The first time I tried to read literature written by an indigenous author as a teenager, one of my parents ripped the book out of my hands and threw it in a screaming fit. I remember tears rolling down my cheeks and deep feelings of guilt: Guilt for letting my parents down and guilt for letting my indigenous friends down. Growing up in Saskatchewan, indigenous issues were not often discussed, and if they were it was either in hushed voices where (mostly white) people shared their controversial takes or in screaming fits like the experience I had with my family. As I have grown up, I began to move away from the guilt and confusion that often overshadowed indigenous issues in my past, and I am finding ways to reconnect with my humanity. Needless to say, when I read that we were going to get to speak with an indigenous scholar, I was extremely excited to participate. It was such a gift to learn about ways forward with someone as knowledgeable as Dr. Reid.

First nations have an extremely rocky history with settlers appropriating their knowledge into conservation frameworks with little benefit to first nations. One of my favorite parts of the two-eyed seeing approach that Dr. Reid mentioned is that settlers can connect with first nations' ideas without appropriating them.  Her paper was also interesting to me because it touched on work being done in Saskatchewan. It brought me so much hope to see these management practices being implemented in the place I grew up.

At one point during the tutorial, I asked Dr. Reid about the representation of indigenous people in different career paths and she said that in fact, there is huge pressure on the indigenous community in that respect. It surprised me to learn that because I always heard that “representation matters” but I missed some of the nuances. Since indigenous communities are often small, advocates for a particular cause can be interviewed many times on a single topic. Considering many of these topics are emotional subjects that involve intergenerational trauma or resource struggles, it is important to think about the intellectual and emotional labor that indigenous people are expected to do in order to be treated equitably in this country. So, indigenous people should be brought to the table in discussions where it concerns them, but it is important to consider how taxing these contributions can be on a small community. Since indigenous people are the fastest growing demographic in Canada, I hope that they can someday experience some relief from this problem.

When Dr. Reid asked us to connect two-eyed seeing to our work, I realized that there was so much I was missing. I had never considered which territory my lab was collecting our anemones from or whether there were any cultural ties to these organisms. I learned that some cultures on the northwest coast used to eat these anemones and they were often gleaned by women, which connects to current practices of women in fisheries around the world. They would use sticks to pry the anemones from the rock and pan-fry them to serve up as delicacies. I really want to look into our collection sites and determine which indigenous territory they are based out of. Furthermore, I realized that the first nations view of human-environment relationships was actually closer to my own, but that I had repressed those thoughts and feelings because they seemed “unprofessional” or “unscientific.” I reflected on how I see professionalism as coming from a Eurocentric place. 

Our discussion with Dr. Reid gave us a lot to think about and we discussed some of these issues during our field trip. It was incredibly disappointing to hear about the treatment of indigenous men and women in the fisheries and canneries. One of the most striking facts was how Indigenous women would be paid $0.30 compared to the women who they were working with who would make $1.00.

The idea of indigenous ways of learning was discussed in relation to indigenous teaching styles being beneficial in schools. I wish that I could have experienced that type of education as a child, or even an effective education about indigenous history. I recall how first nation’s issues were integrated into the curriculum by giving bizarre math questions about how many skins you could tan in an hour without the context to understand why we were being taught this. Even the teachers treated indigenous issues as an afterthought in most cases, so nobody took them seriously. I am glad that even though I didn’t get the best education when I was younger, I can continue to learn to this day. Since I am beginning grad school at UBC in the fall, I think it would be amazing to take one of Dr. Reid’s classes once the program gets started to continue my education on indigenous issues. In the meantime, I want my summer reading to include works from some indigenous authors, something I can now do without worrying what anyone else thinks of it.