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- Sea, Land and Sky Initiative
Archaeology
A year in reflection: FENV Sea, Land and Sky Indigenization Initiative
As we move towards Summer Solstice, an important ceremonial and gathering time for Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island, I reflect on our accomplishments of the Sea, Land and Sky Indigenization initiative this year in SFU’s Faculty of Environment (FENV).
It was a pleasure to have SFU Archaeology as my home unit this year and to develop and deliver ARCH 200/ENV 299, Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being on the Land, an introductory course on Indigenous knowledge, issues and the environment that covers themes including water, waterways, fish, land stewardship, terminology, decolonizing education, the Indian Residential School, missing and murdered Indigenous women, UNDRIP and more.
Classes were held both in the classroom and in the new FENV Food Forest Outdoor Learning Space (FFOLS), a project put forward and realized by resource and environmental management student Maria Preoteasa.
The FFOLS provides a great space in nature that is both calming and meditative. In addition to the new course, it has already been used to host a number of workshops, including medicine-making and eco-art, a Climate Café, as well as FENV’s annual Earth Day Environmental Stewardship Challenge and a hands-on learning experience with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (TWN).
Over the last several years, FENV has collaborated with TWN and Sts’ailes, who are now both partners on the Indigenization Decolonization Committee which held its first meeting in January 2024 and helps guide the activities of the Sea, Land and Sky Initiative.
We hosted TWN’s junior and senior school this year at the Burnaby campus for two learning circles, a lab and a museum tour. The Faculty was also honoured to be hosted by TWN and a group of us had the opportunity to paddle up the Burrard Inlet and hear stories of land use from Knowledge Keepers with Takaya Tours.
In addition to seeing future growth in these developments, I look forward to the newly launched Sts’ailes Graduate Field School becoming an ongoing offering in the Faculty. The field school, led by CAO Willie Charlie, archaeology professor Dana Lepofsky and her postdoctoral fellow and Sts’ailes employee Morgan Ritchie, ran for the first time this spring and was a resounding success.
As I prepare to spend time with family and friends in ceremony for Summer Solstice this weekend — for Indigenous people, every day is National Indigenous People’s day — it is often a time of quiet reflection, ceremony and for some celebration. Decolonization is a process for all of us to undertake as we have all been impacted by colonization, and by extension, capitalism. This weekend our family will host a Water Ceremony for the devastation of our waters and the impacts to the Adams River Pacific Wild Salmon Run in Secwepemculecw (land of the Secwepemc) and hope you will join me in prayer for our lands, waters and salmon.