Post secondary institutions are a product of, and teach colonial ontology, epistemology and axiology. Because of this, there is significant under-representation of Indigenous students who pursue post secondary education. Of the students who pursue post secondary education, many do not finish because the institution is an unwelcoming environment. This thesis examines how to decolonize the post secondary institution using a Ktunaxa perspective. Decolonization of the post secondary system is necessary to develop and support a more welcoming environment for Indigenous students. Decolonization is also an important factor in ensuring that the education Indigenous students receive is not only relevant to them, but is an accurate representation of who they are as people and in society. The researcher interviewed Ktunaxa students both past and present and then provided evidence for common themes that surfaced through the interview process. General conclusions indicate that decolonization needs to permeate the entire post secondary system from policies and procedures, to general attitudes, to curriculum and staffing. / Graduate

abstract: The Kootenai River landscape of southwestern British Columbia, northwestern Montana and the very northern tip of Idaho helped unify the indigenous Ktunaxa tribe and guided tribal lifestyles for centuries. However, the Ktunaxa bands' intimate connection with the river underwent a radical transformation during the nineteenth century. This study analyzes how the Ktunaxa relationship with the Kootenai River faced challenges presented by a new understanding of the meaning of landscape introduced by outside groups who began to ply the river's waters in the early 1800s. As the decades passed, the establishment of novel boundaries, including the new U.S.-Canadian border and reserve/reservation delineations, forever altered Ktunaxa interaction with the land. The very meaning of the river for the Ktunaxa as a source of subsistence, avenue of transportation and foundation of spiritual identity experienced similar modifications. In a matter of decades, authoritarian lines on foreign maps imposed a concept of landscape far removed from the tribe's relatively fluid and shifting understanding of boundary lines represented by the river at the heart of the Ktunaxa homeland. This thesis draws on early ethnographic work with the Ktunaxa tribe in addition to the journals of early traders and missionaries in the Kootenai region to describe how the Ktunaxa way of life transformed during the nineteenth century. The works of anthropologist Keith Basso and environmental philosopher David Abram are used to develop an understanding of the powerful implications of the separation of the Ktunaxa people from the landscape so essential to tribal identity and lifestyle. Two different understandings of boundaries and the human relationship with the natural world clashed along the Kootenai River in the 1800s, eventually leading to the separation of the valley's indigenous inhabitants from each other and from the land itself. What water had once connected, lines on maps now divided, redefining this extensive landscape and its meaning for the Ktunaxa people. However, throughout decades of dominance of the Western mapmakers' worldview and in spite of the overwhelming influence of this Euro-American approach to the environment, members of the Ktunaxa tribe have been able to maintain much of their traditional culture. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2013

This thesis is a critical history about Cranbrook BC, the town where I grew up. It explores a historical origin story that historians have called the ‘Kootenai Uprising,’ as well as the annual regional holiday that commemorates that event - Sam Steele Days. By unpacking the symbols utilized in remembering history, applying new historical evidence towards the long accepted narrative and collaborating with Ktunaxa Nation, this thesis attempts to set the historical record straight, include Ktunaxa perspectives in the regional historical narrative and critically examine the practice of mythology in settler society as a way to both remember and forget the past. / Graduate / 2021-08-28