God Opens Doors by Angelique Merasty Levac (with Mack McColl)

Angelique Merasty Levac is author of a book entitled God Opens Doors, Kisemanitow Peyohtena Iskwahtem, in print September 2012. The publisher is Indian Life Books of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and they have followed her art and business career and admired her Christian walk for many years. 


God Opens Doors – Intertribal Life Ministries

Angelique with granddaughter Mercedez

     

"I was born at Midnight Lake, Manitoba," said Angelique Merasty Levac. "It is bush and nobody lives there,” in the far northern reaches of central Canada.

Marcus Alfred, a monumental carver on the west coast of North America

RIP Marcus Alfred

McColl Magazine Features: In Memory of Marcus Alfred; Second Video Features his Dad, Wayne Alfred, Alert Bay Artists of the Coastal Tradition

Hydropower development is about relationship and early stage planning

Veresen Inc. is engaged in construction of a hydropower project in northwest B.C. that speaks to the development opportunities in this area of the province. The pace of development is indicated by the demand for skilled labour in a growing number of projects in the northwest Pacific. Alexi Zawadzki, Vice President, Hydropower Development, Veresen Inc says a 20 MW project cluster is under construction on Dasque Creek and nearby Middle Creek.
 

“We signed three Impact Benefit Agreements with Kitselas, Lax Kw'alaams, and Metlakatla First Nations. The consultation process took three years with Kitselas and Coast Tsimshian business developers,” says Zawadzki, “who are savvy on training and contract opportunities. We were flexible in discussion and careful in finalizing these IBAs so as to consider the many interests came to the table from each organization. I am very pleased to see a new community bus for Lax Kw’alaams and a rescue vessel in the works for Metlakatla, made possible by our project.”
 

First Nation contractors have been clearing the penstock and access routes for a year. The timeline of the Dasque Project calls for completion in 2013. “We had a tough winter last year plus flooding issues on Skeena which threatened the 20 km access road. We had to build up the road during freshet, which was conducted by a First Nations contractor. Winter road maintenance was conducted by a local top-notch First Nation contractor, which we hired for a second year.” With two large dumps of snow already the crew has been out maintaining access to the construction site for a few weeks already.

 

“We have a turbine installed at Middle Creek,” says Zawadzki, “and we are putting in penstock on both projects. Soon we will be starting construction of the water intakes,” on this $75 million run-of-river hydro development with a 40 year electricity purchase agreement with BC Hydro. When the power comes on stream depends on a 20 km transmission line being finished, “which is relatively a simple build on this project.” The transmission line interconnects at the Skeena substation near Terrace.

Veresen is B.C.-oriented in pursuit of new energy, “What we find is a lot of opportunities for First Nation business to get involved, including civil works, and transmission line construction, and it ought to be a focus in the education system to build the skill sets and capacity for working in construction. In this territory there is a concentration on forestry in First Nations and it's done them well but there is an opportunity to diversify by expanding skill sets into construction in order to mitigate the ebb and flow of the lumber markets. There are opportunities in project management, scheduling, concrete works, earth works, electrical/mechanical and projects across the province are demanding people with construction skills.”

Recruiting First Nation personnel is integral, “We have an office administrator in Terrace from Kitselas who is a very competent, well- educated professional. However, had she had difficulty finding the right school until she landed at Capilano University in Vancouver. It's a matter of finding the right fit for learning.”
 

Veresen Inc is working on another hydro development located north of Squamish. The Culliton Project is in the permitting stage, and the company has an IBA with the Squamish First Nation that has developed over a number of years, providing once more a process for contract opportunities, employment and training. That's a $50 million investment by Veresen into an area that contains a strong First Nation vision, “The Squamish have great understanding of the investment and top leadership in balancing economic development and environmental stewardship.”
 

Veresen Inc operates across North America building new infrastructure that deliver jobs. Over 350 people have been put to work thus far in the Dasque project, he says, “and it will add value to community. We try to hire locally for there are advantages in having people who know the terrain, the relationships, and where the skills are available. We are in a situation in the northwest Pacific where a lot of other projects have drained the labour pool. It’s great to see people back to work in the north.”
 

Veresen sees a bright future in power development in BC and does it in various ways, “We do wind power, gas-fired power generation, and hydro throughout the country and we see a bright future in partnerships with First Nation groups. We always engage First Nations group at the earliest stage, when the project is just a concept. The people we deal with have a depth of understanding in culture, environment, and land use planning. We have a history of conducting environmental and permitting work with First Nations service providers. This allows us to plan projects to fit the landscape. At the end of the day, it’s about relationships, doing our best by others, and if something fails we have a level of trust to fall back on.”

Minigoo Fisheries alive in lobster fishery once again

Minigoo Fisheries re-opened for business in the month of September 2012. It may be a modest celebration but this is a major achievement. Lobster licenses and processing will operate under the same name thus everything was sorted out to the satisfaction of trustees and business in the lobster and fish plant is proceeding as of the first week of September 2012, says Don Bernard, general manager. They employ 70 people at the Minigoo Fisheries processing facility. It is nine months a year of employment for members of the Mi’Kmaq Confederacy of PEI (MCPEI) and others in the surroundings of Lennox Island First Nation. That is the hope.

Business success lies within the grasp of Chief Darlene Bernard who has history and antiquity on her side. The fisheries in these waters thrived before Europeans arrived in North America, when ancestors of today's Mi'kmaq people came in ocean-going canoes to harvest shellfish and lobster from the shallow bays and harbours of Prince Edward Island. Two decades ago this ancient practice was revived by the Supreme Court of Canada. The court ruled that aboriginal people enjoyed treaty rights giving them access to the resources of Canada to earn "a modest living". Aboriginal nations began entering the lobster fishery along Canada's Atlantic Ocean coastline, fishing the lobster grounds alongside non-aboriginal boats; selling their catch to processing plants scattered across Prince Edward Island.

A number of licences were awarded to the Lennox Island First Nation. Boats owned by the band, as well as independently owned vessels, became participants in the fishery. And then, one morning in early August, 2009, two people met to discuss the idea of setting up and operating a lobster processing plant on lands owned by the Lennox Island First Nation. Chief Darlene Bernard was interested in the potential of a for-profit processing industry located on Lennox Island to provide employment for her people, and earn money for additional economic development to their benefit. Chief Bernard harboured a dream of creating greater economic self sufficiency for her people as a way to breaking the cycle of dependency under the Indian Act, which held them back.
Jon Osmann Aranson was native to Iceland, that Norse island in the North Atlantic where fishing is in the genes of every inhabitant. From his teen years he worked in the commercial fishing industry, a career that took him to Russia, China and Japan before he fetched up managing the processing plant in Prince Edward Island. Aranson had a dream to create a processing plant from scratch; to put his international experience to work designing, equipping and operating a processing plant to exacting specifications that would meet and exceed international standards.

\The dreams of these two from dissimilar backgrounds came together in a single unified purpose. The dreamers had nine months to make it reality - including several in the dead of winter when snow-laden north winds blow fierce over Prince Edward Island. There was a critical challenge to be met - financing. A key decision was made to seek financing from private sources. Minigoo Fisheries was to be a profit-making enterprise - not another government make-work program. A business plan was prepared. The Bank of Montreal came aboard. The project was a "go". Work began in early December 2009 to convert and expand an existing building on Lennox Island into a world-class processing facility.
\

Aranson led a core staff and a group of local contractors through twelve hour days, six and seven days a week in the race to complete the task of being fully operational when the lobster fishing season opened on May 1, 2010. On April 21, hundreds of visitors from Lennox Island and surrounding communities celebrated the Official Opening of Minigoo Fisheries with ceremonies that included aboriginal drumming and singing, and a cutting of a ribbon by Grand Chief Shawn Atleo of the National Assembly of First Nations.

"I think I have been preparing myself for a moment like this,” said Aranson. “It is not often you are given the opportunity to design a seafood processing plant where you can put in place all of the techniques you learn over the number of years in different situations. I am a happy man". On May 1, 2010, Minigoo Fisheries processed its first lobster for the international marketplace. His was a short-lived bliss.

Minigoo Fisheries went into bankruptcy almost immediately after the grand opening in 2010.  First came announcement of the surprise departure of Aranson, Icelandic national who had arrived in Lennox Island First Nation an avid proponent of reconstruction of a dilapidated fisheries plant. What ensued was a shocking and somewhat expensive lesson in management.

Compounding the problem was a valuable catch that spoiled and contract and supply creditors fell on the hook when everything ground to a halt. It took two years to sort out the details and re-open the facility, proving Chief Bernard remains steadfast in her goal toward capacity-building the Lennox Island First Nation.

Success breeding success by building on existing strengths

George Morrison beside Burrard Inlet

George Morrison, 44, is an urbanite from Vancouver with family roots and Status membership in Namgis First Nation. The Namgis (‘numb geese’) homeland has traditional territory in the surroundings of North Vancouver Island and islands of the Broughton Archipelago.

Morrison is a business person whose career has ranged far and wide in the First Nations economy. The process of being a business person in the world of First Nations is something of an exploration to everyone.
 

“I think the First Peoples Group of Companies is an amazing model for Aboriginal business,” says Morrison, of the brainchild he works with as an entrepreneur. “I did a $15,000 feasibility study that looked at things including the name. I picked ‘First People’ over First Nation because the term First Nation has become too politicized and even contains the ‘hand-out’ mentality,” that prevails with people living under the Indian Act, says Morrison. Meanwhile, the term First People had overwhelming positives in the recognition factors found in the study, a fresh look.

For over a decade Morrison operated Morgroup Management where they specialized in Co-Management as well as Third Party Management with financially distressed First Nation communities. “The Indian Act creates policy and a system to break out of,” says Morrison, candidly. “When I was working in third party management, I was, as far as INAC is concerned, nothing but a glorified accounts payable clerk. We evolved First People GOC by learning how to break out of the core-funding cycle,,” a valuable lesson.
 

“I was ten years ahead of my time when INAC core-funding was sparse,” as always, “and I started a company called Canadian Native Lumber to access First Nation fibre. I ended up working with First Nations using a model that permits the community to maintain independence. The Indian Act stops progress. Elections intervene in communities. The whole environment is unstable on, among other things, the economy.”

Morrison took to setting up development corporations and incorporating business success from role models like the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation (TNDC) and the immense developments surrounding Chief Clarence Louie in Osoyoos. He spent a number of years in consultation working with Tahltan, “TNDC could end up with possibly 50 Partnerships.”

He says, “I am building a blueprint for First Nation economic development that leads to independence,” in mind, spirit, and prosperity. “We will build long-lasting careers that give back and inspire others, scholarships, bursaries, funding for elders, community activities, and sports. We have looked at the organizational abilities of other communities like the Korean, Vietnamese, and East Indians who work together.”

Morrison sees urban opportunity gone to waste with skid row property long the close street-level purview of First Nation people in Canada, properties falling to the possession of savvy developers from the mainstream economy, and no First Nation investment or equity to really speak of. He sees a future when First Nations claw back millions of dollars being squandered under false pretences and put those funds into projects that create real jobs.

“When I go to a First Nation community and see people standing around, it makes me very excited,” says Dean Iverson, co-founder of First peoples Group of Companies, “and I am smiling because I am seeing a huge potential in human resources, social capital builders, men and women who are available to build the economic development capacity of First Nation communities.” There is a growing number of people outside these communities who see it the same way as Iverson, and in this way the world is changing fast.

He decided to make economic development of First Nations the highest priority Iverson has in doing business. He gained knowledge in the forestry industry, and his company, Iverson Forest Management, is engaged in all kinds of forestry operations in the province of B.C. with First Nations forestry licensees.

First Peoples Group of Companies has a number of divisions, economic development orientations toward forestry, environment, construction, natural resources, architecture and engineering, venture development, and a management division to take a wide view of the interests in First Nations communities. “These are places needing strategic support and professional development,” he says. “We work with First Nation members who want to build economy and capacity.”

First Peoples Group of Companies is the outcome of dealing with long-term strategic development issues in communities in forestry, and Iverson recognized a First Nations economy was progressing in a diversity of sectors. More opportunities show up in First Nations every day, “In a really good way,” says he, “these communities are making interesting gains and good things are coming up for them. For me it’s about hearing ideas, sharing their visions, and it is about listening.”

 Putting together a group specializing in First Nation economic development has been quite an effort, “We are excited about what we are doing and where we are going. First Nations are learning they have more capacity than previously understood. It's growing from a desire to live free of the systems that prevail. The Indian Act is what keeps First Nations from real progress. First Nation membership want to work! They just need the opportunity. First Peoples Group of Companies wants to make those opportunities a reality through job creation and training.”

Iverson says, “First Peoples Group of Companies contains a diverse number of development portfolios and each division recognizes First Nations are required to build an economy of their own that fits within the larger Canadian (and world) economy. Our management group recognizes this reality.”

The group is designed to work from a First Nation perspective, take that sense of direction and put business plans to it, “which could be anything. The management group will look at what is available for economic development and train people to seize the opportunity. Our goal is to walk away leaving the development running with it’s rightful owners.”

The message from listening over the years has been that First Nations want to bring home their membership and to do this they need infrastructure and management to make home a place of prosperity and opportunity. First Nations exist amongst a growing wealth of opportunities in natural resources and have an abundance of human resources to employ, and First Peoples Group of Companies is designed to work with the development corporation model or the independent operator in a community.

They take development envelopes that are dormant, empty, and fill them with the cash that comes from professionally managed opportunity. “So many Bands are resource rich and cash poor, so we answer the question of how to change this. We build on strengths, put people in situations where unique skills add new capacity to the community. We build on what they want to do, and take it through feasibility study, schooling, training, financial management, or construction. We are starting with business plans and collaborating until they have an operational office or turn-key enterprise.”

First Peoples Group of Companies has a role in liaison with industries that are making commitments to First Nations in skill development or joint venture economic development. Practically every sector of the economy contains skilled labour deficits. Looming labour crises confront mining, forestry, construction trades, and transportation industries. Professional development is needed for First Nations across the board as they take ownership of large assets like hydro development, commercial fisheries, and forestry licenses.

“First Nations have it, they have everything, and they need to work together to make opportunities happen. They must change the situation from what has been there in the past. They have a desire to go forward but do so without the wherewithal. They need to break out of routine and get past bad experiences. Bands with business failures in their history have to pick it up in the present. It’s time to end the sleight-of- hand that outsiders inflict on unsuspecting First Nations.”

Starting from a position of even a single strength, First Peoples Group of Companies will bring in other components to ensure success. Expanding opportunities will be seized by managers who have established relationships of trust in the business world, and when they know they can turn to a trusted management source. Transparency in dealings with First Peoples Group of Companies will spread to every business relationship in the future. Success will breed success. 

Tla-o-qui-aht’s Canoe Creek Hydro a work of reclamation and restoration

Sayo Masso is liaison officer for the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation in one of their major initiatives, the Ha'uukmin Tribal Park, including the Upper Kennedy watershed, as a place of cultural and economic importance, "We conducted ceremonial gatherings and visited sacred sites," said  Masso.  "Pools in the river provided an abundant fishery to families and there was a village at the mouth of the Kennedy River."

The tribal park contains (in part) the Upper Kennedy River, "Our people moved through lakes in the winter and returned to the ocean in season," said  Masso. "We lived on the coast during summer and as a whaling people we observed the migration patterns of gray whales." Potlatch culture is hereditary and Nuu-Chah-Nulth communities like Tla-o-qui-aht are linked by close families, common meetings at winter feasts, and a lot of kinship with other coastal communities; interestingly, said  Masso, "Some of our closest ties are with the Makah Nation in Washington State."

Bringing the Ha'uukmin Tribal Park to life on behalf of Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation "seemed to take forever," said  Masso, "and years of research was followed by years of implementation including the last couple of years of serious dialogue. We had to study the area closely in terms of hydrology and fish habitat, institute a stream keeper’s course, and begin teaching members to be park guardians and stream keepers. We're really happy this is happening as we speak."

The Tla-o-qui-aht desire to share the magnificent lands and waters of their heritage is not carte blanche; visitors will be made aware of Tla-o-qui-aht stewardship, said  Masso, "Self-determination is on the horizon. We have focussed the initial effort on the Upper Kennedy before we construct new hatcheries," Chinook salmon and sockeye to be reared in separate hatcheries, Chinook hatchery to be built first.

The Tla-o-qui-aht place name for Kennedy River Basin, Haa'uukmin, is "roughly translated as Feast Bowl." The Kennedy Basin is about 60 km from Tofino and the Canoe Creek Hydro project presents the administration with an infrastructure opportunity to create wider visitations to their tribal park. "We are planning to establish a family-oriented picnic area by the Canoe Creek Run-of-River hydro generating station and we have envisioned our land use plan for long-term development in outlying forestry, gravel pits, and out-posts for adventure tours. Guardian and stream keeper courses are giving the administration a professional presence in our tribal park 

He added, "In upcoming phases of the Tribal Park, we will be providingrangering services and safe transit through a network of trails, and access fees will contribute to building and implementing tribal park objectives. We are examining carbon credits to value our trees while they're standing. Tla-o-qui-aht faces systemic issues in Canadian forestry," and will use every means to circumvent the slaughter of forests, "Carbon Credits help us assert a role in using and managing the watershed in a manner that reflects Tla-o-qui-aht Laws of Iisaak, (~Respect), and Hishukish Tsawaak, (Everything is one ~interconnectedness of Life)."

Tla-o-qui-aht implemented two land use zones in their traditional territory; one is entitled Uuyaathluknish Management Zone, which means 'We take care,' and  Masso said, "This is a management area that needs gentle impacts and restoration plans. Use and access must be sustainable and not negatively impacting water quality objectives and fish stock objectives." Qyaasinhap, the second management zone - Leave as you've found it, is generally allocated to the Old Growth Forest corridors in Clayoquot River Valley and Clayoqout plateau.

Uuyaathluknish is already impacted and needs rehabilitation, which is being done in part through the Canoe Creek Hydro project, "We promoted the hydro development in the rehabilitation area, an area already impacted by the highway and logging," an area that requires careful management for the multiple uses that are visioned. "On this side is the low-impact sustainable use area our plans says, Let's deliver fish out of this watershed."

Qyaasinhap is putting wider stewardship back in the local area of the central westcoast and Tofino, said  Masso. 'Leave it as you found it' means the Clayoquot Arm and Plateau Preserve will continue to serve as ground zero for research in climate change and education-oriented relations with colleges and universities. There is a research Centre up Clayoquot Arm and we working with the University of Victoria and with other education institutions to college-certify training in stewardship, and other research partnerships.

"Meanwhile we have two forest licenses in our territory," said  Masso, "and the thinking is that we have to do whatever is needed to move forestry to be more sustainable for our grandchildren and to create a 150-year rotation on harvesting rather than the present 80 rotation. We will examine timber uses and plan the harvest ourselves. We will evaluate the forest companies by how many jobs they create for how many trees they take, not by how many millions it makes."

History contains a couple of important drivers for the established tribal park. "Families quarantined themselves back in the Kennedy watershed during the introduction of plagues," and later, "The Meares Island court case acknowledged the Island in Clayoquot Sound as Tla-oqui-aht TitleLand in 1984, which laid the groundwork for the Hawiih (hereditary chiefs) to work on establishment of the Meares Island Tribal Park declaration.  This declaration formed the framework for the Tribal Park at Kennedy Lake."

As a matter of purely cultural concern the nation requires a quantity of old growth fir and cedar to carry on traditional practices of the potlatch, "We have canoe carvers and totem poles and Long Houses to build."

Angelique Merasty Levac discusses how God Opens Doors

Angelique is author of a book entitled God Opens Doors, Kisemanitow Peyohtena Iskwahtem, in print September 2012. The publisher is Indian Life Ministries, and they have followed her art and business career and admired her Christian walk for many years.

"I was born at Midnight Lake, Manitoba," said Angelique Merasty Levac. "It is bush and nobody lives there,” in the far northern reaches of central Canada. Angie holds close to her memories of a distant place spent with her grandparents in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s. She was toddling around the wilderness with her grandparents from the time she was a one year old. That was when she was born, and her mother had a rush of kids come, and so Angie was given to the grandparents to raise. Today, the same place is as wild as it once was, when she was a babe in the woods. “Once in a while a few of my siblings or family members traps there.” It is a Cree people’s playground and belongs to no one else.

I lived beside a nice lake," and she enjoyed the company of loons going 'co-co-op' in the morning hours, she recollects, "My grandparents tried to teach me how to trap when I was six years old." Her grandmother gave her a tiny squirrel trap and showed her where to set the trap under a bundle of roots at the base of a tree.

They were on the lakeside close to the family dwelling, which was a large canvas tent, and Angie would not stray. Her grandmother, she recalls, provided explicit instructions about being very patient when trapping. She had to leave the place alone to permit the process to take its course.

Little Angie couldn’t wait till the grandparents went to sleep and she approached her fledgling trap-line to see if she was enriched. She stuck her six year old hand into the squirrel-sized cubby hole and trapped herself, snap. “Ouch,” she hollered, with a sudden affinity for nature, for the squirrel that wasn't there.

It was a lesson that she can freshly recall, and she smiles about the painful few minutes while she inspects her feminine fingers. This trapping snarl proved to be the end of Angelique Merasty Levac's life as a trapper (and a few families of bushy tailed squirrels have reason to chatter in gratitude).

Those years in the lakes district straddling the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border were made up of the old itinerant way of connecting with the land and which had ever made the vast domain their home. Angie’s grandpa always found it necessary to break camp and find a different place every few weeks, for he was a trapper, hunter, and fisherman.

"My grandpa never lived in one place," Angie explained, and the family packed their large tent and barrel stove and set off looking for the right place in a particular time of year. She said it was a lean existence.

"I used to help my grandmother gather branches she used to make a floor inside the tent. There was nothing to play with when I was a child,” a fact she once pointed out to her grandma. She told her she wanted a doll, so her grandma made Angie a doll. “Do you know what my doll was? We had a flour sack and she tied up the bag into a rag doll, eyes made from the soot of the fire. That was my doll.”

At 9 years of age Angie began to spend more time with her mother and less time with her grandparents when she came to be old enough to be more help to her mother, who was by now raising most of the twelve children she bore on the Lynn Lake railroad line in northern Manitoba.

At this point Angie remembers watching the birch bark biting when she went out with ladies on berry picking sojourns. “The blue berries found in burned out areas, and cranberries found in forested places.”

It was the cranberry picking trips where she saw the women take respite to conduct little competitions. They would peel birch bark and make pieces of art with their teeth but Angie was too young to think much about it. It was a first impression of the way the ladies had social exchanges by causing exquisite artistic impressions by birch bark biting. She remembers a few of them got tossed away.

It was not until much later that she herself would adopt and perhaps help to preserve a fast disappearing cultural practice of the Woodland Cree. It was her destiny to become a Cree cultural icon and reigning expert of a disappearing form of First Nation culture. Over the past three decades Angie garnered a lot of attention for the artistic skill at birch bark biting. She still does, with beautiful straight teeth, with which she takes on the task of an ancient artistic craft (she flosses regularly).

It is a strangely important coincidence that when she met her mentor of the art form the woman was also named Angelique Merasty (Angie’s maiden name). The mentor Angelique Merasty has passed away but not before she almost miraculously passed the legacy onto Angelique Merasty Levac, doing so under the most difficult conditions imaginable.

Angie’s gravitation to the art form is partly owed to bingo. Her mentor Angelique Merasty loved to play and was sitting waiting for a taxi ride to the bingo hall one evening in Beaver Lake, Saskatchewan. Part of the miracle was that the mentor sat in the company of an anthropologist while she waited, and to pass the time sitting beside the fire in winter she reached over and peeled a piece of birch bark off a log that had thawed, and she bit into it, and an exquisite piece of art was born.

The taxi arrived and she cheerfully, wordlessly (for she never spoke English) handed the birch bark biting to the professor who promptly sent it to the Manitoba Museum of Man in Winnipeg, and this prompted a full investigation and revelation of her ability. Soon articles began to appear detailing the art and the artist. And the mentor while being interviewed once expressed a wish to pass the craft along to someone before it was forgotten. Angelique the student saw this quote in a magazine article when she was 24 years of age

It is important to realize the way Angie grew up. She did not speak English until she was between 14 and 15 years of age; she spoke only Cree. She grew up in the days prior to Bill C-31 in Canada when a lot of Indian people were cut off from their Status by marriage, and Angie had no access to school, therefore, because her mother had been stripped of her Status by marriage to a Metis man.

Indeed, our Angie did not read English until she taught herself by reading the Holy Bible, and by the time she was 24 she had proficiency enough to read, and there she stood in a line-up at the post office in Uranium City, amazed to see her name described in a magazine.

She stared at the magazine story about Angelique Merasty, but it was not herself, except it was her name, a woman who was a practitioner of an ancient art form, a Cree culture art form, the artform she had seen her grandmother and mother practicing in the berry patches, and this same Angelique Merasty in the article described how she, "would like to pass this Native art form onto another."

Angie had those recollections of the ladies in the berry patches taking a rest to bite into birch bark and she decided thereabouts that the passing ought to be to herself. She credits the worship of God, "The Lord put that in my heart. Since I did it, it opened doors that I never dreamed of," including a visit to Bill Cosby in Philadelphia, USA, with a guest appearance on his remake of the TV classic 'You Bet Your Life.' She was interviewed by Keith Morrison on CTV, and appeared on BCTV, APTN, the Knowledge Network, and in numerous print articles, including this one in the nationwide Native Journal, and more awards to come in 2009. 

(For more information email dialogueondevelopment@gmail.com

Teaching a treasured and ancient craft in birch bark

The Bark Canoe Store opened in 2000 in Spokane, “originally operating by making birch bark canoes,” explains John Lindeman, owner, “and it expanded to providing birch bark for cabinet and furniture and construction, then expanded to accessories and things that might go along with birch bark canoes like Hudson Bay axes, packs, materials, then came delivery of birch bark canoe building classes.

 "We are known for taking courses to communities," often First Nation communities. "I wanted the building of birch bark canoes to revive by going to the people who originally built them, starting in Minnesota, going as far as Alaska, also to Nebraska, school museums around the country, wherever they wanted, building birch bark canoes in as little as three weeks to a month.”

 These canoe construction classes reach everyone from kids to elders, “and we were doing camps in Canada, also holding classes in Spokane where people got together and each made a single canoe in a group project. In other classes individuals came to build one for themselves.” Birch bark is one medium of construction for the canoes, but usage is demanding on vessels, especially in activities such as film-work or cultural reenactments, “a crowd that wanted a resilient fibreglass replica, so we make a whole variety ot those.”

The company sells birch bark laminates that work over substrates of plywood to make panelling for walls, cabinets, a birch bark finish that is, “very pretty,” says Lindeman, “lots of Canadian customers.” Panels, likewise canoes, have sold in Europe. Most of the birch bark comes from New Hampshire, Maine, Minnesota, before he found a contact in Siberia, “Now I am importing from Siberia, which birch bark is used in building the canoes.”

 A lot of the birch bark is reclaimed from dead trees found near the border of Nelson, B.C., “There is a lot of dying birch, I take the birch bark found there for furniture, not canoes.” Regarding the dying birch, Lindeman says, “the birch tree is a canary in the coal mine,” it's telling us something about the environment. The spindly hardwood like alder, birch, maple, poplar grows up first in clear-cut, “what they will do is defoliate to kill hardwood and do this because no market exists for the hardwood,” essentially done after a clear-cut with the potential to stay in the ecosystem for 5000 years, he says, with an invasion with chemicals.

“I deliver courses year-round and am very portable with this. It is an intensive three weeks, whether making one canoe, or ten.” Where individuals are making their own canoe, up to four can participate in a course, in which it takes over 200 hours. The program works well at structured settings like museums, schools, and other institutions, “My goal is teaching the teachers at places like community centres, showing how to build any style from Great Lakes to Athabascan, Dogrib, we do all different traditional styles.”

There’s been some study done on this on Lindeman’s part, “I took a class in Wisconsin in 1992,” when he had a place in Port Wayne near Lake Superior, “Ojibway country,” he notes. He was taught by David Gidmark, who was trained by Algonquin elders in Quebec. “I’ve done two-seat miniatures up to 26 foot long, most typically 14 to 18 feet.” One fibreglass replica 36 foot canoe he made was used on Hudson River in New York,  “They bought a 20 foot birch bark and 36 foot that featured in the 500 year anniversary of Henry Hudson going up that river.”

Lindeman has done canoes for movies, “There is an on-going demand for this kind of building, every customer has their own unique situation from store to museum, and some canoes may never been seen alight on the water. The original canoes are not surprisingly kind of expendable, like the 26 foot Ojibway canoe that travelled from Keese River, Wisconsin to the Pacific by the Mackenzie River, and at the end the canoe was ceremonially burned. To those who lamented this happening, it is worth knowing even Mackenzies' canoes were destroyed by the end of the voyage.)

The aim is to restore the art of the birch bark canoe. “I want to revitalize the building of these canoes, which were formerly utilitarian, and now exist as an artform, I want to see more building going on.” He explains that the birch is used in multiple ways, building to medicine, “Medicinal companies are exploiting the birch tree, and it is known that birch bark is resistant to mold, and furthermore is used as an inner sole for shoes because it kills athletes foot.”

The fact is that those in the market for buying canoes for schools, say, to start a ricing program, “they would have aluminum and plastic canoes, they don't want to bang around birch bark canoes. That is the idea of the fibreglass ricing canoe, to re-establish a cultural practice in this form of canoe it handles like a ricing canoe, but it's fibreglass it will take a beating. You take care of the wood on the gunwales but the hull, you can leave it outside, you can ram it into the shore.”

August 2012 Dialogue on Development (west edition)

July 2012 Dialogue on Development business section:

Innergex investing in all kinds of renewable energy

Richard Blanchet is the senior vice president for the western region at Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. and In recent history Innergex made a major acquisition of Cloudworks Energy in British Columbia, “We’ve been expanding the past 11 years, especially in British Columbia, and today 49 percent of revenues for Innergex are coming from B.C..” Innergex is generating power from projects spread over three provinces. and each jurisdiction has a concentration on First Nation economic development as the “core part of our development.”

In B.C., Innergex is operating 9 run-of-river renewable energy projects and presently engaged in the construction of two new projects “pipeline development of, and two projects in run of river renewable energy for 178 MWh. “We are very busy and these two new run-of-river projects together represent $270 million investment in BC,” said Blanchet. The really important statistic is the employment situation with First Nations. First Nations occupying well over 40 percent of the jobs in the largest construction project. company. “We are deeply engaged in First Nations training and capacity building and the fact is we have second and third generations of First Nations in our projects. These folks are advanced and moving up the ladder into skilled jobs, providing mentorship, building the social licensing (or social capital) of their communities.”

Innergex takes pride in their long record of successful First Nation partnerships, “and we look at the long term plans for First Nations in these partnerships toward sustainable development of energy projects and what the projects mean in these communities.” Communities are transforming in very positive directions like the Douglas First Nation who took on a hydro project with Cloudworks at the beginning of the last decade. “These projects are building the business activities in local communities through sub-contracting and business building. A good example is the Umbata Falls hydro project in Ontario with Pic River Ojibway, 51 percent owned by the First Nation and opened for power generation in 2009,” says Blanchet. “Here we are starting to see the benefits to these communities.”

Founded in 1990, Innergex formed in anticipation of a call for independent power production by Quebec Hydro. “The first call for private power production in Quebec came in 1991,” and Innergex was successful and expanded to Ontario, then B.C., then the USA in early 2000. “We have an office in B.C. with 30 staff, nine projects in operation in B.C.. In Ontario we have three four operational projects and in the USA one.” In Quebec they run seven hydro projects and five wind farms.

Blanchet says, “The First Nation aspect has been a key success in our development. It was during the first few projects in Quebec that this came to be at the centre of Innergex core values. We asked ourselves, what is in it for the First Nations? These communities will see the impact in construction and will see change occur in their communities and these communities must have something in return.”

In B.C. presently, the Kwoiek Creek Hydro Project is under construction near Lytton in the Fraser Canyon, “an area that has been bereft of opportunity with downturns in forestry, but now we have a $180 million investment underway with 90 plus jobs.” There are new skilled workers, and money is being spent with on-site training that will be opening the doors to employment on other projects. Blanchet notes, “And that's the thing about these projects, they are capital intensive.  It's a huge commitment in up-front costs while operational costs are low and renewable energy flows for decades. Water rentals are becoming an ongoing expense paid to the province and apparently the province of B.C. has started arranged to share an important part the water rental revenues they receive from us revenue-sharing with the First Nations in the province to share an important part something like 70 percent of provincial water rentals.”

The future of Innergex is based on building partnerships based on core values of integrity, responsibility, transparency, teamwork, and resource-sharing. “Most projects involve First Nation in the review process, and we provide capacity for land use studies and other background proceedings. These projects are long term and we obtain financing from investors like pension funds. These investors like the stability of renewable energy.” 

Innergex did a solar project recently in Ontario, “33 MWh came into operation in Ontario, and that's a new one. We arrayed the solar panels on 300 acres of non-arable land.” Blanchet came to the west coast to work in Vancouver eight years ago, “I commuted from Quebec for the first two years,” he laughs.

“Things are advancing very well in the Fraser Canyon. We built a tram to transport building materials, and the neat aspect of the tram is the way it travels from reserve to reserve at Kanaka Band.” This tram may have a future since they had been losing access to their side of the river, it’s a long drive and under certain conditions it is a long with very bad driving conditions. Presently they are pouring concrete at power house (on-reserve), and at site the construction of penstock underway, with the transmission line under construction. Innergex expects Kwoiek to be generating electricity beginning in October 2013. 

Marketing Ģat Leedm LLP is project-oriented on North West Pacific Coast

PRINCE RUPERT - A new joint venture including Metlakatla Development Corporation, Island Tug and Barge, and Williams Moving has been launched, called Ģat Leedm, "They are underway now, and a half dozen people are working under the Ģat Leedm LLP transportation umbrella, and employment situation that will only continue to expand," says John Lindsay, "We have designed a company to provide a 'supply chain solution' for the north west coast, owned and operated by the First Nations, working on the marine side through a process of different opportunities. There is lots of potential since facilities are under construction and expanding in Prince Rupert."

Ģat Leedm is presently active in the logistics of trucking and warehousing around the area, "They are running four trailers in moving aggregate for the Ridley Terminal site expansion underway in Prince Rupert." Ģat Leedm LLP is positioned to offer choices on shipping using scenarios that utilize a flexible supply chain that could be barge or truck or rail, or whatever combination works to the benefit of cost efficient shipping contracts.

"Sometimes we find one solution cheaper than another,” says Lindsay, “and we have the complete supply chain solution, including warehousing, by working collaboratively to give clients the options. We offer barge truck and rail, and we can provide transportation solutions based on design of this company from the supply chain solutions perspective. When somebody wants something moved we can do it, barging, trucking and warehousing. We're not just a tug and barge company and we are looking at a lot of different opportunities.”

Marketing Ģat Leedm LLP is project-oriented and plans are logistically feasible to maximize service and make shipping economically feasible. "We are trying to build the capacity where it makes sense for First Nations. We took the business approach and launched Ģat Leedm from a business plan that makes sense,” says Lindsay. The company was announced at the Naboc conference in March 2012 in Prince Rupert.

"Prince Rupert is starting to reach a new potential." Lindsay's Island Tug and Barge is one of the joint venture partners and has a history from the 1960s on the BC coast. "We have had First Nation customers many years and this is our first joint venture business relations. This will be a big year for the new company.”

Ryan Leighton, Director of Operations for the Metlakatla Development Corporations says, "We have strong expressions of interest in this new company and we are devoted to providing a wide range of transportation services," in a two-prong approach, land and marine transportation. "We are presently working at the expansion site for Ridley Terminals Inc. in Prince Rupert.  We are under way moving aggregate with four tractors and four sets of tandem side dumps."

"We are looking at training for the marine side, and training on land operations is also a high priority." The employment side of these business developments is clearly focused on First Nation employees, "with all the projects, including the work undertaken with Adventure Paving at  RTI. We are pleased to say there is a 50% First Nation labor component and we really pushed to have the other 50% come from the local area.  

"Nothing like this has been done before in Prince Rupert," says Leighton. "There is going to be a lot of training and new jobs up in this area . Everybody from John Lindsay and Jim Williams to our corporate team players pulled together in this strategic move by MDC to partner in business. Things are getting moving."
 

Vero Management Inc. was retained to develop a training program for the marine certification of employees. The primary intent of the training is to ensure we have qualified, skilled staff, but the added bonus is that we also have local people trained to respond to emergencies. With all the activity that is taking place in the region if an accident were to occur response times will be greatly reduced. The training program could be utilized by other industry players in terms of emergency response and necessary certification required in a marine or terrestrial environment.”

Gail Murray says, "The training focuses on certifying individuals that will enable them to find employment in the marine services sector. Courses offered include radio operation, search and rescue basics, marine emergency duties, small vessel operation, restricted operator certificates, maritime OSA level one and two, incident command training, shore-line clean up and maintenance, international marine oil pollution response, The training also incorporates essential skills that will prepare individuals for employment.”

She adds, “Other supports such as tutors are part of the program to ensure students reach a high level of success.” Murray believes the training program is deliverable to the region at any time. The training is adaptable and would benefit other First Nations and communities throughout the coast. The training is built as a modular, multi-week program. In the end, it will qualify people to work in the marine services sector and gets them on their way towards a fulfilling and exciting career."

Williams Moving & Storage announced their proud participation in Ģat Leedm in a press release about the joint venture with "Island Tug & Barge and the Metlakatla band of Northwestern British Columbia." The limited liability partnership agreement was signed in February, and, "the name chosen for the company is Ģat Leedm LLP. Ģat Leedm means “strength” in the Metlakatla’s native  language.” 

The release explains, “The company will be comprised of two main branches. Ģat Leedm Logistics LLP will be comprised of Williams Moving & Storage and the Metlakatla Band. Ģat Leedm Marine Services LLP will be comprised of Island Tug and the Metlakatla Band. Together, both branches will work together to offer unparalleled logistics service to Northwestern BC, by way of land and sea.” 

July 2012 Dialogue on Development East and West

JULY EAST & WEST DIALOGUE ON DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS SECTION

June 2012 Western Edition Dialogue on Development

BUSINESS SECTION IN JUNE 2012 WESTERN EDITION
Renewable energy at front of the contents in the story about Innergex and Kwoiek Energy, a Run of River project under construction in the Fraser Canyon. Business section contains a detailed article on First Nations in log export market.

SEE JUNE WEST

GIS an essential service in land and asset management

"There is a higher demand in the spring-time for the Geographic Information System (GIS) training in northwest Ontario," says Jordan Shana, owner, Northern GIS, in Thunder Bay, Ontario. "We are busy delivering courses two per month from January to April each year." Training continues throughout the year, however, and Northern GIS works extensively in other GIS projects throughout the year. "We get calls to do specific GIS training in communities at any time during the year. We run 15 to 20 courses per year and these run with a maximum 10 people per course, or a minimum three or four students," in Northern Ontario, often using the lab facilities of the Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre in Thunder Bay.

"I taught forestry-oriented GIS at college, but GIS finds application in a vast number of areas in the economy," says Jordan, and governments at all levels want the precise data provided by the application of GIS technology, First Nations included. "It is huge, and growing quickly, but it exploded in north western Ontario when the demand grew to make data on resources available." In a sense, he says, GIS is integral to government structure. "One thing that makes it powerful is the way it incorporates data into software for wider applications. GIS is used to determine large corporate moves in the economy now. Communities manage infrastructure using GIS data, and day-to-day facts keep the picture up to date. We are seeing unlimited usage if you look at uses of GIS on a google search engine."

Shana explains that GIS is a tool to be used to document and combine useful information so that it can be digitized, mapped and displayed for legal purposes. "GIS and Traditional Knowledge can be helpful to First Nation communities in asserting their ownership and obtaining control of their lands and natural resources." Northern GIS is an innovative company that provides a full range of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services and training. "We are based out of Thunder Bay, Ontario and understand the complex and diverse issues that northern communities face. We work with clients by addressing their needs and helping to resolve these needs by providing efficient and effective solutions using the power of GIS technology."

The uses for Geographic Information System (GIS) are unlimited. GIS enables better planning and management of the information around you; and it simplifies decision making by providing quick and accurate information that can be used in economic development, capacity building, planning and maintenance. "GIS and traditional knowledge data collection can be helpful to First Nation communities in asserting their ownership and obtaining control of their lands and natural resources.

"We offer GIS, GPS and Traditional Knowledge data collection training however you would like it delivered.  We customize each course to provide real world training. We also assist with land claim and flood claim projects, community database creation, mapping of all kinds and provide you with secure data storage.  We work with you every step of the way to ensure that all of your needs are met. We are very understanding of cultural sensitivity and awareness and we are respectful of  any information that is given to us."

 They work with  clients to develop and deliver the type of training that they need the way they need it.  He says, "We offer group training courses or one-on-one customized training in your home community or in Thunder Bay.  Our courses include: Computer Basics, Introduction to GPS and Data Collection, Introduction to GIS, Collecting Traditional Knowledge Values, and Advanced GIS. Our technical expertise is complemented by our cultural sensitivity and our commitment to ensuring that all of our clients have their training needs met and even exceeded." And he adds, "Talk to us about your needs and we’ll design a course that works for you."

Information management goes with self-government in First Nations, including managing infrastructure. Good examples of First Nation operations that deploy GIS management technology are the Musqueum, and Sto:lo Tribal members are using GIS, as well as, Nisga'a and Nuu Chah Nulth treaty tables and infrastructure managers. "I do understand the topic," says Richard Johnson, " and the issue has been around for a long time. I know a lot of different Bands use it, and large First Nation organizations have hired in GIS managers."

Operating GIS systems and using the data to the best advantage, "requires a concerted education that is coordinated with standardized softwares," says Johnson, "which (coordination) would help in cooperation and better utilization of master manipulated data models. The capital investment and learning is in the software. The applications are as diverse as infrastructure management and land management," (and he notes that GIS has long being used to one extent or another in applications in GPS). "No doubt it is used in forestry and other resource extractions, including commercial fishing and integrated resource management."

Johnson says, "Operation of GIS is not an onerous learning curve now with standardized systems, which are put in place before operators are running the system, which isn't that difficult. Cansel can help in the design and implementing and training on GIS array that would be useful in any conceivable management scenario. Survey, designing, construction, and maintenance, the data pouring into the system makes GIS is the single source of truth, even while the usual business processes continue." Cansel is situated with offices across the country, including mobile training labs at offices in Burnaby, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, and Cansel outlets are Autodesk resellers and Esri GIS systems resellers. richard.johnson@cansel.ca

McColl's Business Dialogue on Development Print Edition Feb 2010

February 2010

Building awareness of Manitoba forestry resources and management techniques

The team at Manitoba Forestry Association is working with Patricia Pohrebniuk, Executive Director, to expand knowledge, awareness, and ensure sustainability of forests in Manitoba, which is no small undertaking in a province rich in boreal forests. The programs they deliver across the province bring new awareness to diverse groups in the general public and corporate world of Manitoba forestry and resources.

First Nation members belong to the organization and work on various committees, and the MFA works across the province in collaboration with teachers and schools. “We are a non-profit charitable organization,” explains Pohrebniuk, “working with schools, private landowners, and First Nations with programs designed for each meeting,” and on-going public awareness programming at forest centres in the province that are open from May to end of August each year.

MFA runs their education programs to students K to 12 in classrooms, and the woodlot owners access technical services related to managing forests or attend skill-oriented workshops. Tree-planting, pruning, safe chainsaw use, and other courses are delivered by MFA. “The organization began in 1919,” explains Pohrebniuk. “We began delivering workshops and training sessions in 1992.”

Programming is diverse because landowners have a wide range of goals in forestry, she explains, “everything from recreational use to harvesting timber, to reforestation, and construction of shelter belts, or wildlife enhancement. Other forestry initiatives are in biofuel management, planting willow and hybrid poplar in various places around Manitoba,” part of the Trees for Tomorrow Program from the Federal government in Saskatchewan and Alberta as well.

Each year over 500 students and citizens of the province receive the benefit of some awareness raising or knowledge distribution by MFA through public extension activities. It may regard a disease like Dutch Elm that is hitting the trees of Winnipeg hard, or the spruce bud worm that is hitting pockets of the provincial forest resources, or warnings of other invasive species threatening arrival over the horizon.

 “We have a working relationship with a number of government departments and agencies,” says Pohrebniuk, “and we work with Manitoba Environmental Fund to participate on numerous initiatives in the provincial forests, and on the provincial logistics committee in forestry.” MFA has a five member staff working out of Winnipeg. Swan River Valley has an outreach program of MFA to deliver woodlot workshops.

MFA employs seasonal staff as well, at programming delivered in Sandilands Forest Discovery Centre, the main centre, located near Hadashville; Duck Mountain Forest Centre – Located in the Duck Mountain Provincial Forest south of Minitonas; Interlake Forest Centre – Located between Fisher Branch and Hodgson; Atikameg Forest Centre – Located in The Pas.

“The Sandilands centre has been open 55 years in 2012,” she says, this year running a Fire-Smart Pilot program to train people on forest fire prevention. The annual Day in the Pines event is taking place in May 11 and 12.

This time of year the in-school programming is underway and forestry is a topic in classrooms especially in Winnipeg with MFA curriculum and supplies. Classes typically feature 45 minute presentations on forestry topics, and as the grades go higher the concentration of information evolves to include career mapping. School program is constantly in redevelopment. Provincial funding delivers the MFA education stream, and the urban lesson plans may be expanding to other school districts in coming years, depending on budgets.