Torch 2014 Autumn_Torch 2014 Autumn 2014-10-16 11:54 AM Page 25
HAK AI F IE LD SCH OOL
e c n e i c S ts e e M n o i Tradit
First Nations ecological knowledge and western science form the heart of a course on resource use, monitoring and management.
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On the first night of a field school in the Great Bear Rainforest, students prepare a traditional feast for elders and other members of the Heiltsuk First Nation. The students in Geography 453 roast root vegetables and salmon, cook deer meat and share it with the people whose culture they will draw on and learn from for the next two weeks. It’s a seemingly small but key part of the Hakai Field School. “Before you conduct business, you share a meal. That is an important part of the culture, all of which we respect,” says Prof. Chris Darimont, PhD ’07. He teaches the Hakai Field School with Jessie Housty, a UVic grad student and elected tribal councilor with the Heiltsuk Nation. The course is hosted by the Hakai Institute in Wuikinuxv and Heiltsuk territories of the central coast. The meal sets the tone of collaboration, respect and learning that is the backbone of the course. The class brings together cultural knowledge and practices with western science. It uses the tools of science to look at culturally important resource management issues. “It really brings resource management to life,” Darimont says. “It’s situated exactly at this intersection between science and local values, knowledge and practice.”
Hakai clam garden: Hands-on learning, with grad student Jessie Housty (centre).
Class member Peter Gibbs says the field class is a highlight of his university education. The chance to come face to face with wolves, to follow grizzly tracks, to measure old growth cedars — many of which had been harvested for bark by Indigenous people several hundred years ago and still bore the scars — are experiences
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