it’s more agates tomorrow gets to get
them Hannah Connie get double-walled
sick Jim hi yes – why you know Alps be
her Knox devil so go get Lance and Jan
devil wat GU hello my name is Teresa
Ryan I am Sims an I’m a traditional Sims
and cedar Weaver I’m a Chinook salmon
scientist for Canada on the Pacific
salmon Commission and I’m a post
doctoral researcher at the University of
British Columbia forests and
conservation sciences my grandfather
wanted me to become a fishery scientist
I am a first generation scholar it was a
role he had envisioned for me when I was
a child he would take me to his fishing
boats when he had work to do on them and
he would tell me what Sam and mean to
some Shan people and he would tell me
about our ancient stories it wasn’t
until I was 17 years old that he said we
need you to be a fishery scientist my
response was why I’m not going to be a
commercial fisherman he said we need you
to be a fishery scientist he was a kind
and gentle man that very rarely ever
spoke sternly and he was my elder and
when elders speak you listen so I said
okay okay I’ll figure out what I have to
do I went and did a biology degree at
Central Washington University with
fisheries aquatic ecology emphasis I was
pleased that I accomplished his vision
for me but I was sad that he was no
longer around to see that it wasn’t
until my master’s degree program that I
learned about why he wanted me to be a
fishery scientist in my environmental
law class I noticed that these laws I
was studying
not the same as simian laws about
fishing and caring for the environment
so my master’s thesis focused on a sedge
plant in grace Harbor Washington estuary
we call the plant sea sweet grass it has
a delightful aroma but it isn’t the same
as sweet grass the real grass it’s a
plant we use in Simpson basketry my
grandmother recalled as a child
traveling by canoe from Prince Rupert
British Columbia to Grays Harbor
Washington estuary just for this plant
see the way we harvest resources is
guided by rules of use we have to know
when to harvest it and we have to know
the condition of whatever it is that
we’re harvesting we only taken Mount an
amount that we need that doesn’t
necessarily mean a minimal ration often
we took very large volumes this
particular plant has to be popped out of
its base one column at a time if you cut
the plant then the plant will die and it
said thus a high salt marsh so when the
tide water starts coming in as you’re
working away and sweats dripping off
your forehead you have to stop because
in with the water comes juvenile salmon
and it’s the coolest thing to see it’s a
reminder to us of others that use these
resources and it’s also an indication of
how salmon are doing for our future
harvest I wanted to know how our access
to natural resources became dismantled I
wanted to know if I could demonstrate
connections of our social institutions
to our landscape in a region known as
the Pacific Northwest this region has
attracted many scholars for a variety of
reasons over a very long period of time
missionaries were brought into our
communities to change us anthropologists
came into our communities to document
coach
characteristics before they vanished I
positioned myself in the context of
being an Aboriginal woman and also as a
scientist in my PhD research and I
learned that during the mid-1800s
there were perceptions and
misconceptions about Aboriginal people
and generally actions were biased by a
colonial agenda in my PhD research one
of the profound messages that I was able
to demonstrate was that by not allowing
Aboriginal people to provide the
stewardship of the resources has many
costs including to the colonial state
you see we measured these resources so
that we can continue to prosper we want
to make sure there are future
generations of the resource for the
future generations of people our our
fishing was based on our own harvest
strategies which aligned with the cycles
of the ocean tides our sophisticated
technology consisted of a variety of
structures used for fishing many of
these techniques capitalized on the
natural environment by using both the
natural cycles and also constructing a
variety of traps and Weir’s and nets
from materials from our forests the
contours of the shorelines and the
watersheds also provided some convenient
engineering one particular method
combined the tides shorelines and rock
walls known as salmon tidal stone traps
at the lowest tide these stone walls are
above water with water and trained in
pools and also salmon when they’re
migrating through on their way to their
natal streams the rock walls in these
stone traps were purposely built at the
river mouth or near a river by
Aboriginal people at high tide the traps
are submerged and the salmon swim over
them on their
way to their spawning grounds or they’re
picked up by another predator it’s with
great appreciation to the Donner
Canadian Foundation we are able to
investigate this ancient fishing
technology and its use in the
conservation of salmon
we are also investigating the pathways
of nitrogen delivered by salmon through
the forest soils in our salmon forest
project in science we know that marine
derived nitrogen is delivered to forest
every year in the mature returned
migration of the salmon to their
spawning grounds tree roots along the
river bank and tap right into these
nutrients but even more is accessible
when predators take their favorite meal
into the forest and what they don’t eat
dissolves into the forest floor a bear
or a wolf can bring a hundred and fifty
salmon per day into the forest and there
are several types of salmon predators
including us the forest has a reciprocal
relationship with salmon trees provide
interception of rain and snow melt that
moderates water through a watershed
trees also provide shade to keep the
streams cool for salmon and provide
habitat for many birds and other animals
our forests in the Pacific Northwest
provide us with the Tree of Life Western
redcedar
from which we make baskets and masks
clothing tools canoes and even houses
trees offer us oxygen but we’re not
giving back to trees right now in the
forests instead they’re being taken at
very high volumes for other resource
values after eating salmon in our
traditional way we would return the
bones back to the river it was one of
the ways of giving back to the resource
and allowing salmon spirits to return to
their underwater villages in our simpson
worldview salmon have long
houses and villages just like we do and
they returned the spirit salmon spirit
returns to their chief underwater the
action of returning these bones actually
provides calcium nutrients into the
water and that helps to ensure that
juvenile salmon have a more balanced
environment for their success these
ancestral knowledge systems have an
astute awareness of the connections in
the living world above and below ground
and within the waters often are cultural
expressions reflect some of this
knowledge and it’s about our
relationship to place this slide
demonstrates a mask for every single
resource that’s used in a quark walky
walk feast this also represents
biodiversity
it’s a celebration about our Aboriginal
cosmology we lost a lot of that we lost
scores of people that died from disease
epidemics and hostile incursions
lifestyles were molded into some
illusionary image and children were
taken away it is amazing that we are
here today and there’s no shortage of
courageous stories prophecies that
depict the fear of annihilation some
salmon runs are already extinct and
others are on the verge of the same fate
the salmon that remain are experiencing
wide fluctuations in their productivity
we still know our ancient laws and our
ancestral traditions but these things
continue to be oppressed and
marginalized
we have heavy obligations to ensure the
wealth of abundance continues in our
environment through long-established
traditions and this is our
transformational power it is a way of
knowing what’s going on in the future in
the environment and what’s coming in the
future
thousands of times elders have expressed
what should not be done or they are
doing things the wrong way the way that
we use to fish we no longer get to and
we’re not seeing the salmon get to the
spawning grounds salmon are in serious
decline
aboriginal technology evolved as a
result of observations in the natural
world that accumulated through cultural
traditions and transmitted through our
social reproduction as a result these
strategies aligned with the cycles of
renewal and respecting the connections
in ecosystems the feast system also
known as potlatch is the social
institution that is the agency for
demonstrating the success of stewardship
and our social reproduction a PBS Nova
series documentary titled Native America
by Providence Pictures will air in fall
2018 that demonstrates how these
activities are still continuing in the
Pacific Northwest finally the last
example I will share with you today you
are here the McWane along people know
this place through their ancient
traditions of stewardship their
ancestors conducted annual burning on
the landscape to improve plant and seed
production that practice would also have
prevented fuel loading from fires that
are fanned by the Santa Ana winds the
way forests and landscapes have been
managed over the last century by other
means has caused disturbance in fire
ecology this results in catastrophic
fires especially in times of draught as
we have seen lately with more and more
wildfires
over 1.2 million hectares burned in BC
last year
[Music]
but some pretty difficult material to
watch at UBC forestry we’re
investigating these connections in the
forests how trees exchanged nutrients in
those pathways the Simard mother tree
project is built on science about
nutrient exchange and the mycorrhizal
networks throughout the forest and how
dominant trees act as a hub to
facilitate regeneration of force after
disturbance including harvesting we’re
exploring silvicultural practices and
regeneration along a climate gradient in
the interior Douglas fir and this year
we’re expanding to coastal forests so
that we can evaluate better methods to
harvest western red cedar my Simpson
heritage teaches me about caring for the
environment and as a scientist I have
opportunities to demonstrate how
ancestral knowledge systems resonate
with science
you also have ancient knowledge about an
environment as part of your journey but
the society has removed those
connections this is my journey and it
has brought me here to remind you of our
connection to the natural world thank
you
you
them Hannah Connie get double-walled
sick Jim hi yes – why you know Alps be
her Knox devil so go get Lance and Jan
devil wat GU hello my name is Teresa
Ryan I am Sims an I’m a traditional Sims
and cedar Weaver I’m a Chinook salmon
scientist for Canada on the Pacific
salmon Commission and I’m a post
doctoral researcher at the University of
British Columbia forests and
conservation sciences my grandfather
wanted me to become a fishery scientist
I am a first generation scholar it was a
role he had envisioned for me when I was
a child he would take me to his fishing
boats when he had work to do on them and
he would tell me what Sam and mean to
some Shan people and he would tell me
about our ancient stories it wasn’t
until I was 17 years old that he said we
need you to be a fishery scientist my
response was why I’m not going to be a
commercial fisherman he said we need you
to be a fishery scientist he was a kind
and gentle man that very rarely ever
spoke sternly and he was my elder and
when elders speak you listen so I said
okay okay I’ll figure out what I have to
do I went and did a biology degree at
Central Washington University with
fisheries aquatic ecology emphasis I was
pleased that I accomplished his vision
for me but I was sad that he was no
longer around to see that it wasn’t
until my master’s degree program that I
learned about why he wanted me to be a
fishery scientist in my environmental
law class I noticed that these laws I
was studying
not the same as simian laws about
fishing and caring for the environment
so my master’s thesis focused on a sedge
plant in grace Harbor Washington estuary
we call the plant sea sweet grass it has
a delightful aroma but it isn’t the same
as sweet grass the real grass it’s a
plant we use in Simpson basketry my
grandmother recalled as a child
traveling by canoe from Prince Rupert
British Columbia to Grays Harbor
Washington estuary just for this plant
see the way we harvest resources is
guided by rules of use we have to know
when to harvest it and we have to know
the condition of whatever it is that
we’re harvesting we only taken Mount an
amount that we need that doesn’t
necessarily mean a minimal ration often
we took very large volumes this
particular plant has to be popped out of
its base one column at a time if you cut
the plant then the plant will die and it
said thus a high salt marsh so when the
tide water starts coming in as you’re
working away and sweats dripping off
your forehead you have to stop because
in with the water comes juvenile salmon
and it’s the coolest thing to see it’s a
reminder to us of others that use these
resources and it’s also an indication of
how salmon are doing for our future
harvest I wanted to know how our access
to natural resources became dismantled I
wanted to know if I could demonstrate
connections of our social institutions
to our landscape in a region known as
the Pacific Northwest this region has
attracted many scholars for a variety of
reasons over a very long period of time
missionaries were brought into our
communities to change us anthropologists
came into our communities to document
coach
characteristics before they vanished I
positioned myself in the context of
being an Aboriginal woman and also as a
scientist in my PhD research and I
learned that during the mid-1800s
there were perceptions and
misconceptions about Aboriginal people
and generally actions were biased by a
colonial agenda in my PhD research one
of the profound messages that I was able
to demonstrate was that by not allowing
Aboriginal people to provide the
stewardship of the resources has many
costs including to the colonial state
you see we measured these resources so
that we can continue to prosper we want
to make sure there are future
generations of the resource for the
future generations of people our our
fishing was based on our own harvest
strategies which aligned with the cycles
of the ocean tides our sophisticated
technology consisted of a variety of
structures used for fishing many of
these techniques capitalized on the
natural environment by using both the
natural cycles and also constructing a
variety of traps and Weir’s and nets
from materials from our forests the
contours of the shorelines and the
watersheds also provided some convenient
engineering one particular method
combined the tides shorelines and rock
walls known as salmon tidal stone traps
at the lowest tide these stone walls are
above water with water and trained in
pools and also salmon when they’re
migrating through on their way to their
natal streams the rock walls in these
stone traps were purposely built at the
river mouth or near a river by
Aboriginal people at high tide the traps
are submerged and the salmon swim over
them on their
way to their spawning grounds or they’re
picked up by another predator it’s with
great appreciation to the Donner
Canadian Foundation we are able to
investigate this ancient fishing
technology and its use in the
conservation of salmon
we are also investigating the pathways
of nitrogen delivered by salmon through
the forest soils in our salmon forest
project in science we know that marine
derived nitrogen is delivered to forest
every year in the mature returned
migration of the salmon to their
spawning grounds tree roots along the
river bank and tap right into these
nutrients but even more is accessible
when predators take their favorite meal
into the forest and what they don’t eat
dissolves into the forest floor a bear
or a wolf can bring a hundred and fifty
salmon per day into the forest and there
are several types of salmon predators
including us the forest has a reciprocal
relationship with salmon trees provide
interception of rain and snow melt that
moderates water through a watershed
trees also provide shade to keep the
streams cool for salmon and provide
habitat for many birds and other animals
our forests in the Pacific Northwest
provide us with the Tree of Life Western
redcedar
from which we make baskets and masks
clothing tools canoes and even houses
trees offer us oxygen but we’re not
giving back to trees right now in the
forests instead they’re being taken at
very high volumes for other resource
values after eating salmon in our
traditional way we would return the
bones back to the river it was one of
the ways of giving back to the resource
and allowing salmon spirits to return to
their underwater villages in our simpson
worldview salmon have long
houses and villages just like we do and
they returned the spirit salmon spirit
returns to their chief underwater the
action of returning these bones actually
provides calcium nutrients into the
water and that helps to ensure that
juvenile salmon have a more balanced
environment for their success these
ancestral knowledge systems have an
astute awareness of the connections in
the living world above and below ground
and within the waters often are cultural
expressions reflect some of this
knowledge and it’s about our
relationship to place this slide
demonstrates a mask for every single
resource that’s used in a quark walky
walk feast this also represents
biodiversity
it’s a celebration about our Aboriginal
cosmology we lost a lot of that we lost
scores of people that died from disease
epidemics and hostile incursions
lifestyles were molded into some
illusionary image and children were
taken away it is amazing that we are
here today and there’s no shortage of
courageous stories prophecies that
depict the fear of annihilation some
salmon runs are already extinct and
others are on the verge of the same fate
the salmon that remain are experiencing
wide fluctuations in their productivity
we still know our ancient laws and our
ancestral traditions but these things
continue to be oppressed and
marginalized
we have heavy obligations to ensure the
wealth of abundance continues in our
environment through long-established
traditions and this is our
transformational power it is a way of
knowing what’s going on in the future in
the environment and what’s coming in the
future
thousands of times elders have expressed
what should not be done or they are
doing things the wrong way the way that
we use to fish we no longer get to and
we’re not seeing the salmon get to the
spawning grounds salmon are in serious
decline
aboriginal technology evolved as a
result of observations in the natural
world that accumulated through cultural
traditions and transmitted through our
social reproduction as a result these
strategies aligned with the cycles of
renewal and respecting the connections
in ecosystems the feast system also
known as potlatch is the social
institution that is the agency for
demonstrating the success of stewardship
and our social reproduction a PBS Nova
series documentary titled Native America
by Providence Pictures will air in fall
2018 that demonstrates how these
activities are still continuing in the
Pacific Northwest finally the last
example I will share with you today you
are here the McWane along people know
this place through their ancient
traditions of stewardship their
ancestors conducted annual burning on
the landscape to improve plant and seed
production that practice would also have
prevented fuel loading from fires that
are fanned by the Santa Ana winds the
way forests and landscapes have been
managed over the last century by other
means has caused disturbance in fire
ecology this results in catastrophic
fires especially in times of draught as
we have seen lately with more and more
wildfires
over 1.2 million hectares burned in BC
last year
[Music]
but some pretty difficult material to
watch at UBC forestry we’re
investigating these connections in the
forests how trees exchanged nutrients in
those pathways the Simard mother tree
project is built on science about
nutrient exchange and the mycorrhizal
networks throughout the forest and how
dominant trees act as a hub to
facilitate regeneration of force after
disturbance including harvesting we’re
exploring silvicultural practices and
regeneration along a climate gradient in
the interior Douglas fir and this year
we’re expanding to coastal forests so
that we can evaluate better methods to
harvest western red cedar my Simpson
heritage teaches me about caring for the
environment and as a scientist I have
opportunities to demonstrate how
ancestral knowledge systems resonate
with science
you also have ancient knowledge about an
environment as part of your journey but
the society has removed those
connections this is my journey and it
has brought me here to remind you of our
connection to the natural world thank
you
you
Please follow and like us: