ISSUE
If you are new to an area or an old-timer can you remember comments people there longer than you have made about your local swimming spot? Reconnecting with collective memory can tell you a story beyond what you have seen. This kind of local knowledge of environmental history isn’t just a glimpse of past time, it can be useful for shaping the future by informing habitat restoration and management, on a personal and community level it can change your relationship with a place.
For example, bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), the provincial fish of Alberta, Canada are considered so vulnerable that Alberta Sustainable Resource Development has restricted fishing for them to catch and release. Yet, they used to be abundant and harvested.
Dr Janelle Baker of Athabasca University and William Snow, Acting Director of Consultation, Stoney Nakoda Tribal Administration have been working on conserving these fish with îyârhe Nakodabi (Stoney Nakoda) through a methodology that combines western science and traditional knowledge. Listening to elders’ accounts of the fish they are connected to habitat, places, and people. Dr Baker shared some insights from the project. “The elders describe years of great abundance of the bull trout and other native species of fish – during which they would collect and preserve enough for the year. Now, these species are listed as threatened, and it’s exciting to travel to places like Pinto Lake and see the fish in the water there. There are some real issues in the Bighorn Backcountry with overuse of all terrain vehicles, campgrounds, dams, roads, and logging and the damage that these human activities have on the ecosystem. Elders strongly caution against this overuse and abuse of the landscape, and centre on ceremony, respect, and reciprocity with the fish and one another.”
