Latest news with #Indigenouspractices
CBC
21-05-2025
- General
- CBC
How prescribed burns can help ecosystems thrive
The leafy trees that tower over Toronto's High Park are one of the last remaining black oak ecosystems in Ontario. They're rare, so each year, fire specialists carefully set fires near their roots, in a controlled perimeter — burning off the dry grass, leaves and twigs. Smoke billows above the trees, drifting through parts of the park before dissipating. The flames linger where they're set, turning the underbrush to ash. The traditional and prescribed burns in High Park have gone on for two decades, named Biinaakzigewok Anishnaabeg by the Indigenous Land Stewardship Circle that collaborates with the City of Toronto on the present-day rendition of what was a longstanding Indigenous practice. While colonial rules in Canada long banned the traditional fire practices of Indigenous communities, that's been shifting, with more use of prescribed burning not just for wildfire protection but ecosystem health. Renny Grilz is a resource management officer for the Meewasin Valley Authority, a conservation organization in Saskatoon that uses prescribed fires in and out of city limits. "Part of conservation for, you know, the last 30 years was 'Set it aside, nature will look after itself,'" said Grilz. "We're realizing that no, we need to manage these landscapes." Fire as a tool in urban areas The idea of a prescribed burn is to use a fast, low fire along ground level. Introducing fire to an ecosystem helps thin the forest of fuel, which can include things like leaf litter, sticks, and dead plants. In High Park, this gives fire-resistant species like black oak the space to thrive by burning back invasive species and allowing more air, nutrients and sunlight to reach them. In March of this year, the City of Edmonton conducted its first prescribed burn within city limits, to reduce wildfire risk. "This burn helped the city effectively reduce vegetation that could have fueled wildfire, and helped increase public safety by lowering wildfire risk in the area," Graeme McAlister, deputy fire chief, Community Safety and Risk with the City of Edmonton said in an email to the CBC News. But conducting a prescribed burn in an urban area comes with risks. "You have high value assets surrounding the area that you want to burn, but also smoke management becomes very critical," said Grilz. Winnipeg has been conducting prescribed burns since the 1980s, for example, but Grilz says that other urban areas like Calgary, Regina and Moose Jaw, Sask., have expressed interest in prescribed fires, too. "As they [urban areas] advance their skill sets or knowledge base within these urban areas and their planning areas, they're starting to look at fire as a management tool," Grilz told CBC. "It's really exciting." Helping native plants In densely populated Southern Ontario, tallgrass habitats have a critical role, but they're in danger. They provide habitats for ground-dwelling birds like bobolinks and Eastern meadowlarks, both protected species in Canada. "Tallgrass communities have been drastically reduced, like less than one per cent of what originally was in southern Ontario remains as native tallgrass. So we're trying to bring that community back," said Adam Brylowski, manager of conservation and trail at the Bruce Trail Conservancy, a non-profit organization that manages land along the Niagara Escarpment UNESCO World Biosphere. The Bruce Trail Conservancy takes on ecological restoration projects, leaning heavily on planting trees and wildflowers in the past, according to Brylowski. In 2019, they recognized the importance of tallgrass prairie restoration, too. After planning and preparing a site, the Bruce Trail Conservancy conducted their first prescribed burn in 2022. The native grasses need fire for their seeds to germinate, but it can kill off invasive species like Kentucky bluegrass and crested wheatgrass. The Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), spanning some 800 hectares along the shores of Lake Ontario between Burlington and Hamilton, also uses prescribed burns. The RBG has conducted burns at different sites since 1997, though they don't do them every year. This year, the goal was to improve rare plant habitat, according to a public notice. This includes big bluestem and goldenrods, both native species in tallgrass prairie ecosystems.
CBC
18-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Revitalization and reclamation at heart of Kwanlin traditional tattoo gathering
Gathering in Whitehorse last week was about taking back traditional practices and revisiting shared history Image | Whitehorse tattooing gathering Caption: Tattoo apprentice Bowie Whalen, from Alaska, giving a tattoo at the Kwanlin Traditional Tattoo Gathering in Whitehorse earlier this month. (Isabel Ruitenbeek/CBC) Ashley Cummings is smiling as her chin gets poked over and over with a needle. "Hurts a little bit, but not too bad," she says after the work is done. "It's worth it." Cummings is being tattooed at the Kwanlin Traditional Tattoo Gathering in Whitehorse. The first of its kind, the gathering brought four Indigenous tattoo artists, plus apprentices, to the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre over three days, from May 9 to 12. Cummings is from Pangnirtung, Nunavut, and now lives in Whitehorse. She calls the tattooing an act of reclamation. "Inuit almost lost our tattoos entirely," she said. "Now, there's some really stellar women that are being matriarchs and bringing it back to us." For Cummings and other participants, that's what this event is all about — taking back traditional tattoo practices. It's a way to reclaim identity, and find others with a shared past. That's how Holly Nordlum sees it. Nordlum, on the other end of the needle, is a tattoo artist and has been for over a decade. Nordlum, an Inuk from Kotzebue, Alaska, who now lives in Anchorage, says there's something powerful about poking the skin and talking about "hard stuff." The key, she said, is "finding joy in hard stuff." "It really does make you who you are." Lost history To Nordlum, hard stuff means shared trauma — substance abuse, sexual abuse, "all those big issues that have affected us for generations," she says. That's what comes up most often between her and her clients, she says. She's travelled to other places with their own tattooing traditions, like New Zealand and Hawaii. In both places, traditional practices were also harmed by colonization and missionaries. "We're all people of colour who have been colonized and are struggling," she said. Anne Spice, a Kwanlin Dün citizen and tattoo artist, says that each nation has its own tattoo tradition and style, but that there are gaps in that knowledge because of the generations where tattooing was outlawed. To fill that gap, Spice looks to other forms of art to take inspiration for tattooing. But now, she says, there's a push to revive Indigenous tattoo practices. "[In the Yukon] we're at the very beginning stages of this resurgence," she said. Learning together Bobby Rose Koe has a fresh caribou antler tattoo on her shoulder, hand-poked. "I come from caribou," she said. Koe is Teetl'it Gwich'in from Fort McPherson, N.W.T. The new caribou antler is one of many tattoos on her body, each one a reminder of what she's been through and who she is. Koe says the biggest conversation at last week's gathering was on the responsibility around tattoos. People learned the history of tattoos, and what is or isn't appropriate. "I think that it's so beautiful that we're all learning here together," she said. Koe's participated in plenty of gatherings and meetings in the cultural centre's multi-purpose room. Often, those are centred on important conversations but she says the tattoo gathering is something special.
