Grant: Alliance Grants

The project goal is to advance reconciliation for freshwater governance in Canada through a partnership between Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishnaabek (BZA), Lakehead University, and York University to understand the cumulative effects of resource development on Lake Nipigon. Lake Nipigon is the largest lake located entirely within Ontario, and is sometimes referred to as the 6th Great Lake because it drains into Lake Superior through its largest tributary. BZA are one of four First Nations that have permanent settlements on Lake Nipigon, and there are no non-Indigenous populations living on Lake Nipigon's shores. This has likely contributed to a widely held perception by Canadians that Lake Nipigon is a pristine lake surrounded by wilderness, a perception that hides a long history of impact from hydroelectric power generation and mining. This includes the Ogoki Diversion, which was constructed in 1943 to divert the flow of the Ogoki River from the Hudson Bay (i.e., Arctic) watershed into the Great Lakes (i.e., Atlantic) watershed through Lake Nipigon. The cumulative effects of these activities are well known within the First Nation communities around Lake Nipigon, but not well documented externally. Western science data on ecosystem conditions and changes over time is effectively absent for Lake Nipigon, a surprising knowledge gap for a lake of its size, significance, and resource development history. We will use lake sediment cores as natural archives of environmental change over the post-colonial period to address the data gap. The partnership will produce the most comprehensive western science assessment to date of ecosystem change in Lake Nipigon, and the first to be co-produced to center Indigenous knowledge and worldviews. The impact will be enhanced capacity in BZA for participation in governance and decision-making in the Lake Nipigon basin through a deeper understanding of ecosystem changes and their cumulative effects, and an ability to express concerns to non-Indigenous groups using their own scientific data.