The Nanaimo Coalfield was a major coal producer between 1852 and 1968. During this time, coal was mined extensively in the area of South Wellington. The quality of groundwater in South Wellington may be adversely affected as mine site abandonment causes a deterioration of the hydrological system. This thesis employed a case-control study and examined the quality of drinking water and geographic variations in health of residents in two communities on Vancouver Island, South Wellington and Cinnabar, The control group, situated in Cinnabar, derives its water from the City of Nanaimo. However private groundwater wells supply drinking water to the study group, South Wellington. Abandoned coal mine workings degrade groundwater and in turn may affect the public through non-point source pollution. Disease and ill health are more common in South Wellington than in Cinnabar. The analyses of well water samples in South Wellington have revealed high levels of total dissolved solids and total conform, aluminum, antimony, arsenic, cadmium, iron, lead, selenium, sodium and thallium. Each of these elements has been linked to various diseases and disorders and may be predictive of ill health in South Wellington.

Successful management of coastal ecosystems requires an understanding of the distribution of key food web species through space and time relative to environmental predictors. Here, I examined the habitat use of an important forage species, the Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus), using an inductive habitat modeling approach. I examined the presence/absence of Young-of-the-Year Pacific sand lance in the intertidal/shallow subtidal habitat of Barkley Sound, British Columbia. I determined sand lance occurrence using a beach seine at low tide, which was preferred to visual and intertidal digging detection methods due to its high detection frequency, ease of use, and ability to physically capture sand lance. I constructed models using environmental data measured at two different scales: 1) empirically measured environmental data (site-specific level) and 2) GIS derived environmental data extracted with a 200m buffer (landscape level). For each scale, I employed both logistic regression and classification tree modeling procedures to construct habitat models of sand lance occurrence at 55 study sites sampled during the summer of 2003. At the site-specific level, both logistic regression and classification tree models performed similar, however, classification trees were easier to construct and interpret as well as revealing interactions among variables undetected by logistic regression. Based on a deviance pruned classification tree, Grain Size Mean, Intertidal Eelgrass Presence, Absence, Major Substrate Low Intertidal, and Grain Size Sorting influenced sand lance occurrence at this scale, with importance values of 100, 79, 75, and 61 respectively. Standardized importance was based on the overall change in node impurity in the classification tree for each variable. At the landscape level, only Coastline Density was significantly related to sand lance occurrence, however, it was difficult to suggest this variables direct relation to sand lance habitat use. Overall, the habitat modeling approach identified important environmental variables influencing sand lance habitat selection at two different scales and stressed the utility of field data to construct and confirm these models.

Themes of hope and despair are central in the care of child and youth survivors of abuse trauma. Acts of abuse can disrupt a person's hope while shaking beliefs about purpose and meaning. Part of a trauma therapist's role is to implicitly offer one's own hopeful faith in possibility to clients, especially in moments of client despair. However, trauma therapy offers a challenge to therapists, prompting us to question our own meaning frameworks. A central aspect of this challenge involves negotiating hope and despair. Through my research I consider issues of hope and despair in practice for therapists supporting survivors of trauma, and ponder the role of narratives beliefs and ways of being - in cultivating sustainable practice. In this study I explore the central question: `how can therapists negotiate hope and despair in a way which fosters resilience and sustainable practice?' This thesis interest was born from personal experience as a junior therapist struggling with hope and despair. I researched the subject through creative self-reflection followed by interview conversations with 8 more-senior therapists working with trauma survivors. Interpretation of the conversations generated the following. The participants' negotiations involve (a) re-imagining hope and despair through process and paradox, from a stance of possibility and uncertainty, and (b) re-imagining health as non-attachment, non-aversion, and engagement. In addition, the conversations with participants suggest/s that practitioners can maintain an engaged non-attachment through narratives for practice which (a) distinguish between suffering and pain (b) describe and encourage innate human resilience, (c) affirm the power of the relationship as a site of re-connection (d) reflect a grounded view of change processes, and (e) promote playfulness in the process. Finally, participants develop resilience through processes of congruence - narrating their lives through (a) practicing reflective engagement with challenge and (b) infusing their practice with this learning. This process forges a connected, transformative story of (c) client and therapist as two travelers and (d) life challenges as useful teachers. In short, participants negotiate narratives which offer them a meaningful response to the challenges of therapy; these narratives reflect a desire to be of deep service for others from a position of personal aliveness and a vision of enhanced community health. Following the explication of the themes detailed above, further implications and recommendations for fostering practitioner and community resilience are provided.

Through a qualitative, interdisciplinary inquiry of six Indigenous scholars who had completed or were currently enrolled in Education. Social Work or Family Studies doctoral programs, this study explores Indigenous methodologies with a specific focus on methodologies flowing from a Nehiyaw Kiskeyihtamowin (Plains Cree knowledges). The study asked six scholars. four being of Cree ancestry, if they believed that there was a distinctive Indigenous methodological approach to research and if so what did it entail. Secondly, the study inquired into how Indigenous knowledges informed their research decisions and the applications of those decisions. Finally, given that each of these individuals were, or had been, enrolled in western doctoral programs this inquiry asks what were the challenges of using Indigenous methodologies based on an Indigenous worldview. Findings from this study include an assertion of Indigenous methodologies and that this is a relational approach to research: that Indigenous methodologies flow from an Indigenous worldview while needing to be congruent with specific cultural ways and protocols of the differing nations; that Indigenous methodologies encompass an inclusive, broad range of knowing which demands a holistic interpretation of ethical considerations; and that Indigenous methodologies includes decolonizing theory and action. In terms of application, the six individuals of this study affirm that research decisions (e.g. research methods) need to be congruent with the respective cultural epistemologies. Through their research stories. they provide examples of how they achieved this congruency in their methodology. Further, the study illustrates significant factors, such as allies, in nurturing the advancement of this approach to research in western universities. To inquire into this topic, an Indigenous methodology flowing from a Nehiyaw epistemology was used. This approach honours a relational worldview involving both the stories of the research participants as well as a reflective analysis of the researcher's experiences in relationship to kin, kith and community during this journey. To ensure congruency with Nehiyaw epistemology, internal and external efforts were made by the researcher involving her own preparations to undertake this research including adherence to cultural values and protocols. The findings of the research are presented in two manners. The primary presentation is through story which honours the interpretive, oral tradition of Nehiyaw culture. Secondly, to identify recommendations from this research, emergent themes were identified and thematically grouped.

This interdisciplinary research paper explores story and metaphor of "trans/formative identities" as a basis for challenging normative racial and gender categories. Autoethnography is used as a method for weaving the author's own experience as a mixed-race Indigenous person with academic research and theory. The discussion is contextualized by an analysis of institutionalized colonial relationships framing Indigenous knowledge in academia and the role of Indian status in defining Indigenous identity. Six mixed-race and transgender or genderqueer people in Victoria and Vancouver. British Columbia are interviewed and the themes from their shared experiences are used as the basis for further understanding trans/formative identities. These themes are: irony; contradiction and impossibility; stories of home and family; naming and language; embodied negotiations, contextual selves, and; artistic visions.

The research presented in this dissertation attempted to determine whether climate variability is critical to sea level changes in coastal BC. To that end, a number of statistical models were proposed to clarify the relationships between five climate variability indices representing large-scale atmospheric circulation regimes and sea levels, storm surges, extreme winds and storm track variability in coastal BC. The research findings demonstrate that decadal to inter decadal climatic variability is fundamental to explaining the changing frequency and intensity of extreme atmospheric and oceanic environmental variables in coastal BC. The trends revealed by these analyses suggest that coastal flooding risks are certain to increase in this region during the next few decades, especially if the global sea-levels continue to rise as predicted. The out come of this study emphasis the need to look beyond climatic means when completing climate impact assessments, by clearly showing that climate extremes are currently causing the majority of weather-related damage along coastal BC. The findings highlight the need to derive knowledge on climate variability and change effects relevant at regional to local scales to enable useful adaptation strategies. The major findings of this research resulted in five independent manuscripts: (i) Sea level responses to climatic variability and change in Northern BC. The Manuscript (MC) is published in the Journal of atmospheric and oceans (AO 46 (3), 277-296); (ii) Extreme sea-level recurrences in the south coast of BC with climate considerations. This MC is in review with the Asia Pacific Journal of Climate Change (APJCC); (iii) Extreme sea-surge responses to climate variability in coastal BC. This MC is currently in review in the Annals of the AAG (AN-2009-0098); (iv) Extreme wind regime responses to climate variability and change in the inner-south-coast of BC. This MC is published in the Journal of Atmosphere and Oceans (AO 47 (1), 41-62); (v) Sensitivity of winter storm track characteristics in North-eastern Pacific to climate variability. This manuscript is in review with the Journal of Atmosphere and Oceans (AO (1113)). The findings of this research program made key contributions to the following regional sea level rise impact assessment studies in BC: (i) An examination of the Factors Affecting Relative and Absolute Sea level in coastal BC (Thomson et al., 2008). (ii) Coastal vulnerability to climate change and sea level rise, Northeast Graham Island, Haida Gwaii (formally known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), BC (Walker et al., 2007). (iii) Storm Surge: Atmospheric Hazards, Canadian Atmospheric Hazards Network - Pacific and Yukon Region, C/O Bill Taylor.

This thesis situates women as stakeholders in Canada’s post-war suburban development in their roles as designers, builders, owners and investors. By 1949, 60 percent of properties in the Municipality of Oak Bay, a suburb of Victoria, British Columbia, were held in female ownership. Most women owned houses jointly with their husbands. Others owned houses, vacant lots, commercial buildings and investment properties solely in their name. To understand the role that women played in shaping the built landscape of this post-war Canadian suburb between 1940 and 1960, information for each female owned property, along with a 20 percent sample, was collected from the municipality’s 1949 property assessment roll. Results were matched with a Geographic Information System (GIS) to illustrate the spatial characteristics of these ownership patterns and building permit records were examined. In-depth interviews were conducted with eleven women who spoke about their own or a relative’s experiences as property owners.

This thesis explores whether reviving pre-reserve Nehiyaw forms of power represents a strategy of self-determination. To start, an understanding of colonialism is advanced based on the idea that colonialism is an intersectional process that involves both the actions perpetrated from a settler society unto Indigenous peoples, and the legacy of dysfunction that is left with Indigenous peoples as a result of colonization. Second, an understanding of pre-reserve Nehiyaw forms of power is developed, with a focus on how the interaction of legitimacy and authority can be used to explain pre-reserve Nehiyaw forms of power. Finally, I examine if reviving pre-reserve Nehiyaw forms of power represents a strategy of self-determination that addresses the intersectional nature of colonialism. I argue that it does, but in order to revive pre-reserve forms of power we must displace band councils as the site where we imagine a revival of pre-reserve Nehiyaw forms of power.

This Photovoice study engaged Indigenous girls, aged fifteen, in a participatory study to explore their knowledge of commercial sexual exploitation. Through photos, writing, and discussion four major themes emerged: i. all the participant-researchers had directly experienced and witnessed various incidences of sexual exploitation; ii. the sexual exploitation of Indigenous girls is pervasive and normalized; iii. racialization impacts on life as an Indigenous girl, and finally; iv. friendly and accessible services are critical to preventing and intervening in sexual exploitation but are inadequate. Overall the findings that emerged from the girls’ photos and stories indicate that in view of historic conditions and ongoing racialization and sexualization Indigenous girls are very vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Broad-level change is needed in order to eventually eradicate the sexual exploitation of Indigenous girls. In the meantime, there is the continued need for immediate, community support for girls in regard to sexual exploitation. More research engaging Indigenous girls directly in knowledge creation is needed.

In this thesis, I work from a poststructural feminist framework to examine the pedophile monster as a Western cultural discourse. I argue that in the formation of this discourse, medical and moral discursive strands are conflated to produce the pedophile monster as a subject. I undertake a genealogical exploration to trace the historical emergences of the pedophile monster discourse from the Victorian Era forward. Here I critically deconstruct two contemporary forms of media as case studies to illustrate the current work of the pedophile monster discourse in distributing responsibility for child sexual abuse between subhuman monsters, mothers and the child victims themselves. I argue that, with the exception of their role as patriarchal defender, men are artfully neglected in the construction of commercial child sexual abuse as a social problem. I then make use of a Foucauldian discourse analysis to study text from online forums and chat rooms used by men to discuss commercial child sexual exploitation. I was specifically interested in the discursive strategies used by the men to construct their subjectivities in relation to that of the pedophile monster. This thesis is an attempt to challenge the dominance of the pedophile monster discourse by implicating men in the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children beyond the polarised categories of protector and monster. My goal in this thesis is to bring visibility and shift responsibility to men who perpetrate commercial sexual exploitation of children.