OTTAWA—Two women whose passion for the environment and conservation has led to a close friendship and working relationship were honoured with a Braiding Knowledges Canada (BKC) Knowledge Braiders’ Award in Ottawa recently. The duo has been studying turtles on behalf of Whitefish River First Nation (WRFN) and, as part of the award, they were invited come to the nation’s capital to present their findings on the Blandings turtle to the BKC conference.
Reta Meng is a PhD candidate at McMaster University and Alexis McGregor is a student in the Master’s of Environmental Engineering program at Carleton University.
BKC is, according to its website, a Canadian organization that “aims to advance Reconciliation Through Research by enhancing the influence of self-determined, place-based, and co-produced knowledge within Canada’s science culture. BKC’s mission is to create stronger, more inclusive pathways for knowledge sharing and decision-making, celebrating the braiding of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems.”
The award provides $15,000 to be shared by two recipients.
“We received the award as a pair, so it was one award for the both of us,” said Ms. Meng. Although they split the cash, both recipients have their own medal for their respective glory walls.
“I’m a PhD candidate at McMaster University down south in Hamilton and I am doing my PhD with WRFN on freshwater turtle conservation,” explained Ms. Meng. “So, I’ve been coming up to Birch Island for the past, four or five years. Every summer, basically living there and we co-created a turtle conservation program. Where the WRFN and Lands Department, chief and council and Elders really guide the direction of what we are trying to accomplish. That includes identifying where the turtles are living. What the important habitats are and then also community members concerns regarding the threats that are facing turtles where a lot of community members have told us things like road mortality on Highway 6.”
Somewhat surprising among the duo’s discoveries was that the old Algoma East Central decommissioned railroad is a concern. There is a lot of predations going on there along its length.
“Turtles lay eggs and they bury them along the train track, but then raccoons and all sorts of animals come, and because the linear corridor is so straight, it’s basically like an all-you-can-eat buffet for them,” said Ms. Meng. “We think it is because it is much higher than a natural site.”
“Alex and I have been working together for this entire time,” said Ms. Meng. “This project doesn’t exist without Alex—we’ve really been buildings on the ground together with the Lands Department.”
Ms. Meng explained that this is the first year the BKC Conference was being held.
“The award is essentially for weaving Indigenous knowledge together with Western science in a project,” she said. The duo decided to apply and to share their research and to their findings.
“Luckily, we got it,” said Ms. McGregor. “After a successful application we attended the conference last week in Ottawa and did a poster, a presentation were able to learn more.” “
“We’ve been working together for a while now and it was kind of just a place that we started working together and it kind of just matured into this really great friendship/partnership,” said Ms. McGregor. “It’s just a really great project to be a part of. I love being able to work with my community whenever I get the chance to, so being able to bring Reta in and kind of share those connections and see, kids getting excited when we do outreach, and even the parents and adults come out to all of our events. They’re always super energetic and super excited to hear about. “It’s just a really great thing to bring the community together.”
As time moves forward, an application has been made for funding to start a turtle egg incubation program. “It is related to the nest predation that we’re talking about, like the buffet situation on the railroad.”
When the pair had planted pigeon eggs in nests along the rail bed, they found that 95 percent were “completely mucked up,” said Ms. Meng. “So, this year, we are hoping to take some of the eggs before they get wrecked by raccoons.”
The program they have applied to for funding is the Indigenous Partnership for Species at Risk. “They should be letting us know this month,” said Ms. McGregor.
The Expositor played an introductory role in bringing the two environmental studies students together. “Because my earlier work in Birch Island was written about in The Manitoulin Expositor, that’s actually how Keith from the Lands Department found out about me and he reached out,” said Ms. Meng. “We started to develop this partnership and realize that there were a lot of turtles on WRFN traditional territory as well as within the reserve. And there was a lot of community and trust and community concern. Together we have continued to engage in those conversations.”
“We kind of realize that it would be awesome if we could start a turtle conservation program in WRFN,” said Ms. McGregor. “There are a lot of amazing people at the Lands Department,” agreed Ms. Meng. “Obviously including Alex, we’re all on board, and we got chief and council approval to start this program back in like 2021 2022 and we just never stopped, because every year, there’s more and more findings and we find more turtles and different habitats, and we learn more from the elders and community and engage with more students and more and more people come out.”
The Braiding Knowledges Canada (BKC) Knowledge Braiders’ Award “recognizes impactful research, training, or knowledge mobilization that braids together Indigenous and Western knowledge.”
