“Where the Moose Were”: Fort William First Nation’s Ancestral Land, Two–Eyed Seeing, and Industrial Impacts

Abstract

A two-eyed seeing approach considered Indigenous knowledge and Western science towards eco–health, reconciliation and land back with Fort William First Nation (FWFN) in Ontario, Canada. To map traditional land use, occupancy, and ecological knowledge, we interviewed 49 FWFN members about their hunting, fishing, trapping, plant harvesting, cultural sites, and sacred gatherings on their ancestral land. Their traditional land use and occupancy includes more than 7.5 million ha of their ancestral land. The FWFN members reported many industrial impacts on their reserve and ancestral land. We analyzed the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) change over time on FWFN’s ancestral land and the Thunder Bay Pulp and Paper Mill (TBPP)’s National Pollutant Release Inventory data to investigate the FWFN members’ ecohealth concerns. The NDVI analysis revealed large tracts of degraded FWFN’s ancestral land due to logging areas, mining claims, settlements, and paper mills. Mining claims and greenstone belts occupy a quarter of the FWFN members’ ancestral land. The TBPP mill dumped pollution into the Kaministiquia River upstream and upwind of the FWFN community, exposing FWFN members to kilotons of cancerous and other toxic chemicals each year for over a century. Resource extraction and pollution in Northwestern Ontario negatively impacted the human health and ecosystem integrity of FWFN, requiring reconciliation by restoring damaged land and preventing pollution as the starting point for land back. The first step to land back is ending the environmental racism of the TBPP’s pollution directed downstream and downwind of FWFN and protecting ancestral land against logging, mining, and other extractive industries.