#kitsumkalum

[allthecanadianpolitics]

There was an unmistakable air of celebration in Terrace last month as representatives descended on the small northern city to mark two historic treaties with First Nations. At back-to-back events on June 24 and 25, leaders with Kitselas and Kitsumkalum First Nations took turns at the microphone with federal and provincial politicians to talk about their new treaties. They recognized the decades-long path to the historic agreements, the difficulties in getting there and the benefits expected from the first modern treaties in B.C. in a decade. “I am hopeful that today’s occasion will mark a turning point for our people and be a positive note for our own history,” Kitselas First Nation Chief Coun. Glenn Bennett told those gathered June 24 at Kitselas Canyon, a national historic site with cultural significance going back more than 6,000 years. “This is one more step forward, away from the repressive, outdated Indian Act and its representatives.”

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[bestsnowskiing]

Kitsumkalum - The Lost Resorts, Episode 13

[fatehbaz]

Imagine traveling back hundreds of years and finding your way up a salmon-spawning river in British Columbia to a small village. You walk into the trees and find yourself in a patch of forest dramatically different from the conifer growth around it. Small fruit and nut trees form the canopy, and there are clusters of berry bushes and cleared paths. The forest floor hosts tended herbs used for food and medicine. One child carefully peels moss from the bark of a pruned crab apple tree; another clears the ground next to a salmonberry bush.

Welcome to a temperate forest garden.

A new study shows that once-managed gardens like this are still distinct from -- and more biodiverse than -- the surrounding forest, even 150 years after Indigenous people were displaced by colonial settlers and the gardens abandoned. More diverse ecosystems are generally thought to be more resilient to environmental change and resistant to the incursion of alien species.

Chelsey Armstrong, a paleoecologist and paleobotanist at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia, studied four sites: Dałk Gyilakyaw and Kitselas Canyon, both in Ts’msyen traditional territory in northwestern British Columbia, as well as Shxwpópélem and Say-mah-mit, both of the Coast Salish people of southwestern British Columbia. Each site hosted several villages that were occupied for thousands of years, up until the late 1800s. [...]

The garden plants they studied also had seeds that were about twice as large on average -- a trait typically associated with plants that bear larger fruits, which hints that people were purposely selecting for higher production.

The gardens contained 10 culturally significant species not normally found together, two of which fall completely outside their natural geographic range and were likely transplanted.

“Crab apple is a coastal species that likes its feet wet in the intertidal, and we’re finding it far inland in these sites, so people were moving them, in some cases, big distances,” says Armstrong.

“Hazelnut is doing the opposite, coming from the east and being moved toward the coast,” she adds. “We know that hazelnut doesn’t grow anywhere else in the area except for these village sites.”

Both species have enormous cultural importance to the Ts’msyen and Coast Salish people. Hazelnut packs a lot of calories into an easily picked nut that can be stored for up to five years. Crab apples, known locally as moolks, feature in origin stories of the areas, and were a high-status food stored over the winter months to supplement a fish-heavy diet.

“It’s amazing to think that the decisions that were made 150 years ago around stewardship and management persist today,” says Andrew Trant, an ecologist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who was not involved with this study. The work shows that “what we do today has the potential to be persistent six generations from today.”

Armstrong says the work highlights how biodiversity and food provision can both be enriched at the same time, in contrast to colonial farming practices in which ecosystems are often stripped down to monocultures in an attempt to boost food production. “There’s a growing body of evidence from everywhere from the Amazon to the Pacific Northwest that in these sites that were continuously occupied for thousands and thousands of years, the effect is actually one of higher diversity,” Trant says.

The study details tie in with Indigenous knowledge, says Armstrong, who has been working with Indigenous partners and colleagues from the four First Nations on whose traditional territory the village sites are located: the Kitsumkalum, Kitselas, Sts’ailes, and Tsleil-Waututh. [...]

Oral histories also suggest that the job of tending forest gardens fell largely to children. Elder Betty Lou Dundas of Hartley Bay remembers pruning crab apple trees and clearing the ground around their bases to raise the trees’ productivity.

Willie Charlie, former chief of Sts’ailes, a Coast Salish First Nation, says no knowledge is ever truly lost from his community -- even after the assaults of colonialism and the residential school system.

“My grandfather said all of our teaching are still there on the land, so if somebody has a good mind and a good heart and the right intention, they can go out there and those messages are going to come to them,” says Charlie.

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Headline, images, captions, and text published by: Jessa Gamble. “Ancient Gardens Persist in British Columbia’s Forests.” Hakai Magazine. 9 June 2021.

[mikedangeli]

My Sm’algyax Fine Art Maker Club finished 1/2 our knives! Ready to start carving soon!! #naaksagyilakyooschool #mikedangeli #artmentorship #kitsumkalum (at Veritas)

[grantrobin]

National Aboriginal Day festivity’s. Kitsumkalum Dance Group. Terrace, British Columbia, Canada.

[atomicsuperhero]

Our entire family wore orange today. Because there’s no pride in genocide. Because over 1500 children (and there’s many more to come with 123 residential school sites in Canada) never made it home to their families after being ripped away, abused, and murdered by the Catholic Church and the Canadian government. Because this isn’t a “dark chapter in Canada’s history”. It’s STILL happening right in front of us. Because Canada has nothing to be proud of, and we should all be collectively grieving. We are settlers, we are colonizers. It’s our responsibility to change the way things are, to listen, and to learn. You are on Native Land. If you don’t know who’s land you’re on, look it up on Native-land.ca, and start learning. 📍Terrace BC is on Kitsumkalum and Ts'msyen La̱xyuup (Tsimshian) territories. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQzgph4hs07/?utm_medium=tumblr

[mig]

Kitsumkalum Lake (Mavic Mini) via IFTTT

[artorielle]

N'we Jinan Artists - "THE HIGHWAY" // Kitsumkalum First Nation, BC.

Obviously, not made by me. 

 Context: “The Highway” is about the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women in Northern BC, Canada along the the Highway of Tears. The government has done very little to address or solve the issue. The video was made by First Nation (Canadian term for “Aboriginal”) music artists from Terrace, BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Tears_murders

[mikedangeli]

My Intermediate class grades 4,5,6’s rocked Sm’algyax Fine Art this week! Planed down our Cedar to make boards for paddles! Super proud of them all! #naaksagyilakyooschool #mikedangeli #artmentorship #kitsumkalum (at Veritas)

[mikedangeli]

Awesome ‘Na Aksa Gyilak’yoo School Dance practice! Started with Intermediates Carlee Nagk class Grade 4,5,6’s who rocked drumming and leading songs! Taught them my Eagle song that I gave to school with a mask a few years ago. They in-turn helped me teach High School and primaries! So proud of all the students! They Danced and sang their hearts out! #naaksagyilakyooschool #tsimshian #tsmsyen #dance #singing #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalum_bc (at Kitsumkalum)

[mikedangeli]

My Sm’algyax Fine Art Maker Club started carving handles for our new carving knives. #formline #aboriginalart #design #firstnationsart #naaksagyilakyooschool #fineart #artmentorship #mikedangeli #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalumbc #kitsumkalum_bc (at Veritas)

[mikedangeli]

My 7,8,9 grade started drawing and painting up their panels #formline #aboriginalart #design #firstnationsart #naaksagyilakyooschool #fineart #artmentorship #mikedangeli #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalumbc #kitsumkalum_bc (at ’Na Aksa Gyila̱k'yoo School)

[mikedangeli]

Just love my Tuesday’s Lunchtime! Kitsumkalum Sm’algyax Lunch with my Naksu @miqueldangeli Its beautiful to come together and learn and share our language so that we can all grow in our understanding of who we are! To my fellow students, Nt’oyaxsism for having the courage to reclaim our language and decolonize ourselves. #tsimshian #smalgya̱x #smalgyax #smalgyaxlearner #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalum_bc #kitsumkalumbc #kitsumkalumsmalgyax #miqueldangeli #drdangeli #languagerevitalization (at Kitsumkalum)

[mikedangeli]

Firstly this isn’t about anyone in particular it’s about all of us and how we internalize colonialism how we continue to inflict the damage that was done to us. Especially in our language revitalization. We have so many feelings when it comes to our language. It’s almost debilitating. Some fight through and find a way to create healing and learn our languages. Others use it as a weapon to subjugate their own people. To them I ask for Sm'oogyit Laxha to help them find healing and to reflect on the lateral violence they are causing. This past Tuesday was a huge ray of HOPE! I witnessed 30 people start their first class and others refresh their memories learning and speaking Sm’algyax again! There where various adult aged men and woman, elders, chiefs, matriarchs. All talked about being ready to learn and speak our language! Was so amazing and humbling! Nt’oyaxsism to my Kitsumkalum relatives and Heather Bohn for organizing and preparing this space so we all can work and learn! Luk’wil nt’oyaxsn to Naksu @miqueldangeli for taking the time to share your beautiful knowledge of our language so that we can all grow in our understanding of who we are! And to my fellow students, Nt’oyaxsism for having the courage to reclaim our language and decolonize ourselves. #tsimshian #smalgya̱x #smalgyax #smalgyaxlearner #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalum_bc #kitsumkalumbc #kitsumkalumsmalgyax #miqueldangeli #drdangeli #languagerevitalization (at Kitsumkalum)

[mikedangeli]

My grades 4,5,6 class we where practicing the 4 clan bodies and intellectual property rights of their art. Sure proud of them! #formline #aboriginalart #design #firstnationsart #naaksagyilakyooschool #fineart #artmentorship #mikedangeli #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalumbc #kitsumkalum_bc (at ’Na Aksa Gyila̱k'yoo School)

[mikedangeli]

Working with my students at Na Aksa Gylak'yoo school #aboriginal #aboriginalart #design #firstnations #firstnationsart #mikedangeli #tsimshian #nisgaa #tsetsaut #tsimshianart #nisgaaart #tsetsautart #naaksagyilakyooschool #formline #kitsumkalum #kitsumkalum_bc (at Na Aksa Gyilak'yoo School)