Mapping the future: Mushkegowuk creates GIS mapping department.

AuthorKelly, Lindsay
PositionABORIGINAL BUSINESS

Mushkegowuk Tribal Council's new information services department is not quite a year old, but already the community is seeing the benefits of its efforts.

Founded in April, 2015, CreeGeo provides GIS services, mapping, cartographic work, and training for community members. The goal, said director Barb Duffin, is to build capacity in the member communities so they can expand their skills and do their own land mapping.

The effort comes in direct response to resource extraction projects pinpointed for their traditional territories.

"We want to make sure that those values that have a spiritual and cultural significance are protected from any type of extraction," Duffin said.

The council first brought in GIS services in 2010, in response to the introduction of the Far North Act and the ongoing modernization of the Mining Act.

The GIS software helps protect important cultural touchstones from resource extraction projects in forestry and mining, by creating a map of where they are located.

But, because federal funding isn't provided for First Nations' lands and resources departments or information services, the communities have to find their own way to fund those services. That's when Mushkekowuk alighted on the idea of a fee-for-service model for GIS, and CreeGeo was created.

Mushkegowuk's member communities can access the services on a cost-recovery basis, while the general public is charged a competitive rate, generating revenue for the department.

CreeGeo's most recent project will introduce GIS education into the curriculum at the reserve schools.

Because of the existing education funding gap--First Nations get 40 per cent less funding than schools in the public system --on-reserve students aren't getting the same education in GIS as their peers in the public system, Duffin noted.

CreeGeo is aiming to reduce that gap.

Kim Rozon, the department's GIS education specialist, said the use of GIS in the classroom can not only enhance lessons, making them more relevant to students, but also lead them to critical thinking and broaden their capacity for learning.

"It's particularly useful for Northern communities because they can actually make their lessons a little bit more locally relevant, or culturally relevant," Rozon said.

"Instead of looking at a map of southern Ontario, they can actually look at a map of their home community, and the teachers can then use problems based off their home communities, rather than somewhere else that they don't...

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