a broad term encompassing different dialects spoken by Inuit in Canada, Greenland and Alaska, has been added to Google Translate, which translates text, documents and websites from one language into another. The latest addition is part of a Google initiative to develop a single artificial intelligence language model to support 1,000 of the most-spoken languages in the world.  There are roughly 40,000 Inuktut speakers in Canada, data from Statistics Canada suggests.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[lovelyanjo]

I been hesitant about posting this selfie the past few days, I just be overthinking it at this point. 🙂‍↕️

[wachinyeya]

For thousands of years, Kettle Falls was a vital salmon fishing ground for the Sinixt, but early 20th-century dam construction blocked salmon migration.

Wrongfully declared extinct in Canada in 1956, the Sinixt fought for recognition and were officially acknowledged as Aboriginal Peoples of Canada in 2021.

In 2023, the U.S. government signed a $200 million agreement with a coalition of tribes, including the Sinixt, to fund an Indigenous-led salmon reintroduction program into the Columbia River system above dams in Washington.

Sinixt leaders say this project is an important effort to help right a historical wrong in the legacy that led to their “extinction” status, while many hope to one day join salmon efforts on their traditional territory in Canada.