Indigenous People within the Natural World
Please review each article prior to use: grade-level applicability and curricular alignment might not be obvious from the headline alone.
Province creates hunting buffer zone on Bloodvein First Nation
3 minute read Preview Monday, Sep. 15, 2025Nation building needs research — not just infrastructure
5 minute read Saturday, Sep. 13, 2025Living through the second Trump administration as a Canadian has been likened, by one commentator, to a teenager being kicked out of the house. We must grow up fast and deal with the fact that we can now only rely on ourselves. So, the federal government is moving fast on files related to security, sovereignty and connectivity. The Liberals passed Bill C-5 to expedite projects that will help Canadians live on our own. Wonderful.
But.
In our rush forward, we cannot overlook the power of nation-building research, which must go hand-in-glove with these infrastructure projects. Research and infrastructure are not competing priorities: they are essential partners in nation-building.
Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act, grants the federal government sweeping powers to quickly build large projects that help goods move faster and more easily. This act intends to strengthen our security, autonomy, resilience and advance the interests of Indigenous Peoples. But there can be no nation-building without nation-building research.
Great potential in Churchill port project — but…
4 minute read Preview Monday, Sep. 8, 2025Churchill and LNG would mix like oil and water
5 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 9, 2025Churchill has always been a place of connection and of change. However, last week’s remarks from Prime Minister Mark Carney that Churchill could become a year-round export terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) suggest a risky vision for the future that could imperil the balance and diversity that has allowed this unusual community on Hudson Bay to endure.
At its founding, Churchill connected Inuit, Dene and Cree communities with the Hudson Bay Company’s vast trading network. In the waning days of the fur trade, Churchill re-emerged as an important cold war base, housing thousands of troops.
When North America’s defence needs changed, Churchill again reinvented itself as a research hub for aerospace and a broad array of scientific enquiry. Through the second half of the 20th century, Churchill also became a critical social service centre for much of Hudson Bay and the central Arctic. Now it has emerged as one of Canada’s great ecotourism destinations. Few places better capture the adaptability and resilience of the North.
The prime minister and Premier Wab Kinew have both described Churchill LNG exports as a “nation-building” project. Investment in the transportation corridor that connects the Arctic to southern Canada through the port and railroad is indeed overdue. The Port of Churchill is a national asset with enormous potential and diverse strengths.
The Canadian government, mining and human rights
5 minute read Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025Environmentally speaking, foreign mining companies are often more concerned about extracting profits than they are about protecting the local ecological space. There have been innumerable cases of these extractive businesses releasing dangerous chemical pollutants into the air, causing physical damage to nearby homes through soil and bedrock disturbances and dumping mining effluent that poisons local drinking water systems.
Landing young leaders
6 minute read Preview Monday, Aug. 16, 2021