On January 27 this year, Guardians, First Nations leaders, Nanwakolas Council and Hakai Institute scientists and other staff as well as other individual contributors to the Nanwakolas-led 50 Watersheds Project gathered at Q̓ə pix ʔidaʔas, the Indigenous Gathering Place at North Island College in Campbell River: a culturally relevant space for connection and celebration (pronounced kah-pee-ih-dah-us, Q̓ə pix ʔidaʔas translates as “gathering place” in Lik̓ʷala).
It was the perfect location for participants to be celebrating progress on the work to date on the multi-year project, a ground-breaking science partnership that is developing tools to address the threats posed by climate change and forest management on salmon habitat in the territories of Mamalilikulla, Tlowitsis, Wei Wai Kum, We Wai Kai and K’ómoks First Nations, all members of the Nanwakolas Council.
Nanwakolas Council is working with the Hakai Institute and other partners who are committed to respectful collaboration and to uplifting Indigenous knowledge and methodologies that have been gathered and developed over thousands of years. That knowledge will be interwoven with other more recent scientific approaches and practices to produce a strong, rich, and robust set of outcomes for the future wellbeing of salmon, the Indigenous partners in the project, and everyone in the region. We are calling this “reconciliation through science.”
Participants at the gathering also enjoyed this short film about the project, produced by the Hakai Communications team. We hope you enjoy it too.
To learn more, you can also read this article.