Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Mi'kmaq have inhabited what is now known as Nova Scotia for millennia; it is where their origin stories begin and where they continue to raise their children. In the 1960s, amidst other resource extraction and industrial development initiatives in Pictou County (Nova Scotia), in an area characterized by economic disparities, a pulp and paper mill began dumping pollutants into an estuary adjacent to Pictou Landing First Nation. The estuary is known in Mi'kmaq as 'A'se'k' and in English as 'Boat Harbour'; the dumping continues to this day. It has become a dumping ground for toxic waste, a place of fear and unrest, embroiled in political, legal and economic tension, and rife with environmental health concerns for members of the First Nation and for others living throughout Pictou County. Frustrated and anxious about their children's health, the Pictou Landing Native Women's Association mobilized in 2010 to undertake community-based participatory health research out of concern for their community's physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health in relation to the environmental pollution. Bringing academics in, our team has worked together since then, with the support of a CIHR Operating Grant to implement a Two-Eyed Seeing approach to research the women's question: "Are we getting sick from Boat Harbour?". Sharing our team's research findings with Pictou Landing First Nation first, before academic audiences and general public, continues to be central to our research partnership. Thus, the key Dissemination Activities proposed here are to undertake hosting a final Community Dinner (and filming this event) as well as printing and delivering two Final Project Reports (a Comprehensive Environmental Health Survey and a Full Project Report) to each household in the community.