April 2019

June 4, 2019Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have held unique cultural, social, and economic identities that are embedded in the ecological and natural resources that are found throughout their lands. Historically, Indigenous peoples’ daily life cycles relied on the natural environment and the exploitation of its natural resources, which was undertaken in accordance with Indigenous cultural understandings. Indigenous hunting, fishing, and resource exploitation were all done in accordance with cultural values, which were commonly established with the goal of protection, sustainability of resources, and the importance of the ecological integrity of the environment.1 This unique relationship to the natural world also existed for the Mi’kmaq, who are Indigenous peoples of the area we know today as Eastern Canada. The Mi’kmaq also relied on the natural world for all elements of their daily life, ranging from sustenance to cultural practices, to entertainment, housing, and spirituality. There was virtually very little in the pre-contact Mi’kmaw world that did not consist of an element of the natural world in some capacity, and the Mi’kmaq saw themselves as merely one life being within a natural world of many. This Mi’kmaw spiritual belief of the natural world around them is referred to as the Mi’kmaw…