Canadian economic development is heavily reliant on natural resources in the north, which is home to many indigenous communities. Canada is facing increasing pressure to accommodate the cultural distinctiveness of indigenous peoples, and recognize their rights to self-determination within the boundaries of the state. This thesis investigates the customary land use system of Pikangikum First Nation in northwestern Ontario in the context of a community-led land use planning and resource management process, and explores the legacy and contemporary relevance of the Ontario trapline system which was introduced in 1947. Traplines represent the first intervention by the modern state in spatial organization of resource management by First Nations people outside reserves in northern Ontario. For this study, mixed methods were employed, including mapping, life history interviewing, observation in the field, and archival research. Results indicate that Pikangikum's access to resources and decision-making authority has continued to operate according to customary institutions that pre-date the traplines. While traplines were found to reduce flexibility of movement which characterized the customary system, they secured fur harvesting rights for First Nation groups, buffering Euro-Canadian encroachment on Pikangikum's traditional harvesting areas. Recent forestry activity on traplines held by Pikangikum residents indicated that traplines were no longer a sufficient buffer to intrusions. The planning initiative mandated the creation of novel community-level institutions. This process has in turn created new community-level management dilemmas, yet has had important consequences in terms of planning and management authority for Pikangikum \emph{vis-à-vis} state resource management. The main theoretical contributions of this thesis relate to the commons literature, and pertain both to strategic territorial robustness to interventions of the state and outside intruders, and to moral economic dimensions of community-managed commons undergoing rapid change.

Water infrastructure on Aboriginal communities in Canada, and specifically Northern Manitoba is in sub-standard condition. A recent Government of Canada study indicated that an estimated $1.5 billion would need to be spent to improve this infrastructure. September 2003 through July 2004, an examination of the effectiveness of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) in a Northern Manitoban Aboriginal community took place. This study was intended to identify and test an appropriate and effective solution for the lack of adequate wastewater treatment in these communities. The MBR system, employing a Zenon ZW-10 ultrafiltration membrane, was designed and constructed at the University of Manitoba. It was installed and tested in two phases at the Opaskwayak Cree Nation Reserve in Northern Manitoba. Phase I was a direct comparison between the pilot-scale MBR and the community’s existing Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) with sand filter. This phase occurred from September 2003 until December 2003. The MBR, with an SRT of 20-days and an HRT of 10 hours, outperformed the SBR in every category despite 2 mechanical/electrical failures that resulted in the loss of biomass from the MBR. The SBR/Sand filter combination had BOD, TSS, and TKN concentrations of 30.3 mg/L, 27.5 mg/L, and 8.4 mg/L, respectively. By comparison, the BOD, TSS, and TKN concentrations in the MBR effluent were <6 mg/L, <5 mg/L, and 1.3 mg/L respectively. Phase II, from March 2004 through July 2004, tested the overall MBR efficacy and intended to assess a novel remote control and monitoring system. The MBR SRT was adjusted to 40-days and, as expected, the MBR MLVSS concentration increased to a relatively stable 5000 mg/L. The MBR continued to provide high quality effluent with some exceptions. Despite the 0.034 μm pore size, the total coliforms and TSS measured in the effluent were higher than in Phase I. This indicates a compromised membrane, faulty sampling procedures, or biological regrowth downstream of the membrane. This failure could point to the need for some form of tertiary disinfection. Also in Phase II, a remote control and monitoring program was implemented. The controlling PC was controlled via the internet using pcAnywhere software. The software allowed for real-time monitoring and complete control of the pilot system. In conclusion, the pilot-scale MBR yielded consistent, high quality wastewater effluent and this would benefit the pristine environments existing in Manitoba’s north. The potential hands-free operation could be utilized to provide support to communities lacking sufficient wastewater treatment know-how.

This thesis examines attempts to transform access to land and housing in First Nations (‘Indian Reservations’) in Canada through the mechanism of market development. This initiative, proposed by the Government of Canada to First Nations, is a deliberate shift away from socially funded housing to owner occupied housing as a way to increase wealth and address social conditions. The thesis begins with a brief statement of how recent policy shifts in First Nation housing have been justified by neoliberalism, and outlines policy and planning interventions consistent with neoliberalism to develop First Nation homeownership programs. Next, the thesis examines market development in Indigenous lands internationally and draws on lessons learned that may take shape in First Nations. Finally, the thesis examines how interventions in First Nations have been discussed in recent policy documents leading up to the Kelowna Accord signed in 2005, and reports on critical discourse analysis of the documents that were authored by the signatories to support negotiations on the Accord. The purpose is not so much to evaluate the interventionist policies as it to highlight what they attempt to achieve, and to identify some of the challenges they present to planners. Specifically, the thesis addresses the question: what underlying meanings have been embedded in the documentation supporting negotiations on the land questions between Ottawa and Aboriginal organisations? To this end, it extends the analysis by Skelton and Ribeiro (2006), which raises concerns in relation to social rights, Aboriginal governance and social relations that may accompany the introduction of land markets. Findings show how powerful policy discourses shaped by ideological beliefs privilege particular market forms. However, the emphasis on developing market mechanisms fails to address fundamental issues, such as the underlying cause of poverty and homelessness in First Nations. Such insights challenge current direction in First Nations housing policy and calls for socially responsive and community-based solutions to housing that are relevant to culture, context and place.

First Nations people have experienced dramatic life changes in a very short period of time. The process of change was not a conscious decision made by First Nations peoples but rather the result of successive stages of European contact and formal colonization by what is now the government of Canada. With such constant changes and the history of assimilation that overshadows the Aboriginal population, it is becoming difficult for Elders to sustain their roles within the family unit and in their community as a whole. This study provides a description of the oral accounts of Elders living in two remote First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario. I conducted three summers of ethnographic research that involved participant observation of local cultural practices and 12 semi-structured interviews from 2009 to 2011. Guided discussions with Elders about their lives and their relationship to the land provide important insight into local cultural and personal values. Three primary themes emerged from the conversations with the Elders about life during the childhood: the intense physicality of life in the past, the connection between health and local foods and the changing role of Elders. Findings suggest that Elders are eager to transmit their knowledge to provide a healthier lifestyle for future generations. In addition, I provide a description of the current living conditions of Elders in both communities. First Nations Elders, who were once crucial to the survival of a band, are now facing the highest degree of vulnerability and are desperately searching for a new identity that gives them purpose. Meeting with Elders in their homes and at several community events provided insight into their lives and the challenges they are currently facing. These challenges and experiences are hardly one-dimensional, as they each have varying degrees of family support, financial stability and housing conditions. However, the consistent thread in all the cases was the ongoing struggle Elders have faced trying to reconcile traditional perspectives with the growing dominance of contemporary western lifestyle practices.

This thesis presents a secondary analysis of findings from a larger community-based participatory research (CBPR) project with the Battleford Agency Tribal Chiefs (BATC) First Nations reserves in Northern Saskatchewan. Initiated at the request of BATC, a three year CBPR project, entitled: “Resilience to Offending: Listening to Youth On-Reserve,” aimed to identify, analyze and disseminate local knowledge about on-reserve youth resilience. This larger project intended to capture the perspectives of First Nations youth, Elders and community stakeholders who work with youth at risk of offending, by identifying culturally specific aspects of resilience. Using arts-based and mixed methods, the focus of this larger study was on personal, relational and environmental risks faced by the youth and the impact of formal and informal services on reserve on youth resilience. Guided by a postcolonial and anti-oppressive framework, this thesis provides a secondary analysis of the in-depth qualitative interviews with the fourteen stakeholders and Elders who work with youth. Using a constructivist grounded theory, this thesis explores the stakeholder’s and Elders’ perceptions of formal and informal services in First Nations communities as well as issues related to First Nations governance. The emerging framework brought to light the continued impact of the colonization process on the federal government’s interactions with First Nations’ members, communities, Aboriginal leadership and governance structures. The research questions for this thesis were: How is the colonization process at play in the federal government’s interactions with First Nations’ members, communities, Aboriginal leadership, and governance structures?”, “What are the impacts of the colonization process in terms of the lived experience of individual First Nation members?”, and “What are the impacts of the colonization process in terms of community life on reserve?”. With these questions in mind, interpretation of the stakeholder interviews resulted in three general themes including: the continued impact of historical and systemic issues on the wellbeing of youth, adults and entire communities; colonized identities, which stakeholders referred to as the internalization of colonization through experiences of othering, and the resulting loss of self-esteem, lack of sense of belonging, and disconnection from traditional culture; and continued oppression through contemporary institutional means, most notably the relationship of control that exists between First Nations communities and the federal government. This thesis concludes that colonialism and neocolonialism, or the processes of domination and control by one group over another, and the continued control of colonized groups, respectively, are still very prevalent within the lives of Aboriginal people, coming to effect their social environments, their lived realities, and the policies and discourses pertaining to them. The institutionalized racism that constituted the colonial process, and continuing neocolonialism, influences the policies, programming and relations regarding Aboriginal people. This control is solidified through the contriving of Aboriginal identity and governance: the federal government still has the ultimate control over legal Aboriginal identity through delegation of titles (such as status Indian or non-status Indian), and the rights and disadvantages associated with each title. Despite the establishment of Aboriginal self-government, community stakeholders and Elders shed light on ways First Nations people on BATC reserves are still answerable to the federal government while they continue to suffer marginality related to housing, employment, socioeconomics and racialization.

This qualitative study of six Indigenous youth HIV prevention peer educators is presented to help understand how Indigenous youth perceive HIV/AIDS education. The research used a semi-structured questionnaire as a guide to conducting in depth individual interviews. The research followed decolonizing methodologies to explore the views of peer educators about the HIV/AIDS education they delivered, and the issues around perceptions of infection and risk. It examines the youth’s views on peer education, the importance of cultural revitalization in relation to health education and how peer education can be most effective. This study has included examples of programs with marginalized communities in several parts of the world and compared them with Indigenous experiences in Canada, in order to develop an understanding and recommendations of the most effective approaches in Indigenous youth health interventions. There have been very few research studies on Indigenous youth involvement in STD interventions. Indigenous youth have only been marginally included in the design of most of the social programming they receive, even though they have the unique knowledge, skills, language and cultural perspective necessary to reach their peers. HIV infection is on the rise with Indigenous youth because of historical and ongoing socio-economic and political inequities. Therefore, it is crucial that young Indigenous people be welcomed as integral participants in the strategies for improving Indigenous health.

This research study considered the experience of northern helping practitioners in providing trauma support in isolated communities in northern BC and Yukon. In these communities, access to specialists in the field of trauma counselling is severely restricted due to distance from main centres. Economic and cultural factors leave the essential support of survivors of trauma to helping practitioners in various fields with varying levels of training and supervision (Boone, Minore, Katt, & Kinch, 1997; Trippany, Kress, & Wilcoxon, 2004). Many northern communities have experienced historical trauma and continue to experience intergenerational trauma, contributed to by current psychosocial conditions linked to the legacy of colonization (Brave Heart, 2003; Duran, Duran, Brave Heart & Davis-Yellow Horse, 1998; Tafoya & Del Vecchio, 1996). In remote communities, helping practitioners may be working in their home communities, sometimes sharing similar trauma experiences to that of their clients (Morrissette & Naden, 1998). Helping practitioners in the North are also hired from “outside” to provide service to communities, arriving with limited knowledge of the specific context of the communities. These helping practitioners may be put at personal and professional risk of developing secondary traumatic symptoms from repeated exposure to clients’ trauma in the helping relationship (Baird & Jenkins, 2003). There is little information available on professional and paraprofessional workers providing this type of support in the North. Using a narrative inquiry process, the stories of eight helping practitioners were analyzed using a three phase analysis based on the approach developed by Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zilber (1998). The narratives were summarized into experience portraits, painting a picture of eight very different experiences and responses to those experiences. The content analysis was presented as content sketches that made-up the experience portraits. The themes that emerged from the data indicated the effects on practitioners and the strategies used by practitioners in maintaining their ability to practice under challenging conditions. Ten categories provided a structure for arranging the data. Five metathemes were interpreted from the narratives: helping takes over life, humanity, respectful engagement, invested and embedded, profoundly affected, and belief.

For many people across the world human rights are understood as a modern discourse of emancipated humanism. What is less understood is how human rights, in certain contexts, can be more useless than useful, more harmful than helpful. This thesis argues that human rights, in the context of Indigenous/Settler relations in Canada, are limited. Human rights in the context of Indigenous/Settler relations in Canada are often construed as a conflict between individual versus collective human rights. This binary framework distracts from the more important question of how rights operate in a colonial context and how they fail to address the material inequity and psychological dysfunction that stems from colonial domination and present day colonial processes. This thesis argues that in order to understand the symbiosis between rights and tragedy we must first look at the context in which human rights are being used and question the actual work they are doing, in this case, for Indigenous peoples living on reserve in Canada.

This thesis is a bridge to healing Between my grandmothers who have gone on before me And me and my daughter I've been told that I have a keen ability to expose and look at both sides of the story. No matter how ugly the truth may look I am likely to name it, voice it and admit it. This thesis looks at both sides of an Aboriginal adoption and reconnecting story. By both sides I do not mean the sides of the government and First Nations people. I will not give the government such pleasure to voice their opinion to my story. I will tell the sides of the stories of women who have been affected by the adoption scoops. The women, connected through genetics and sisterhood, all have similar roots but different stories. Different stories with different truths.

More than 70% of First Nations youth feel pushed out of the mainstream public school system because their ways of being. knowing, and doing are not reflected in the curricula. This issue is compounded by the disconnect known as deculturation that exists between Indigenous culture and Indigenous peoples. This thesis addresses two questions in an effort to find an alternative curriculum that works for First Nations youth. The questions include: 1.What are traditional knowledge and teaching methods that can serve as the basis for the expression of an Indigenous philosophy and environmental ethic within an urban environmental education program? 2. What themes can be identified that could aid in the creation of a framework for an environmental education program based on traditional ways of teaching and learning? This study used a hermeneutic phenomenology and Indigenous research methodology. Six First Nations educators were interviewed and four major themes were synthesized during the analysis of the textual data: the importance in Aboriginal education of discovering one's identity; placing the human being at the centre of education: relationship (including spirituality): and community involvement. The resulting curriculum is not designed to meet provincially prescribed learning outcomes, but outlines a way to deliver an Indigenous education that is rooted in Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies.