NWT On The Land Collaborative

The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the twelfth in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.
 
Tracey Williams arrived to our meeting with a flat square mason jar labelled, “Yellowknife Homegrown Herbal.” “A little goes a long way,” she remarked about the tea, with a smile and her signature laugh. It is just like Tracey to share a little something from her garden. Anyone who has spent time with the animated expat knows she is passionate about food and food security, but especially food security in Indigenous communities. Food, she believes, “is a lifeline to the land, culture, and healing,” a means through which Indigenous communities can “regain what has been lost to the traumas of the colonization process.”
 
In addition to being an avid gardener and advocate, Tracey is the new face of TNC Canada in the territory; she was hired as the Northern Conservation Lead in late February. TNC Canada (not to be confused with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, which is a separate though kindred organization) is the Canadian affiliate of the world’s largest conservation organization, The Nature Conservancy. TNC Canada, as Tracey explains, is much more than a conservation organization, however: “We are interested in supporting sustainable communities, where people and nature are connected, and we are building the future around that connection.”
 
TNC Canada has had a presence in the North for almost a decade. Initially, the organization provided technical support to the NWT Protected Areas Strategy, a community-based approach to conservation planning aimed at creating a network of protected areas across the territory. Much of TNC Canada’s focus in the intervening years has centred on supporting Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation in the creation of the Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve (Thaidene Nëné means “land of our ancestors” in Dënesųłiné). TNC Canada has also provided support to the community’s Ni Hat’ni Dene program. Ni Hati’ni, which means “watchers of the land,” is an Indigenous Guardian program modelled on the Haida Watchmen. Tracey’s task in the coming weeks and months will be to expand TNC Canada’s role in the territory.
 
TNC Canada has been involved with the Collaborative since the early days. Tracey’s predecessor attended the initial meetings in 2014 and TNC Canada was one of the first organizations to sign on as a funding partner. Like other partners, TNC Canada was attracted to the Collaborative because it meets an important need in the territory. As Tracey notes, “On the land programming, in all of the communities in the Northwest Territories, is something everyone wants to be doing. It’s something that everyone wants to be happening in their communities.” And so it made sense for TNC Canada to get involved with an initiative committed to removing barriers to spending time on the land.
 
TNC Canada’s support for land-based programming and their participation in the Collaborative was one of the things that drew Tracey to the organization: “Since moving to the NWT 15 years ago, everything I’ve done has had an on the land focus. That’s been my lens. I really like the fact that TNC Canada is not just supporting a land trust initiative, they want to support people, their place in nature, and their connection to the land.” Tracey believes strongly that on the land programs are “vital to defining a pathway to sustainability for the future of the Northwest Territories.”
 
Tracey, who hails from the Chicago area, first came north to paddle. (She and her partner, Steve, have at various points travelled the Back, Kazan, Coppermine, and Thelon Rivers.) It wasn’t long before Tracey made the move permanently, relocating from Sante Fe, New Mexico, where she had been working in land restoration and watershed management, to Łutsël K’é, where she took a job coordinating a traditional knowledge project on East Arm fisheries. In the ensuing twelve years, Tracey became an important part of the community fabric, involved in everything from the community garden and school board to environmental assessment interventions and community radio. In 2013, Tracey, Steve, and their three kids relocated to Yellowknife.
 
It was while living in Łutsël K’e that Tracey began her apprenticeship as a moosehide tanner under the tutelage of a trusted and respected local Elder, whom Tracey is now fortunate to call a friend: “I started out as her lackey. I was there to carry water or start fires or attend to the smokehouse, whatever needed to be done. Over time I realized I really liked hide tanning.” With the arrival of twins in 2011, Tracey’s time for tanning dramatically decreased. She makes a point, however, of returning to Łutsël K’é every June for a hide tanning camp to work on one of her in-progress hides. (Side note: the Łutsël K’é Women’s Group’s Annual Hide Tanning Camp is one of 35 grant recipients for 2017).
 
Other members of the Collaborative see the positive outcomes of land-based programming in terms of the wellbeing of participants or of the health of the land. Tracey brings a new perspective to the table: “Dene people, Inuit people, Indigenous people all have foodways.” Tracey recognizes the importance of those foodways to Indigenous identity, wellbeing, and sovereignty, hence why she thinks supporting the continuance of those foodways through the Collaborative is so important. As with other outcomes, food security doesn’t need to be an explicit objective of land-based programs to support Indigenous foodways and food sovereignty: “If you have an on the land project, inevitably, you will have a duck, a goose, a caribou head, a moose, a trout, whatever is in season, over the fire. You may go berry picking. In this way, on the land programming naturally supports food security regardless of whether or not we acknowledge it.”  
 
The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like TNC Canada to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org).
 
 

Today, the NWT On The Land Collaborative releases its second annual report. The 2017 Report shares highlights from the past year, including new partners, the first annual learning trip, and the creation of a community of practice for land-based programs with a mental health focus.

The NWT On The Land Collaborative was founded in fall 2015 to support programs that connect NWT residents with their land, culture, and community. Since that time, the Collaborative has provided 70 projects across the territory with over a million dollars in funds. Grant recipients also have access to equipment, training, expertise, and other resources.

The 2017 Report features seven successful land-based projects, one from each region, that received grants in 2016. These include the Reviving Trails project organized by the Dedats’eetsaa (Tłįchǫ Research and Training Institute); the Feeding Our Spirits project, an initiative of Trailcross; and East Three Secondary School’s Wood for Elders program.

The report also details the allocation of funds for 2017. This year, grants range from $3,000 to support a canoe trip for grade nine students in Fort Smith to $60,000 for healing and wellness camps for youth in Rádeyįlįkóé (Fort Good Hope). Other funded projects include Trails on the Land, a 10-day trip beginning in Tuktoyaktuk that will take youth and elders through the traditional hunting territory of their ancestors; a land-based youth mentorship project coordinated by the Deh Gah Gotine First Nation; a boating program for Tłįchǫ youth that teaches traditional knowledge and skills; and a hide tanning camp in Łutsel K’e.

Quick Facts

• The NWT On The Land Collaborative was founded in 2015.
• The Collaborative is a collective of diverse organizations that supports land-based programs through funds, resources, and expertise. Current funding partners include the Government of the Northwest Territories; Tides Canada; Dominion Diamond Corporation; NWT Recreation and Parks Association; TNC Canada; Indigenous Leadership Initiative; The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation; Diavik Diamond Mine; Health Canada; and The Gordon Foundation. Participating Indigenous governments include Inuvialuit Regional Corporation; Gwich’in Tribal Council; Tłįchǫ Government; Dehcho First Nations; NWT Métis Nation; and Akaitcho Territory Government.
• The Collaborative supports projects that: get people out on the land; connect community members to their land, culture, and traditions; build or strengthen partnerships; enhance community capacity; and promote sustainability.
  

Contacts
Steve Ellis
Program Lead, Northern Canada
Tides Canada
Email: steve.ellis@tidescanada.org
Phone: 867.988.1963
 
Jess Dunkin
Director, On the Land Programs
NWT Recreation and Parks Association
Email: jdunkin@nwtrpa.org
Phone: 867.669.8376

The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the eleventh in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.

John B. Zoe describes his current responsibilities as a Senior Advisor to the Tłįchǫ Ndek’àowo (Tłįchǫ Government) in this way: “I go to lend support to keep things moving. Sometimes people need to be reminded of their strengths and responsibilities.” John B. uses the same mentorship skills in his role as the Community Advisor for the Tłįchǫ region with the NWT On The Land Collaborative. Community Advisors are appointed by Indigenous governments in each region to serve as their representative to the Collaborative. They are available to applicants throughout the process, while also assisting in the annual selection of grant recipients.

As valuable as John B.’s mentorship skills are to the Collaborative are his experiences developing and supporting land-based programs in the Tłįchǫ. He has played a pivotal role in the creation and ongoing success of Wha Dǫ Ehtǫ K’è (Trails of Our Ancestors), an annual canoe trip that keeps Tłįchǫ history and culture alive by retracing traditional routes. In the early 1990s, John B. spent his summers travelling through Tłįchǫ territory with Elders, including the late Harry Simpson, and archaeologist Tom Andrews: “We were gathering stories, but there was no one to share them with. We didn’t see our own people travelling these rivers. So we began organizing canoe trips for youth so they could travel with the Elders and hear the stories.”

The first Trails trip ran in 1995. Over the course of 15 days, five 22-foot canoes paddled from John B.’s home community of Behchokǫ̀ to Gamètì, arriving in time for the Tłįchǫ Annual Gathering. This summer marks the 23rd anniversary of the program. In mid-July, flotillas of canoes from each of the four Tłįchǫ communities will set out for the Gathering, which is scheduled to take place in Behchokǫ̀. Wha Dǫ Ehtǫ K’è has not only continued, it has prospered, John B. shares: “Each year, we receive more applications than we have seats in the canoes!”

To understand the cultural importance of these canoe trips, you have to know something about the importance of stories for the Tłįchǫ. Stories contain knowledge about how to be Tłįchǫ and live in respectful relation to the land. Stories are not disembodied; they are tied to specific places. John B., borrowing from Elder Harry Simpson, likens the landscape to a book: “The pages are your travels.” To understand the book’s teachings, in other words, you need to be on the land, hearing the stories in the places that they belong. A recent history of Wha Dǫ Ehtǫ K’è captures it best: “By travelling traditional trails, which link places like beads on a string, Tłįchǫ youth are told stories as each place is visited.”

The Trails trips, like land-based programs more generally, are about looking back in order to move forward. By returning to older ways of doing things, in this case travelling by canoe in community and hearing the stories, the hope is that youth will be grounded in the Tłįchǫ way of life and able to chart a way forward for themselves as individuals and as a people. If Tłįchǫ youth are to “be strong like two people,” a vision first articulated by Chief Jimmy Bruneau, but which is best known in the words of Elizabeth Mackenzie, they need this education on the land alongside Elders and community leaders.

While participants experience the canoe trips in their own way as individuals, ultimately Wha Dǫ Ehtǫ K’è is about collective experience and collective knowledge. John B. explains it this way: “If somebody from this group of 100 canoeists learns something it will stay with them and when it’s time to fill the gap, they will fill that gap. The more people that have these bits and pieces of information, they become an army of knowledgeable people about our collective story.” It’s hard to ignore the parallels with the Collaborative and the value that each individual member through their knowledge and experiences brings to the collective.

While the Community Advisors share certain responsibilities, they all approach their role in different ways, depending on their personalities and the needs of their region. For John B., being a Community Advisor is about reminding Tłįchǫ people and communities of their strengths and abilities, not the least of which is the knowledge of the land, the animals, relationships, and governance: “Our communities have this knowledge, held by our professors and they seek to pass on this information.” Land-based programs that engage Elders are vital to this work of reviving the old ways and ensuring continued stability for the future: “Our work is to acknowledge what was there before and use it as a basis for application in a modern way.”

More than once during our conversation, John B., in reference to the Tłįchǫ, noted, “Our work is to acknowledge what was there before and use it as a basis for application in a modern way.” One example of this meeting of old and new is the Reviving Trails Project, which seeks to revitalize ancient Tłįchǫ canoe routes. Most recently, an 18-person group, which included John B., travelled the Mowhi Trail by canoe from Behchokǫ̀ to the barrenlands and back to Wekweètì, plotting their route and important cultural places with GPS. Not only did the trip improve the conditions of the trails and result in a digital map of the route, making it easier for future travellers, but it also enabled the sharing of stories about the places visited along the way and generated new experiences for younger Tłįchǫ on their territory.

The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like Tłįchǫ Ndek’àowo (Tłįchǫ Government) to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org).

The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the tenth in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.
 
Ask any member of the NWT On The Land Collaborative about Sarah True, the Collaborative Administrator, and invariably they will tell you about her binders and spreadsheets. Sarah is an organizational wizard. Her management of the application process and her facility with Microsoft Excel has made the grantmaking cycle infinitely easier for the partners over the last two years. Sarah’s passion for organization goes beyond columns and tabs. She also played a pivotal role in arranging last year’s very successful learning trip. In case you’re getting the wrong impression of Sarah, she has a good sense of humour and is lots of fun.
 
According to her business cards, Sarah is the Regional Environmental Assessment Coordinator for the North Slave office of the Government of the Northwest Territories’ department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR). For the last year or so, however, Sarah has been on secondment to ENR headquarters, where she has been working on a number of projects, namely developing traditional economy and country foods strategies, updating the government’s traditional knowledge policy, and developing an action plan for the same, all while managing the affairs of the Collaborative.
 
Sarah was first employed by ENR as a summer student, coordinating fire ecology camps in the South Slave. In 2006, she returned to the department, working first as a Regional Planner and later, as the Regional Environmental Assessment Coordinator for the South Slave. Two years later, she relocated to the North Slave office in Yellowknife. In addition to positions with ENR, Sarah has worked with the NWT Métis Association, helping to develop environmental education materials for children; the South Slave Research Institute (ARI) as a research assistant ; and NWT Fire and Parks Canada as a radio operator and fire clerk. (Sarah was able to put both her GIS skills and her fire experience to work during the notorious 2014 fire season.)
 
As her resume makes clear, Sarah is a jack of all trades. She is also a lifelong learner. She has four diplomas in Integrated Resource Management; Wildlife, Fisheries, Grasslands, and Recreation; Forestry; and Management Studies. Today, Sarah is at work on a Bachelor of Arts in Sustainable Business Practices.
 
In 2015, Sarah was approached by Fred Mandeville and Erin Kelly, at that time the Superintendent of the North Slave Region and Assistant Deputy Minister of ENR respectively, about working with the Collaborative. The request came at just the right time; Sarah, who clearly has an appetite for variety, had been looking for new experiences in her professional life. Not to mention, she has a personal passion for land-based programs (more on that in a moment).
 
Sarah joined the NWT On The Land Collaborative at the beginning of the pilot year. She played a central role in establishing the administrative materials and systems that have guided the Collaborative over the last two years. Sarah’s position as the Collaborative Administrator is unique amongst the partners. She describes herself as a “middle person,” providing support in different ways to applicants, grant recipients, funders, and community advisors.
 
Sarah believes strongly in the Collaborative’s mission to get people out on the land, but particularly its commitment to supporting community-based initiatives: “It’s not one thing that we’re trying to give to everyone. It is communities telling us what they need, whether it’s resources, financial support, advice.” Beyond making it easier for people to spend time on the land in the way that they want through the provision of funds and resources, Sarah values the way that the Collaborative has helped to make connections between funders and projects, between different regions and communities, and, in some cases, between individuals and organizations within a single community.
 
Growing up in Fort Smith, Sarah spent significant amounts of time on the land, surrounded by a large extended Cree and Métis family. Sarah’s eldest (she is a mum to three) had a very similar childhood, often spending weeks at a time at their cabin with family, learning to hunt, trap, and fish. Today he is confident and at home in the bush, a trait that Sarah attributes to this early education.
 
Sarah is impressed with the variety and creativity of approaches to land-based programming exhibited by grant recipients, but she has a soft spot for projects that promote intergenerational knowledge transfer: “I’d really like to see more opportunities for younger kids and for family units. Take kids out with their parents and their grandparents. I think that’s a dynamic that means more to people.” While she and her family spend less time on the land since moving to Yellowknife, they continue to enjoy camping, ice fishing, hiking, and canoeing.
 
The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like Environment and Natural Resources to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org).

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The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the ninth in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.

Kyla Kakfwi-Scott of Health and Social Services has the ideal slate of experiences for the NWT On The Land Collaborative. As Dechinta’s inaugural Program Director she helped to shepherd the fledgling bush university from concept paper to program delivery, so she knows the demanding cycle of applying for funding and reporting, while also trying to deliver meaningful programming. Kyla has also sat on the other side of the table as a funder: managing Ekati Diamond Mine’s community investment and Aboriginal engagement program; serving on the board of the NWT chapter of the United Way; advising the Small Change Fund; and chairing the selection committee for the Arctic Inspiration Prize. Perhaps most importantly, through her time at Dechinta and more recently through her involvement with Dene Nahjo, an NWT-based Indigenous leadership collective, Kyla has experienced the transformative power of being on the land and seen the same in others. It’s no wonder that Kyla was handpicked by Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services, Debbie Delancy, to coordinate the Collaborative, a role she shares with Steve Ellis of Tides Canada.

Kyla joined the department in May 2013, shortly after Paul Andrew, Chair of the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness, released the Forum’s final report, Healing Voices. The Forum, which was convened in November 2012 to hear directly from NWT residents about how best to address addictions and promote community wellness, travelled to 21 communities over four months: “What the Forum heard more than anything else during its travels is the land heals…So strong is this belief, with so many examples of its success, that the Forum is making on-the-land programming its number one recommendation.” The Forum’s findings were re-iterated in the weeks and months that followed at anti-poverty workshops, at gatherings of community representatives, and in meetings between the Minister of Health and Social Services and Indigenous governments.

The people spoke and Health and Social Services listened, devoting 1 million dollars that year to supporting land-based healing programs. It was not an insignificant amount of money. However, given the expense of on the land programs and the demand, it was inadequate in meeting community needs, so the department was looking for ways to leverage other funding. If you read Steve Ellis’s profile, you will recall the serendipitous meeting that happened between the Northern Lead for Tides Canada and the Deputy Minister in 2014 and the November 2014 meeting on funding collaboratives the two organizations co-hosted to “stimulate thinking on the art of the possible,” as Debbie describes it. Of particular interest to the Deputy Minister was the Northern Manitoba Food, Culture, and Community Collaborative, a collaborative with a provincial government at the table, which could serve as a model for a NWT-based initiative. (Engaging in these kinds of projects can be tricky for governments because of the legislative and policy frameworks that regulate the spending of public monies.) It was at that meeting that Health and Social Services officially committed to starting a collaborative fund to support land-based programs in the territory.

The collaborative model appealed for a number of reasons beyond attracting additional dollars. By offering a mechanism for government departments supporting land-based programs to talk to one another about the work they are doing, a collaborative could help to break down government silos. Likewise, a collaborative had the potential to facilitate connections within and between communities, all with the aim of “combining strengths and combining resources,” in Debbie’s words.

While there was much that was attractive about the models presented at the workshop, it has been important to both women that what was to become the NWT On The Land Collaborative reflect local priorities and ways of working. For this reason, from the beginning, community representatives have been at the table. Kyla explains, “The people who are actually applying for funding and running the programs have had a really important voice in both articulating the need for a collaborative approach to funding, but also what that approach should look like.” Through dialogue between the partners, which consist of community advisors and funders, the Collaborative will continue to evolve: “It’s not just about developing a process that will then be set in stone…It’s about continuous improvement, how we are working, how we might work differently, and how that changes over time.”

To date, both women are happy with the progress that has been made. Kyla notes, “We started with a giant leap of faith on the part of all of the partners and so our first critical measure of success is coming out of the first round, we’ve maintained all of the existing partner relationships... and we’ve brought in a couple of new partners.” Debbie adds, “It’s been very positive the engagement that we’ve had from communities and Indigenous governments. The ability to get government departments involved, as well as NGOs and industry and to get everyone to agree. We didn’t really have a lot of templates in Canada for that, so that it has been successful has been very exciting.”

While much of our interview time was taken up with discussing the history and mechanics of the Collaborative, both Kyla and Debbie have personal reasons for wanting to support land-based programming in the NWT. Debbie, who is originally from upstate New York, lived for eight years with her partner in his home community of Fort Good Hope, during which time she spent extended periods of time on the land: “I had the opportunity to experience the power of the land and to see the impact that spending time in touch with the land had on people…The land is the most powerful tool that we have to support healing at a community and individual level.”

Kyla’s response to the same question hints at the variations and complexities in the relationships that people have to the land in the NWT and also the importance of land-based programs for Indigenous youth: “My own personal connection to land has been one of needing to find it having grown up [in Yellowknife] rather than in either of the places that I would consider myself to be from…I’m trying to learn by doing and creating opportunities for myself and other people to be around that.”

The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like Health & Social Services to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org).

The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the fourth in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.

Jess Dunkin’s resume is an interesting mix of two different kinds of experience: outdoor education and academia. She has instructor-level certifications in canoeing and first aid and a PhD in Canadian history. She has taught history and gender studies at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa and led canoe trips in the shield country of Northern Ontario. She has written articles for Pathways: the Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education and Histoire Social/Social History. The one thing that ties these two lives together is Jess’s love of the outdoors. Both have been valuable in her current position as Director of On the Land Programs at the NWT Recreation and Parks Association (NWTRPA) and as the NWTRPA’s representative on the NWT On The Land Collaborative.

Jess has always had a special relationship to the outdoors. She grew up on a farm in Eastern Ontario and spent part of every summer at camp and her grandparents’ cottage: “I know that I need to be outside…It’s a place where I feel more connected to myself, I feel more connected to the world around me, and I feel more connected to the people I’m with.” It was this love of the outdoors that led Jess to pursue work in outdoor education while in high school, first as a camp counsellor and later leading canoe trips. She continued to work at summer camps and outdoor centres while in university and at Teacher’s College. A love of history led her to graduate school in 2007, where she channeled her passion for the outdoors into her research, writing about girls’ summer camps and canoeing.

In 2014, Jess was wrapping up a postdoctoral fellowship at Queen’s University and looking for a next step. The academic job market was dire and there were few other opportunities for her in Ottawa. Jess had already been thinking about moving North, when she heard about the On the Land Programs Consultant position at the NWTRPA: “While I was in grad school I basically stopped paddling, I wasn’t really doing trips, I let my certifications lapse. I kind of thought I had left that life behind…When I started talking to Geoff [the NWTRPA’s Executive Director] about the job, I found myself circling back… and I was excited about that prospect.”

Even before relocating to Yellowknife, Jess understood that there were very real differences between the outdoor education that had been her bread and butter down south and the on the land programs that she would be supporting in the North: “To me, land-based programs are about revitalizing the deep connections between Indigenous people, their territories, and traditional knowledges/practices targeted by colonialism. Land-based programs heal people and communities and the territories they call home and ultimately, they nurture self-determination and the restoration of traditional forms of governance.”

Jess is keenly aware of being a non-Indigenous settler from the south in her position: “I have struggled to figure out how to do this work in a good way. I was really fortunate to be able to attend a Dechinta short course last spring and to be able to think through in a really practical way my responsibilities and my job, but it’s a process. I’m not there yet.”

In 2014, the NWTRPA was invited to be part of the collaborative funding workshop that was the precursor to the NWT On The Land Collaborative. ED Geoff Ray went on behalf of the organization: “(At this meeting) the Tides Foundation, Nature Conservancy, Health & Social Services, and others each stood up in the room and made contributions of tens of thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars. We didn’t have money to offer, but we had a pile of experience and expertise in training and relationships to communities and organizations that do on the land programs. We offered to contribute those resources, relationships, and connections.”

That experience and those relationships come from a decade of delivering and supporting on the land programs in the NWT. Between 2007 and 2010, the NWTRPA organized the Mackenzie Youth Leadership Trip. The organization took a number of learnings from that experience, particularly around programming planning, training, and risk management, and has shared them with communities looking to offer similar programs.

Geoff believes, “One of the strengths of the Collaborative is that you have a handful or more organizations who are coming from different backgrounds and mandates. You’ve government, non-government, and corporate interests coming together to support community-based programs. There are lots of different outcomes that people are working towards but I think it’s really exciting that you can have this diverse group of people working together in such a transformative way.”

Working as the NWTRPA’s representative on the Collaborative has allowed Jess to put her diverse skills to work. When the NWTRPA first became a partner in the Collaborative in early 2016 that meant lending expertise in training. As time has gone by the NWTRPA has taken on additional roles assisting with information sharing and communications. These days, the Collaborative keeps Jess busy writing copy for the website, managing the social media accounts, and writing editorial content, such as partner profiles.

For Jess, along with everything else, being part of the Collaborative has been an invaluable learning experience: “It has exposed me to lots of other people and programs that I otherwise wouldn’t have known about. It has also just been really inspiring to hear about the amazing land-based programming happening in the territory on both a large and a small scale.” Jess says that she’s still not always comfortable in her position, but the Collaborative has provided a space where she can work in a good way, guided by strong Indigenous leadership and local expertise.
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The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like the NWT Recreation and Parks Association to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org). 
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The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the seventh in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.
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Nicole McDonald is unabashedly passionate about collaboratives: “I love collaborative funding models!” In addition to making it easier for recipients to access funds, Nicole has seen firsthand how collaboratives can support projects that need a little extra help: “One of the things I found while working with the Saskatoon Collaborative Funding Partnership was that we could see groups doing good work, but they weren’t successful in their funding applications because they weren’t good at writing proposals.” To address this, the Partnership hosted workshops for prospective grantees on proposal writing and budget development. Almost immediately, they saw improvements in the quality of applications being submitted.

Nicole, who is currently the Program Director for Indigenous Initiatives at the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, has become something of an expert in collaboratives. At present, she is working with a variety of partners on a number of funding collaboratives which include: {Re}conciliation and the Arts; the Indigenous Innovation Demonstration Fund; and now, the NWT On the Land Collaborative.

Collaboratives, Nicole believes, promote diversity by bringing different partners to the table and allow for a more efficient use of resources through shared administration. They can also serve as a gateway for people and organizations who might not have traditionally supported certain kinds of initiatives: “With the close of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we are seeing a growing number of organizations that want to fund Indigenous communities, but don’t know how to or where.” Enter initiatives like the NWT On The Land Collaborative: “Organizations are able to contribute as little or as much as they want, both in terms of  financial resources and level of engagement with the Collaborative. Because there are other partners already sitting at the table, funding is automatically leveraged. Also, the governance structure is already in place to ensure that funding is going directly to communities, and the adjudication process is done in collaboration by community members and the partners.” If done right, it is low risk and high reward.

The trajectory of the McConnell Foundation’s involvement in the NWT On The Land Collaborative is a case in point. When the opportunity to be involved as a partner in piloting the Collaborative, “it was kind of a no brainer,” Nicole admits. “Because it was a pilot, the initial level of funding was relatively low, so it wasn’t a huge risk.” More importantly, if it succeeded, it would have a significant impact. All the better that it fit nicely with one of the Foundation’s emerging priorities, reconciliation: “One of the ways in which we get at reconciliation is through reculturalization and being on the land is a huge part of that.” 

For her part, Nicole appreciates the flexibility of the collaborative funding model. Participants can be involved as much or as little as they want, something that appeals to her, given her current position. As the Program Director for Indigenous Initiatives, Nicole manages the McConnell Reconciliation Initiative, which currently has three priority areas: increasing the number of organizations and networks active in the reconciliation space; fostering innovative platforms for change; and supporting the use of social innovation and solutions finance tools in our Indigenous initiatives: “Right now, the McConnell Foundation has a large Indigenous portfolio with limited staffing. There are a lot of initiatives that we want to be supporting, so having the flexibility to have other partners step up and work with communities more directly is a bonus.” That the Foundation feels comfortable stepping back a little reflects the fact that they “trust the partners sitting at the table.”

Though Nicole has been working with funding collaboratives for approximately 10 years, she is relatively new to the world of philanthropy. Prior to joining the McConnell Foundation in 2015, she worked in the public service. She had a hand in implementing the Common Experience Payment as part of the Indian Residential School Resolution; she worked on programming and policy with the Urban Aboriginal Strategy; and she was involved in community safety planning as part of the Government of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Initiative.

Nicole is Métis from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and has spent most of her life living on Treaty 6 Territory. In 2012, Nicole relocated from the prairies to Ottawa so that she could pursue new work opportunities. She never expected to work for a philanthropic organization, but she is glad that the opportunity presented itself: “It’s been the best two years!”

For Nicole, there is no separation between her work life and her home life. Both she and her husband work in the Indigenous space and their five children are very involved as well. Her three sons are active in the Moosehide Campaign, a grassroots initiative working to address violence against women and girls. Inspired by a meeting with Cindy Blackstock, her daughters started a letter-writing campaign asking the Prime Minister to accept the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal 2016 ruling which found that the Government of Canada is discriminating against First Nations children living on-reserve. Her eldest son is a member of the Steering Committee for 4Rs, a youth movement committed to creating spaces for cross-cultural dialogue with an eye to transforming the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. All of this in addition to a busy schedule of swimming, soccer, hockey and synchronized swimming.

One of their family traditions is to head back to Saskatchewan in the summer to spend time together on the land visiting with family, swimming, fishing, hiking and berry picking. Last summer they also had the opportunity to visit with Elder Maria Campbell at her traditional family’s homestead at Gabriel’s Crossing in Batoche. Nicole notes, “Being back home and on the land is important to our family as it helps to remind us of our identity, history, values and connection to mother earth.”

The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like J.W. McConnell Family Foundation to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org).

On the land programs promote community, family, and individual wellbeing, and are vital to healthy ecosystems and economies. This year, the NWT On The Land Collaborative will distribute $634,845 to 35 projects across the territory that connect NWT residents with their land, culture, and community.

This is the second year that the Collaborative has been administering grants to on the land programs in the NWT. Coincidentally, the Collaborative also supported 35 projects in 2016. However, the average grant has risen by 62% to just over $18,000:

“Although we are supporting the same number of projects this year, we have been able to fully fund more projects, which means that they don’t have to go elsewhere for funds to make their programs happen,” shares Steve Ellis of Tides Canada, one of the driving forces behind the Collaborative. As the funding pot grows, the Collaborative is better able to meet its mandate of making it easier and less time consuming for people to access funds for land-based programs. 

Grants range from $3000 to support a canoe trip for grade nine students in Fort Smith to $60,000 for healing and wellness camps for youth in Rádeyįlįkóé (Fort Good Hope). Other funded projects include Trails on the Land, a 10-day trip beginning in Tuktoyaktuk that will take youth and elders through the traditional hunting territory of their ancestors; a land-based youth mentorship project coordinated by the Deh Gah Gotine First Nation; a boating program for Tłįchǫ youth that teaches traditional knowledge and skills; and a hide tanning camp in Łutsel K’e. In addition to financial support, funded projects may also receive equipment, training, and program support.

 Quick Facts

• The NWT On The Land Collaborative was founded in 2015.
• The Collaborative is a collective of diverse organizations that supports land-based programs through funds, resources, and expertise. Current funding partners include the Government of the Northwest Territories; Tides Canada; Dominion Diamond Corporation; NWT Recreation and Parks Association; TNC Canada; Indigenous Leadership Initiative; The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation; Diavik Diamond Mine; Health Canada; and The Gordon Foundation. Participating Indigenous governments include Inuvialuit Regional Corporation; Gwich’in Tribal Council; Tłįchǫ Government; Dehcho First Nations; NWT Métis Nation; and Akaitcho Territory Government.
• The Collaborative supports projects that: get people out on the land; connect community members to their land, culture, and traditions; build or strengthen partnerships; enhance community capacity; and promote sustainability.
• All of the funding partners who participated in the pilot year of the Collaborative renewed their commitments. We also welcomed three new funding partners in 2017: Diavik Diamond Mine, Health Canada, and The Gordon Foundation.
• The Collaborative welcomed a new Community Advisor in 2017: Diane Giroux of the Akaitcho Territorial Government. Community Advisors are appointed by Indigenous governments in each region to serve as representatives for the Collaborative. They provide on-the-ground support to projects throughout the process, while also assisting in the selection of recipients and in providing strategic direction to the Collaborative. 

 
Contacts
​
Steve Ellis
Northern Lead
Tides Canada
Email: steve.ellis@tidescanada.org
 
Jess Dunkin
Director, On the Land Programs
NWT Recreation and Parks Association
Email: jdunkin@nwtrpa.org

The NWT On The Land Collaborative is a collective of partners from government, industry, philanthropy, and beyond, working together to support land-based programs and projects in the NWT. Each of these partner organizations has a representative that participates in quarterly meetings and annual funding decisions. This is the sixth in a series of profiles of the people and organizations that make the Collaborative possible. You can read the other profiles here.

If I were to make a word cloud of my interview with Erin Kelly (Environment and Natural Resources’ representative on the Collaborative), I suspect that collaboration, connection, and community would appear in bold, a reflection of her priorities as a scientist and as a public servant. Erin traces these priorities to her time as a graduate student at the University of Alberta: “I worked with David Schindler, a very applied scientist. Our involved communities in the Rockies and partnerships with other organizations like Parks Canada, so I learned a lot about working collaboratively. In my experience, meaningful partnerships, but particularly community involvement always makes things better.”
 
Erin, who earned a doctorate in Environmental Biology and Ecology in 2007, joined the GNWT in 2010. Since then, she has served as a Water Specialist; the Manager of Watershed Programs & Partnerships; Assistant Deputy Minister for Environment and Natural Resources; and, most recently, as the Acting Deputy Minister for ENR. In those capacities, Erin has played a key role in a number of critical water and other environment-related initiatives. She worked on developing and implementing the Water Stewardship Strategy, she was a part of the negotiating team for the Transboundary Water Management Negotiations, and she led the development of the NWT Community-Based Water Quality Monitoring Program. Data from this program is publically available through Mackenzie Datastream, a collaboration between Erin and her team, Carolyn Dubois at the Gordon Foundation (another Collaborative member!), and others.
 
In the almost two decades that she has been working in community-based science, Erin has had a lot of opportunities to speak with communities about what is important to them: “What I have heard time and again is that it all comes back to the experience of being on the land, but also ensuring that we provide opportunities for youth and elders to connect, so that there is a passing on of knowledge.” These kinds of conversations inform ENR programming, which includes long-standing youth programs like Tundra Science and Culture Camp and Take-a-Kid-Trapping. More recently, the department has been championing community-based monitoring and Guardian programs. Another thing that Erin heard repeatedly in conversations with community members was the importance of linking traditional knowledge and science. For this reason, she has worked hard at ENR to promote this kind of thinking and practice amongst her colleagues. (She suspects that this is why she was tapped by former Deputy Minister Ernie Campbell to represent the department on the Collaborative.)
 
Erin is accustomed to being asked why ENR is part of the Collaborative. On the land programs are so often understood as being related to physical or cultural health, but Erin is clear that there are environmental outcomes as well: “Part of the healing work that on the land programs do is about being one with the environment.” Here, Erin acknowledges the impact of residential schools on this relationship and the need for reconciliation, “Land-based programs help give people back the bond that they have with the land and the water and the animals.” Repairing this relationship has important stewardship outcomes. Not to mention, to focus solely on environmental or health benefits ignores how all of these things are interconnected. As Erin notes, “You can’t really take apart the land, traditional economies, culture, and health. They are all inter-linked and inter-twined…On the land programming promotes holistic health: environmental health, including personal health, wildlife health, the health of water. Everything together.” There is also the fact that land-based programs, regardless of their intent, create opportunities for monitoring: “When people are out on the land, regardless of who they are, they will monitor the land in their own way.”
 
Like other partners, ENR was attracted to the Collaborative because the department’s leadership recognized there are better ways to do things, particularly in relation to processes such as accessing funds. Erin explains, “We understand the challenges that people face as they have to apply to different funding pots to have enough money to do project work. We believe in the work that is being done on the land in the NWT, so anything that we can do to streamline that process and support people getting out on the land is something that is important to us.”
 
ENR contributes to the Collaborative in a number of ways. Where possible they give funds, but they also provide in-kind support: “Because we have regional offices and also in some cases wildlife or other officers and staff in communities, there is a lot of in-kind support we can provide, both in terms of equipment and expertise.” Depending on the project, ENR might share equipment, such as sleighs, wall tents, and outdoor gear, or infrastructure, such as cabins. They can also provide expertise: “If groups want to spend time on the land and they want to talk about fish, forests, water, wildlife, protected areas, etc., we have people with those skillsets.” ENR has also provided staff time to the Collaborative. The Collaborative Administrator, Sarah True, is an ENR employee. We’ll be profiling Sarah in a future blog post. For now, know that, according to Erin, “Sarah is amazing and she’s doing really great work for the Collaborative.”
 
Erin is happy with the early days of the Collaborative: “One of the real benefits for me of sitting at the table has been to learn what others are doing, to see how our mandates are interlinked, and to see how we can work together in other ways.” Like Steve Ellis, Erin sees unrealized potential in the relationships that different partners could develop. She also sees opportunities for ENR’s place in the Collaborative to evolve: “I don’t think ENR’s support is fully realized at this point. I think there are lots of possibilities for strategic partnerships between funded projects and ENR, both in terms of equipment and expertise.”
 
Erin has always enjoyed being outdoors, but it was moving North that made her really understand the importance of being on the land to her wellbeing. No longer able to easily visit her family cottage, Erin realized how much she needed a space that was away from everyday life. She and her partner had the good fortune to find a cabin on River Lake. Accessible only by boat or snowmobile, Erin can pinpoint the place where she crosses over to “on the land mode”: “The stuff in town doesn’t disappear, but I don’t have to think about it while I’m there.” The North has also opened her up to other ways of being on the land: “I love the ability up here to learn from others who have different perspectives and do other things. For my 40th birthday, Fred Mandeville Jr. [ADM of Operations at ENR] took us to the East Arm and we just travelled around with him and his son. Learning from the master was amazing.” If Erin has her way, more people across the territory will have similar opportunities.
 
The NWT On The Land Collaborative depends on partners like GNWT Environment and Natural Resources to support land-based initiatives in the NWT. If your organization is interested in becoming a partner, please contact Steve Ellis (steve.ellis@tidescanada.org).