Long before Europeans arrived, the Alberta landscape featured networks of ancient trails utilized by Indigenous peoples and animals since time immemorial. Despite archival documentation, little is remembered about these trails today. The Tsattine (Beaver River People), of the Peace Region, encounter unique challenges from ongoing colonialism including territorial displacement from both invading Europeans and incoming communities moving westward during the fur trade. This complex colonial history has nearly erased Tsattine presence and collective memory in their communities today. Our community-based project works to revitalize traditional Tsattine knowledge. ‘Counter-mapping’ is a collective approach that can incorporate Tsattine lived experiences and help visually emphasize their presence on the land, while incorporating traditionally-important Indigenous name-places, archaeological data, and narratives. This cartographic research will help to decolonize the settler-dominated perspectives inscribed on Albertan maps utilized today and is a crucial step for the revitalization of traditional Indigenous knowledge. Our collaborative, landscape-based approaches will support Tsattine in making cultural connections to memory, identity, and history of the past. Making data produced from this study readily available for the Tsattine, especially their youth, will contribute to community healing, empowerment, and help to support Indigenous sovereignty within their traditional lands. 

In archaeological work, it can be said that those who control the remains of cultural heritage in the present and how it is defined, preserved, accessed, and presented have a hand of power over the past, and, thus, over the future. For decades, Indigenous communities have asserted their rights to govern themselves. More recently, attention has increasingly focused on Indigenous sovereign rights to control and manage their knowledges, cultures, and histories. To move towards Indigenous data sovereignty, my research critically analyzes Inuvialuit heritage data governance structures by examining the existing approaches to managing Inuvialuit heritage data and the perspectives of diverse actors involved in this process. This paper explores intersections of legislation, policy, and practice within the Northwest Territories as they relate to Inuvialuit heritage. How do governance frameworks support or undermine Inuvialuit data sovereignty? What opportunities and challenges exist for implementing changes to support Inuvialuit data sovereignty? Specifically, I will outline how the staff at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Center work creatively within the bounds of their legal responsibilities to the colonial government in an attempt to fulfil their ethical obligations to the NWT’s Indigenous populations, including the Inuvialuit, as they wait for more transformative change.

Principles of Indigenous data governance such as OCAPⓇ and CARE center the rights of Indigenous Peoples in terms of controlling their data and cultural heritage. In this context, Indigenous nations have developed research governance laws and policies regarding the management, sharing, and curation of Indigenous data and cultural heritage. However, these structures have not been implemented in professional action, creating a practical disconnect between the expectations of Indigenous Peoples and heritage professionals. In this presentation, we will show this disconnection through a critical examination of Indigenous cultural heritage policy documents that outline and describe Indigenous expectations when it comes to research data and Canadian heritage legislation. We discuss current mechanisms such as co-management in light of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to fully control their heritage as affirmed in UNDRIP (2007). Specifically, we build on the work of Carroll et al. (2019), which sets out specific actions for Indigenous communities as well as western institutions to activate Indigenous data sovereignty and governance, to evaluate how Canadian institutions are responding to these calls for action. We argue that while mechanisms such as co-management in archaeology encourage conversations about Indigenous data, they do not explicitly facilitate Indigenous data sovereignty and governance of heritage.

The Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP) is a major pipeline project that runs from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia with a route that traverses S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō Traditional Lands) – the lower Fraser River Watershed in southwestern B.C. Prior to the introduction of UNDRIP, the Stó:lō Nation leadership adopted the Stó:lō Heritage Policy and associated Heritage Investigation Permitting system which applies within S’ólh Téméxw and has been implemented in its current form since 2003. In this presentation I focus on the impact of this Indigenous regulatory system as it was applied to the heritage and archaeological processes of TMEP’s planning and construction.  I focus particularly on the impact of the Stó:lō Heritage Policy during the final three years of pipeline construction as administered through a collective of Stó:lō rights holders – the 17 First Nation members of the S’ólh Téméxw Stewardship Alliance.  This occupation of the field of heritage stewardship lead to the avoidance of dozens of heritage sites and the establishment of archaeological standards, cultural protocols, spiritual guidance, mitigation measures, curation procedures and redress for sites that were unavoidably impacted by this major pipeline project – through the assertion of Indigenous right-holders as heritage stewards and regulators.

Chipewyan Prairie First Nation’s territory has witnessed the large-scale removal and destruction of cultural heritage sites in the face of rapid oil sands development. This has occurred within a regulatory context that excludes First Nations people and their knowledge from historical resources management, fails to conduct adequate monitoring of historical resources, and lacks regional heritage management plans. In this presentation we share the results of our two field seasons of archaeological excavation on Chipewyan Prairie reserve lands at Doltu´chogh. Using this as a case study, we explore the deficiencies of Alberta’s regulatory system for including First Nations in the management of historic resources and present Chipewyan Prairie’s Cultural Heritage Policy as a path forward. 

Archaeology and research in Ontario is largely carried out by cultural heritage contractors known as Consulting Archaeologists (CRM Cultural Resource Management) who fulfil the government requirements to assess archaeological resources prior to development. Indigenous community involvement in Ontario Archaeology has many challenges under current legislation and policies. Current approaches are non-collaborative, colonial, and destructive. Indigenous communities’ involvement in Archaeology is minimal and generally through roles as monitors during on-site fieldwork. Minimal engagement creates harm to Heritage resources, Indigenous knowledge and the care and control of significant sites. Archaeology must decolonize past practice by promoting collaborative Indigenous approaches that support social justice. Archaeology must go beyond seeking the permission of Indigenous communities when conducting exertion on ancestral objects and archaeology fieldwork. Creating a collaborative approach would foster a positive relationship in the development of a systematic and continuous practice that would address reconciliation. This would create autonomy, guiding a parallel path of decision making for best practices in the care and control of Ancestors and Heritage overall. Indigenous engagement during the planning stages contributes to the understanding of an archaeology project beyond the process of notification. This inclusion would promote equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal dignity for repatriation and rematriation.

Canadian and Provincial laws don’t protect and preserve remains of Indigenous ancestors, which perpetuates assimilation policy. For a century and half, Crown policies have erased sacred Indigenous ceremonies, governance structures and legal traditions.  By doing so the Crown is attempting to erase the very evidentiary basis on which Indigenous communities are required to prove their legal title to land and water. 

The survival of Indigenous nations and protection of their distinct cultures is tied to their ability to protect, preserve, and honour their past.  The Supreme Court of Canada, in Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests) [2004] ruled Aboriginal peoples were here when Europeans arrived and were never conquered.  In defining Aboriginal and Treaty rights and resolving the many outstanding claims the Crown must act honourably in preserving the evidence and proof of Indigenous people’s existence and occupancy of the lands on which they have traveled, lived and buried their ancestors since time immemorial.

Does the Crown’s assertion of the “best interest” doctrine or the “common good” supersede constitutionally protected Aboriginal and Treaty rights? How can Indigenous peoples prevent archeology and “Western science” being used to assimilate and invalidate Indigenous people’s history?