Sacred Seven: Beaver is nurturing, giving, wise

In Carro Claire Burke's new novel, a modern day tradwife influencer wakes up in the 1800s and has to live that tradwife life for real. No running water, no electricity, and no way out. We get into tradwives and way more on my podcast bookends. This idea of a woman who prioritizes her children, prioritizes her marriage, who is subservient in many ways, has become kind of a fixation in our politics and in our culture. Check out that conversation on bookends with me, Mattair Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. A very, very long time ago, the big lakes, the Great Lakes were draining because the river, the French River had reversed its direction. And the people were very concerned about this for obvious reasons. Mickey Garryde shares a story she heard from an elder named Joe Lagarde. It's about a beaver, well actually a giant beaver, who responded to a community's concern. Water was disappearing from their lands. And the giant beaver said, yeah, okay. And went up the river and constructed a series of rock dams in order to reverse the flow of the river and bring the water back into and refill the lakes. Mickey is a researcher, and the story of the giant beaver who built dams out of rocks stood out to her. It contradicts what many scientists believe they know, namely the giant beavers did not build dams. The evidence that they use for this is very, it's very weak. It's a study that looked at the stomach contents in fossils of giant beavers. And they said, well, there's no trees in their stomach and therefore they didn't cut down trees and therefore they didn't build dams. But I think that our stories tell us a lot more about ecological relationships than certainly what Western science has come to understand. And so for me, that story was just important in my own learning that, oh well of course giant beavers, they use rocks to build dams. I mean, giant beaver were the size of black bears. So it is not outside of any realm of possibility that they would be using rocks in order to build dams in the same way that contemporary beaver might use sticks and mud. And also rocks, small beavers still use rocks today. For Mickey, moments like these ground her as she learns about beaver. It reminds her of the role traditional stories and wisdom play in contemporary research on her animal kin. What I love about Indigenous storytelling and Indigenous knowledge sharing is that it doesn't take place in this construct right of a syllabus. Of like here are the things that you need to know and the order we're going to tell them to you necessarily. Right, there's lots of ways that things are shared but they can emerge in conversation and in relationship. And really fun and unexpected ways. And yeah, so I love that story of giant beaver building rock dams. And yeah, having that shared by Joe. [Music] Don, say I mean boojoo hello and welcome. This is Unreserved. I'm Rosanna dear child. Beaver stories exist in nations all across Turtle Island. They offer lessons on building, peacemaking and family connection. Elden Yellow Hex says in Blackfoot culture beaver is the gift giver. He gives humans the gift of tobacco and as a result he may have a great deal of revenues for him. As a PhD student on the subject, Mickey Garrity knows a lot about beavers. Her work bridges traditional stories and contemporary science to better understand this complex relative. But it was her experience as a mother that made the connection to beaver or amic deeper personal. The work that she does that amic does is first and foremost for her children. Plus, what would beaver do? Alvin First Rider creates dams to help communities better manage their water supplies, especially in times of drought. Well, it's beaver memory, right? So it's basically mimicking what a beaver would do. And for Brienne Lavaley Hacker, being matey means honoring the beavers that helped birth a nation. And I think about the role of the matey during the Fraterian. What are our responsibilities to beaver? Today, our sacred seven series continues with beaver, nurturing, giving wise. Besides being Canada's national symbol, the wise hardworking beaver is considered a keystone species. Found in every province and territory, they balance ecosystems with their industrious dams. And they have a special place in many indigenous cultures, including the Blackfoot in Alberta. Elden Yellowhorn says this flat-tailed water dweller is revered for being nature's engineers. The beaver is a large rodent that lives in waterways and lives off the bark of aspen and popper trees. So oftentimes, where they have their dens, they'll systematically cut down all the trees to have food and they make a little feed raft. That's slightly in the water, right beside their lodge. And that way, in the wintertime, when they're wanting to eat, they just slip out of their house, go and pick up something for the feed raft and bring it back to the lodge and eat it there. Beavers are enmeshed with Blackfoot culture. Oral history says the beaver gifted the people tobacco. The beaver also gifted the beaver bundle. It's one of the oldest and most sacred bundles used in Blackfoot ceremonies. The bundle can contain items like animal bones, medicines and seeds. The items are deeply personal to the holder and are wrapped with care and materials like animal hides, silk or flannel. Beaver has a significance in how we perceive our world in Blackfoot custom. He is the gift giver. He gives humans the gift of tobacco. And also this beaver medicine bundle that was part of our sacred traditions. The beaver medicine bundle is kind of one of the main story of our religious thought, these gifts from different animals. Animals they can be from the spirit of the horse can give the medicine bundle to a human. That's where spiritual significance is derived. From that, we open these bundles on religious festivals like the Okan, which people know in English as the Sundance. These would be opened up at that time. They contain elements of different animals that contributed to it. They did their own taxidermy. They could also include fossils, in particular ammonite fossils, which in Blackfoot are known as buffalo stones in this can mix. These are also very powerful little amulets. They are often contained in medicine bundles as well. They'll be plants as well, but sage or sweet grass, oftentimes tobacco. The different elements of our religion are contained within these bundles. In our oral tradition, there's a story about two young men who were brothers and being in love with the same woman. She's only reciprocating her affections with one of the brothers. The other one, besides, he has to kill his brother in order to have a chance at the sweetheart. He tricks his brother into hunting with him on this island in a lake. As they go off, he tricks his brother by paddling back to the mainland and stranding his brother there. The winter is coming on. But what he didn't know was that island was also the home of the chief of the beavers, the same beaver who knew Napi on the raft. He invites the young fellow to spend the winter with them. So being the chief of the beavers, he has the ability to transform this fellow into a beaver. Then he goes and he spends the winter with them. I think learning to see him as one of their family members and in the season as ending, winter season as ending in spring is about to start. The ice has already melted off the lake. They see his brother showing up and they told him he's come to look for your body. They told him, "Well, we're not going to help your brother out, but you can use this time to escape." His brother leaves the raft to go look for his bones. He comes out of the water and beaver transforms him into a human again. Beaver also sends one of his kids along with the young fellow transforms him into a human. Before they leave the beaver lodge, the chief of the beavers gives him this little sack. of seeds and tells him that this is a tobacco and this is a gift to his people and also gives him the gift of the beaver medicine bundle at the same time and instructions. Any senses son along with the human so he could teach them how to cultivate the tobacco and also how to sing the songs and the prayers that are associated with the beaver medicine bundle. And then when the humans have learned all this knowledge the young beaver goes back to his family and ever since then we've had this gift of tobacco that people used to cultivate. And in that story about the beaver and the tobacco seeds, the reason they're so intimately connected is that beaver habitat is the ideal location to situate the tobacco garden. And then once they planted all the seeds then they leave to go to their other locations that they have to get to and they won't come back to their garden until the fall time. Out on the plains you know you couldn't destroy your tobacco seeds anywhere. Tobacco requires some very specific conditions and in its natural habitat when it's found in nature it's actually a weed. You know it's usually associated with a land that has been recently burned or there's been some kind of disaster that has caused the soil to become exposed and that's the ideal habitat for tobacco because the water table near a beaver lodge is going to be quite high. So the roots will always be able to get to water and they don't have to be there every day and hand watering the plants so by situating them where they did the plants pretty much took care of themselves. Presence in our mythology like that in our mythic heritage has really given beaver a significant presence and as a result he may have a great deal of reverence for him. Elden Yellowhorn is Blackfoot and a member of the Paganni Nation in Alberta. He is a professor of indigenous studies at Simon Fraser University. This is Unreserved on CBC Radio 1, Sirius XM, US Public Radio and Native Voice 1. I'm Rosanna Deer Child. The seven sacred teachings or the seven grandfather's are shared in nations across Turtle Island. In some traditions our animal kin embody the teachings and demonstrate what it means to live the good life or mean will be Mediza Winn in Initianabe Mowin. Today we learn from beaver. For the Initianabec beaver or amic is their oldest teacher. From building homes to building families beaver offered valuable lessons on how to live and balance with nature. For Mickey Garrity the lessons of beaver continue today. They help her know who she is and where she comes from. Mickey is a PhD student at the Fairfax Beaver Lab at the University of Minnesota. She is an enrolled member of the citizen Potawatomi Nation. Mickey welcome to Unreserved. Thank you so much for having me. What makes beaver your earliest teacher? For me I think of a story that I've heard many times when gathering with family at our annual Family Rhengan Festival. Our tribal chairman Rocky Barrett will always tell the story of how the first man on a Shnabe was trying to find his way across the lake to the sound of a woman's voice singing to him. And up to this point he was all alone and afraid that he would be the only one of his kind. The creator had promised him, "Don't worry, there's someone waiting for you." He launched himself into the lake to try and swim to the voice of the woman singing and nearly drowned. It took a while for him to learn how to fashion a canoe to travel across the lake and that observing beaver in the way that she swims so well through the water and crafting a canoe in the shape of a beaver was one of the first lessons that Unresnabe learned in his work on the earth. And so to me that's a primary teaching story and one of the first stories about beaver that I learned and it's something that I have thought about a lot in my own work in researching beaver. Are there some examples you can share with us in terms of how your people sort of modeled their lifestyle on things about the beaver, for example, wigwams, tools and such? Yeah, so there are very old stories in many, many tribal communities about the interconnection between humans and giant beaver and so giant beaver were part of the megafauna that lived in North America prior to the end of the last ice age. So giant beaver were very similar to contemporary beaver except they were the size of blackbears so they could be six to nine feet long and the impact that they had on the landscape was quite significant. So many of those old stories talk about the way that are great lakes or big river valleys, waterfalls, these big landscape features were crafted by giant beaver. And so the connection between beaver and the people is very, very, very old and lots of stories about material use of beaver by ancient people. So are very old ancestors using beaver teeth as tools and those existing for a very long time. And I do find it interesting that a beaver lodge, which is built on top of the ice or the pond that is made by the beaver with the entrance under the water, is the shape that Anishinaabe people would also build a wigwam. So there's similarities in how we understand what makes for a warm safe, dry home and observing beaver in being able to do that work and then minicking that ourselves, which I think is a very important type of intelligence. Amazing. Absolutely. Giant beavers though, terrifying. I'm not going to lie. I'm with you. I don't know that I would necessarily approach one, but they were helpful to the people at various points, which I think is also interesting to know. Yeah. You're doing your PhD as we said at the Fairfax beaver lab in Minnesota. What made you want to study beavers to this degree? Oh, well, I did not expect to be this interested in beavers to this degree, but I think as I started thinking about what was my ancestors relationship with beavers and how does that connect with other important relatives? So what I'm looking at now in my research is the relationship between beaver and monomin or wild rice. And how do we understand that relationship in the past and also in the present with significant changes to the landscape and land management practices? And what is that relationship potentially looking like into the future? There's a lot of work being done to protect and restore a monomin because we've lost so much monomin as with many of our important plant and animal relatives. And so that's the work that I'm doing now with my PhD is how do beavers change the landscape in the water and then what are the impacts positive or negative that that might have on wild rice? As you said, one of the things you're researching is this relationship between beavers and monomin, which is, as you say, the Inishnabi word for wild rice and that grows on the water. Why is that an important relationship to study? Monomin is so essential to our understanding of ourselves as well as our relationship to homelands. Our relationship with monomin obviously has changed over time. So there are still communities of people who have continued harvesting monomin in the same places for centuries. And then there are people like my community where we were displaced and relocated to what is now Oklahoma. And so it has been a very long time since we harvested monomin. And I think part of the importance is understanding what actions we need to take in order to protect the monomin that remains as well as to contribute to the right habitat and ecological conditions for monomin to be restored into waters that maybe it used to grow in, but now it hasn't been there for a few years. And there's a lot of effort being made by tribal communities in the Great Lakes area to do this work of protecting and restoring monomin. And part of that management work includes the removal of beaver. So at this point in time, the prevailing belief is that beavers change the water level in wild rice beds and that can be detrimental to the rice. So my research is trying to characterize and understand those interactions. And to figure out is it true that the beavers are damaging the potential for monomin or is it that beavers could help create the right habitat and how might we understand that using both the tools of Western scientific inquiries. but also hopefully traditional ecological knowledge and understanding what elders and race chiefs still know and understand about those interactions. And what did your research tell you about how beavers coexisted with Monoman before colonization and people coming around and messing up their habitats? Well we know that the people and beavers and Monoman have been coexisting on these landscapes for a very long time beavers have been in North America for at least 5 million years doing the landscape shaping that they have done. And Monoman in our understanding of its current state as a plant has been in North America for at least 7,500 years. So there's a long time period that people, Monoman and beavers have been in the same place. And over time beaver ponds dams in what we call beaver complexes which is the whole structure of how beavers live on the landscape not just one beaver dam and one pond. But beaver complexes change the landscape in very significant ways and create more stable typically hydrological regimes. So the water stays in place, the water levels don't fluctuate quite as much when there's snow melt or rainfall coming. So I think for me it makes sense that our ancestors obviously understood some of the work that beaver were doing, saw that beavers create wetlands where then Monoman would grow. And over time some of those ponds would be abandoned and would drain and become beaver meadows and Monoman requires water to grow so maybe the Monoman wouldn't be in that spot for that period of time. But over time beavers will recolonize an area given the right conditions. So maybe the water would return and perhaps also the Monoman. But now we have a very different way that we manage the landscape right where if there's a pond here it needs to stay a pond forever more because we can't allow a pond to emerge in this place because now there's a house right or there's a road that goes to the hospital. So we have to now deal with a very different set of constraints thinking about the landscape and how it changes in these dynamic systems. But yeah the beavers, the rice and the people were here existing in these changeable dynamic, ecological and cultural systems and relationships for a very long time. I love that beaver complex. I'm picturing a beaver high rise of just beavers going out in the day to go and make some landscape. Beaver briefcases, I don't know. I have an imagination. That's crazy. I love it. What are some lesser known facts about beaver that might surprise someone? It's very commonly said that beavers are monogamous and mate for life which is entirely an invented fact. So the research actually shows beavers do prefer having made it relationships but that doesn't necessarily mean that a beaver lodge with a beaver family is only ever a mated pair and they're offspring. That is very common but it's also common that if there's a lot of beavers in a particular area that the beaver lodge and the family might host another female beaver who helps take care of and raise the babies that are part of that family. And maybe she'll do that for a season or two and then move on but the shape of the beaver community and household is much more flexible than the idea of like mate for life. This is something clearly that you are passionate about and very knowledgeable about. How do you personally relate to the beaver? I was reading this beaver textbook that was published a few years ago and one of the areas they were discussing was about beaver behavior and specifically the sounds that beavers make. These particular scientists have recorded beaver sounds and then categorize them as particular types of sounds. And we have these stories about busy as a beaver and or sayings. But I think we don't necessarily always think of well what's the purpose? Why are beavers doing that work? And there's really two fundamental reasons I guess. The first is beavers do the work to change the habitat to create the ideal place for them. So it's safe from predators and they can access tasty snacks. Like those are really the most important things that they're trying to create. And then me too. Yeah, same. This is what I want is a nice warm dry cozy place and some tasty snacks. And so one of the sounds that's recorded of beavers inside the lodge are this what they call a soft chur which is how beaver adults talk to their babies. And so beavers they don't hibernate. They're not asleep but they stay in their lodge through the winter and they snuggle and they eat snacks and they like talk softly to their babies. And I think it was reading that that I at the time my daughter was very small and I felt very connected to that experience of just being snuggled in and close with your baby, you know, and talking softly to them. And the abundance of beauty and goodness that they share with all the other creatures who live in or around or take advantage of beaver ponds and complexes. There's a lot of generosity to that as well. And yeah, those are things that I think connect with me the strongest is how do I be a good mother? And you know, how do I teach my baby the things that she needs to know to walk in the world? How do I provide as well as I can for her? But also how do I teach her about the greater world and her responsibilities as a Nishinaabe person to her relatives? And that's part of what I look to Amic for because I feel like she just does that without fail no matter what happens. And I admire that a lot. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing those lessons. And good things to keep in mind as we move forward in trying to share this land with not just each other but with our animal kin including beaver. Yeah. Even the ones on the key mooch. Just hope they are making other babies. Uh-huh. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Aw, me quite. Thank you. Nikki Garrity is a PhD student at the Fairfax Beaver Lab at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She is enrolled in the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Hi there, Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters, the show that's part stand up, part quiz and all comedy. We take on the most debatable questions like is Mother's Day superior to Father's Day? Mother's Day is coming right up so you gotta remember the moms in your life and listen to this week's episode of The Debaters, wherever you get your podcasts. Still ahead. Ever found no marks on your trees, saplings bent in half, chew to a point like a spear? Or maybe you found a field nearby flooded? And the culprit? A darn beaver dam. Remaining today beavers and their dam building ways are a nuisance. But for Elvin First Rider, these creatures are masterminds. Since I've been alive it seems like we've been in a drought and being able to utilize these type of methodologies and also realizing beavers to help with water storage because water is a precious commodity and we need to find ways to keep it on the land. Elvin First Rider tells us how beaver dam analogs can stand in for the real thing. Today our Sacred Seven series continues with the beaver representing wisdom. Today there's somewhere between 6 and 12 million beavers in Canada, but prior to colonization hundreds of millions of beavers used to roam these lands. One key cause of their decline was the fur trade. From the 1600s into the 1800s trapping beaver pelts for the wealthy overseas helped shape the Canada we know today. Also from this time the Maty Nation was born. Brienne Lavaley Hacker helps Canadians learn and reflect on this time in her history. She's the executive director of the Festive Valdivoyager in Winnipeg, the largest francophone winter festival in western Canada. Brienne is reflecting on her Maty ancestors role in the fur trade and developing a new relationship with beaver. When we see iconography around Canadian and Canadian culture and what that looks like beaver gets used often. Whether it's a beaver that's dressed up as an RCMP office or a beaver that's on a logo. So beaver is quite prominent in how Canada markets itself. And so I think that that is interesting because beaver was one of the most sought after animals during the period of the fur trade. This fact always sits very heavy with me, but it took 12 beavers. to make one single top hat. So if you think about how many top hats were made and the demand for those types of hats in Europe at the time without any kind of regard for the life of the beavers that were taken to make those materials. And so it's a very different relationship with beaver. It's sort of transforming beaver from a relative into a commodity. For me as a meetee person, I think that that's important for us to think about and to wrestle with. As my tea people, we are indigenous. We are a new indigenous nation here in Red River. But with that, we also played a very significant role in the fur trade and on the impact that that had on the animals. And so for me as a meetee person, I was taught, you know, by my family growing up, by my mom, that, you know, we have to have respect for every living thing. Even rocks have past periods. And so now when I look back on that, and I think about the role of the meetee during the fur trade and how what are our responsibilities to beaver? As we look towards the next, you know, the future and the next generations that are going to come, I, they can't not have beaver. That's just not, it's not an option. So we have to do our part to make sure that we're living in a rusty and living in a good way with beavers so that we can all be here for the next, you know, however many years that we have left. The fur trade predates meetee people. So the fur trade started here in Western Canada as a result of European demand for fur. This is like late 1700s where you're starting to see an expansion of the fur trade as an industry across Canadian territories. So before you had this thing called Canada, you had the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company. So we talk a lot about those in my role now with Fessivade Ziborejard, but also as a meetee person, you know, you can't understand our history without understanding those two fur trade companies. And so voyagers were the ones who were doing the moving back and forth of the first. What's happening here is you're having all of these men coming in and a lot of the indigenous people here as they're seeing them, they're like, who the heck are these people? And why are there stories about how indigenous nations thought that they were all ghosts because they were just men and they didn't have any women and children with them. So it's like, how did, how were you here? But yeah, so you had all these men that were coming in to Red River and meeting indigenous women. You know, there's lots of different stories about how this happened, but you know, I like to believe that our ancestors were most of them I hope were in love and that they created something really beautiful because our nation is beautiful. And so you have all of this generation of descendants of voyagers and of the first nations women that are here. (upbeat music) The fur trade had an immense immense impact on beaver and beaver populations, beaver habitats. And so for me, I think it's really important as many people to think about, you know, what are my obligations towards beaver in the context of I wouldn't have my nationhood were not for beaver's lives being given up. We have some important things to think about into wrestle with. And so I think having opportunities to talk about it is important. Like I think we're almost hesitant to have too much of a critical eye on that history as my tea people because, you know, for a very good reason too. Like the denial of our nationhood, you know, the ways that the Canaan government virtually ignored my tea existence, like I think it's very important to not lose that either. But I don't think that should stop us from having a critical eye to that history and to how things have happened. It doesn't have to be something that's paralyzing. I think it can be something that's motivating. The reality is like there are messy parts, they very, very messy parts of colonization. And I think for sellers too, it's really important to think about like what are your obligations towards these animals? Because if you can't, like I strongly believe that if we can't even think about like what are our obligations to be ver, we're never going to be able to get to a place where we can think about our obligations towards each other as humans. [MUSIC PLAYING] Obviously while the matey had a lot of pants in the fur trade, they also led a resistance here on these territories. Thinking about bevers and their role, and I look a lot to the Yann Simpson's work of brief history of the blockade. When I think about that, about the role of beaver as the ones who put up blockades, I think about the role of the matey during the Red River resistance. So in 1867, you had Canadian Federation at the time. Canada was just Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. And the goal was really for Canada to become from coast to coast to coast. And to do that, you needed to be able to have control over the territories that went westward of Ottawa. Early Canada decided that it wanted to purchase what was called Rupert's Land. So Rupert's Land was the majority of Western Canada, the Hudson's Bay Company, sold Rupert's Land to Canada. So this is all happening. And you have the matey nation. You know, it's a new nation. There's a lot of energy. By 1870, you have a pretty established community here in Red River. There are about 12,000 matey people who were living in Winnipeg at the time. And during that time period, Luriel came back to Red River and created a professional government. And a lot of that had to do with surveyors who were sent here that were serving the land to be able to measure it out, to be able to sell it off, to settlers, or give it off to settlers in most circumstances. And with that, there's this very sort of famous moment of Luriel. There was a surveyor who came and had their chain out. And Luriel put his foot on the chain and stopped them. And from then on, there was a creation of a provisional government that when I think of that provisional government in form, I really think of it as a beaver down. It was this beaver down that created a bit of a protection around matey people for a time. It became a space of resistance. And whether it's a beaver down where a government structure, you can create structures to resist. And so whenever we have questions about where do we go next, what do we do? Look to the animals and see what they do. And learn from them because they have a lot of things to teach us. Brienne Lavelie Hacker is the executive director of the Festival de Voyager in Winnipeg. For fairly small animals, beavers can have a massive impact on the land. They redirect waterways and shape landscapes with their dams. Indigenous land stewards, like Elvin First Rider, are learning a lot by mimicking their beaver kin. Elvin is using structures called beaver dam analogs to restore ecosystems in Blackfoot territory. His work is helping to protect the land from the effects of climate change and strengthen his people's relationship to their sacred cousins with the big flat tails. Elvin, welcome to Unreserved. Right on. Thank you for having me. First of all, can you describe what a beaver dam analog looks like? We used spruce trees. We kind of made two rows of them. And then we weaved willows in between and then used the dirt from the surrounding area. And we compacted that in to create little BDAs. I think the largest one we did was probably eight feet long. And then the smallest one was just a few feet. And those were just to help with water storage on one of our tributaries. Since I've been alive, it seems like we've been in a drought and being able to utilize these type of methodologies and also utilizing beavers to help with water storage because water is a precious commodity. And we need to find ways to keep it on the land longer because we're coming into problems where people are having to haul water. And so similar to a beaver dam, it slows the water down to where it's able to create pools and create a back channel to where if it wasn't there, the water would just flow. And eventually go downstream somewhere. We're at least able to slow it down enough to where it stays on the land maybe a couple days longer, a couple weeks longer. And those people are able to utilize the water if they have horses or bison on the landscape. So it really helps with that capture of water and then that slowing down of water. Why is it so necessary to do that? When you say that people in the area need to utilize the water because there hasn't been a lot of water, particularly in your territory, what's the cause of that? You mentioned a drought. The waters are heavily regulated in Alberta. There's dams that occupy most of our major water ways and then canal systems. So those are redirecting the natural flow of the water. And they are almost kind of controlling it to where archibitaries don't get the water that they historically would I had. So being able to utilize these type of manmade beaver dams or beaver mimicry, when they do release water, we're able to capture it enough to keep it on the landscape a little longer than if they weren't there. And how do you decide where to build these BDAs? I work as an environment manager. So being out on the landscape, once we identify that ecosystem is unbalanced, we try to introduce corrective measures, whether that's cultural burning, beaver mimicry, or getting bison on landscape, or are different types of historical, indigenous land management techniques. So we try to think from a holistic perspective in how we treat the landscape and how we kind of interact with it and we utilize our elements and our kin. So like the bison and beaver to help with our land management. Amazing. So you should have returning to the old ways to find new ways to land manage. That's amazing. But why not leave it to the beavers? Why build dams? Well, they're not there, right? So I mean, if they're there, wherever there are beavers on the landscape, there's water. For some reason, they know where where water historically would be and they create these pinch points. And then they also have these historical kind of channels that they've utilized in historical colonies that they pass down that generational knowledge on how to keep that ecosystem thriving. So in our area, it's because they're not in the areas that they should be. If they are there, we try to create coexistence programs. So educating people on how to coexist with them. But then also if they are threatening infrastructure or they are threatening, say, price trees, we try to come up with a strategy on how to alleviate those. Whether that's installing pond levelers or wrapping trees or doing different type of coexistence strategies, they aren't pests. Without them there, there wouldn't be water. And it really helps the ecosystem thrive. What effects have you seen as a result of this project? Well, water storage for one, the one area like we went out, it was bone dry. And then the last two years, it's been able to store water enough to where they're able to utilize it for a few months or they're able to utilize it. I think this past year for the whole growing season or spring and summer seasons. So we've been able to see the direct impacts. And then we've also been able to see water being in place on the landscape, which helps the natural ecosystem. And it also enhances our traditional plants, so willows and sweet grass. And we've been able to see those type of direct impacts that help our Blackfoot way of life. But then also our contemporary way of life as well. Very cool. I imagine that it also lessens the instances of wildfires. There's been a few studies by Dr. Emily Fairfax that she looked at. Natural beaver colonies and their canal systems and their dams. And when there is a wildfire on the landscape, they're able to slow it down to where it creates a natural fire break. Right? This because that vegetation is green, it's waterlogged, so fires not able to run through the landscape where if it was not in place, that ecosystem would be dry. Yeah. How did you get involved in this in this world? So yeah, this being first nation or Blackfoot being out on the landscape by grew up in the environment, whether that was swimming or skating in the winters. So this being an outdoor person growing up and then kind of learning Blackfoot ecological knowledge, like what plants are grow where or what plants we utilize, what plants we don't utilize. And then also the recognition of coexistence. So my mother, she ensured that we didn't look at wildlife as a nuisance or a threat. If they were near, like say a bear we were in the mountains, a bear was nearby. She would just calmly say, well this is their place too that we need to respect them and just recognize that our kin, the wildlife and elements, need that space on the landscape so where they could drive. Our ecosystems are very important and being able to ensure that they remain as an important for our future generations. How has healing the land in your territory? What is it you love about that? Why do you love to heal the land? Well from Blackfoot way of life we're reciprocal. It's that take and give, give and take type of relationship and we thrive on this landscape for millennia's and we're able to evolve with it. So we're just trying to get back to that seasonal round relationship that Blackfoot people used to have. And what is this relationship that you know with beavers? What does this relationship taught you? Well just to respect them and but also respect people right? Like you've got to listen to what the people want as well. They do threaten property, they do threaten roads so if they're damning up a culvert or they're damning up area next to a house like that could be flooding an area or they could be taken down trees into power lines so really being able to balance that human perspective and then how to balance our ecological perspective. So finding that balance to coexist with them on the landscape is really important but then also the importance of beaver on the landscape. Like I said if they're present there's going to be water present in a lot of water and they really help with water storage and they help with a number of things like I said our traditional plants like we mint grows in that area where beavers are our sweet grass will grow on the edges of a beaver dam like that reciprocal relationship with willows they'll take the willows out but then that regenerates the willows and then that helps with our ceremonial way through sweats and stuff so they really play that kind of important role in our way of life. And in you know in the bigger picture what do you hope to see in you know a decade or two in terms of you know returning to cultural practices and in your land management efforts. So yeah I just hope to get back to that seasonal round type of land management techniques that we used to utilize so spring burning and fall burning to help with our grazing animals whether that's the cows and horses or deer's outbison on the landscape and then helping our our significant species or plants in our animal species that need to be on the landscape for a ceremonial way that they're thriving and that our grasslands are still here for our future generation so they could go out and enjoy the solitude of a grasslands being out early in the morning I'm in recovery and one of the main things that helped me recover was being able to go and connect with our grasslands being able to go and connect with our place names and the areas that still have that natural ecosystems and being out on the parries in the early morning doing a bird survey or just learning plat names or learning the black foot place name of that area has really helped me to connect and kind of stay on that healing journey like I was deep in the drug addiction and alcoholism and being able to have that area to connect with the natural ecosystem whether that's the mountains or our grasslands or our riparian areas like being able to go there and pray and lay offerings and then just connect personally with that area has really helped. So ensuring that our future generations have those type of ecosystems to go and connect with so they could, if they need it, heal, right, and become grounded and then connected with the area. A lot of our grasslands, riparian areas still have a lot of blackfoot cultural sites there and being able to go out there and pray and connect with those areas that continuation of the blackfoot way of life. So those type of natural ecosystems are really important and they're all connected and they all play an important role in how our landscape moves and shifts whether that's movement corridors for wildlife or for plant pollen. They play an important role and as we fragment these ecosystems that fragments are connection to them, it really kind of unbalances us as a person and then as a kind of ecological world. So being able to have that connectivity to oneself and then the ecological world is really important. Alvin, thank you so much for your time today. Yes. Alvin first writer is an environmental scientist and environmental manager for blood tri-blend management. He is blackfoot from the blood reserve in Alberta. That's all our time on radio and ditchness. This episode was produced by Kim Casher, Amanda Gear, Rianne Johnson and Elena Hudgeon's Lyle. I'm your favorite cousin from San Adir child coming at you from Winnipeg in Treaty 1 Territory. Get an Oscar from Nauho. For more CBC podcasts go to cbc.ca/podcasts.