BC Studies no. 221 Spring 2024

Norah Bowman, PhD, is a Gender and Sexualities and English Lit-erature professor at Okanagan College in Kelowna, BC, on unceded Syilx Okanagan Territory. Her third book, My Eyes Are Fuses, comes out with Caitlin Press in the fall of 2024.

Max Chewinski is an independent researcher with expertise in social movements and the human dimensions of natural resources and renewable energy development. He is a former postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental sociology at the University of Alberta. Prior to this, Max obtained a PhD in sociology from the University of British Columbia. Max’s research has been published in journals that include Environmental Sociology, American Behavioral Scientist, and Social Movement Studies.

Deborah Curran is professor in the Faculties of Law and Social Sciences (School of Environmental Studies) and executive director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria.

Emma Feltes (settler) is a legal, political, and public anthropologist, and anticolonial activist. Her work examines the structure and operation of Canadian colonialism, with a focus on constitutional law, transnational decolonization, environmental crisis, and climate justice. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at York Uni-versity. Previously, she was Fulbright Scholar and SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at Cornell.

Nolan Foster completed an undergraduate degree in Prince George, British Columbia, before moving to St. John’s, NL, to pursue a master’s in geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is currently focusing on completing the final chapters of his thesis. Throughout this ongoing project, he has worked with the people of Baie Verte, NL, to gain a broader understanding of how the (now-closed) nearby asbestos mine impacted the way the community perceived mining and occupa-tional health and safety and how it may have affected the local sense of community identity.

Sonia Furstenau is the leader of the BC Green Party and has been MLA for Cowichan Valley since 2017. She was elected Cowichan Valley area director for Shawnigan Lake in 2014. Sonia studied history at the University of Victoria, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and then completed her education degree. Sonia enjoyed teaching, and she never expected to enter politics, but the decision by the provincial gov-ernment to grant a permit for a 5 million-tonne contaminated landfill site uphill from Shawnigan Lake provoked her to take action, first in her community, then at a provincial level.

Richard Holmes continues to live in Likely and work as a registered professional biologist in British Columbia. Currently, his main focus is restoring chinook salmon populations to historic levels in the Upper Fraser River and the reforestation of harvested areas in the Cariboo Region. He also works with First Nations locally, regionally, provincially, and nationally on sustainable aquaculture issues, including the removal of open-net pens in the marine environment.

Arn Keeling, originally from British Columbia, is a professor in the Department of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His current research focuses on the historical and contemporary encounters of Indigenous communities in northern Canada with extractive industries. With John Sandlos, he is co-author of Mining Country: A History of Canada’s Mines and Miners (Lorimer, 2021).

Shianna McAllister is Nlaka’pamux from Lytton First Nation and a political science and Indigenous nationhood PhD student at the Uni-versity of Victoria. Her current research investigates historic and ongoing relationships between political theory, colonization, resource extraction, and gender-based violence, emphasizing the necessity of addressing heteropatriarchy’s role in destroying Indigenous lands, bodies, and waters.

Neil Nunn is an environmental law, and justice scholar whose research examines the relationship between large-scale social and ecological disruption and settler colonialism in British Columbia. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at UBC’s Allard School of Law and completed a PhD from the University of Toronto’s Department of Geography and Planning in 2022. His doctoral research took the 2014 Mount Polley Mine disaster, the largest of its kind in Canadian history, as an entry point to consider how the disaster is relationally connected with broader patterns of socioecological disruption in the context of British Columbia’s colonial history. He is currently working on a book project that builds on this PhD research under contract with UBC Press.

Philip Owens is a professor and joint-Forest Renewal BC (FRBC) research chair in landscape ecology in the Department of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia . His research focuses on the movement of sediment, nutrients and contaminants in aquatic systems, and how landscape disturbances inf luence these f luxes. Most of this work is within the Fraser Basin, including the Quesnel watershed. In addition to work on the 2014 Mount Polley Mine spill, his research is also investigating soil erosion, sediment transport, and contamination in watersheds following wildfires. Phil is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Soils and Sediments.

Ellen Petticrew is a professor and joint-Forest Renewal BC (FRBC) research chair in landscape ecology in the Department of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia. Her work has investigated fine sediment dynamics in freshwater systems, including the interaction between sediment and marine-derived nutrients from Pacific salmon in headwater streams and lakes. Much of this has been at UNBC’s Quesnel River Research Centre and within the Quesnel watershed. Over the past ten years, her research has focused on the aquatic impacts of the breach of the tailings storage facility at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine in 2014, the second largest mine spill in the world. Other, ongoing work is investigating hydrological, limnological, and geomorphological stressors on fish habitat. Ellen is a past president of the International Association for Sediment – Water Science (IASWS).

Tara Scurr is a senior campaigner with Amnesty International and co-leads the organization’s work on a just energy transition. Prior to joining Amnesty’s global business and human rights team, she worked for Amnesty Canada, where she led research and advocacy work on the Mount Polley Mine disaster, investor engagement campaigns related to mining and human rights, and strategic litigation involving Canadian mining companies. Her current work, carried out in collaboration with coalition partners and rights-holders from affected communities, focuses on stopping and remedying human rights abuses in the battery mineral supply chain and ending fossil fuel dependency.

Bev Sellars is a former councillor and Chief of the Xatśūll (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia. First elected Chief of Xatśūll in 1987, she held the position from 1987–1993 and then from 2009–2015. Between her terms as Chief she earned a degree in history from the University of Victoria (1997). This was followed by a law degree from the University of British Columbia. She has served as advisor for the BC Treaty Commission and a representative for the Secwepemc communities on the Cariboo Chilcotin Justice Inquiry in the early 1990s. She is the former chairperson of the First Nations Women Advocating for Responsible Mining (FNWARM), which monitors proposed and existing mining operations in British Columbia.

Anna Stanley is assistant professor in the Department of Environment, Geography, and Geomatics at the University of Guelph. Her work engages resource extraction, environmental governance, and the political economy of settler colonialism in Canada.

Douglas Watt is retired after more than forty-five years working in the mining industry, and has lived on the shores of Quesnel Lake in Likely for over twenty-five years. Doug has a diploma from the BC Institute of Technology in chemical and metallurgy technology (extractive metallurgy). His career experience includes mineral processing research, mill operations supervision, senior metallurgist, and environ-mental superintendent and consultant, extending from South Korea to British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Watt has been an active participant in monitoring the Mount Polley Mine prior to the 2014 disaster, and as a local stakeholder, has contributed numerous comments and presentations to mine and provincial regulators during the frequent permit amendment applications processed in the past ten years.

Judy (Manuel) Wilson/tsiqw xwéxwne (Red Hummingbird) is a long-time Secwépemc leader from Skat’sin te Secwépemc (Neskonlith Indian Band). She served in the leadership of her community for nearly twenty-five years: as Kúkpi7 (elected Chief ) for sixteen years, and as a Council member for eight years. Her political experience also includes serving as secretary treasurer of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs for several terms and with the First Nations Leadership Council in British Columbia, in addition to many Assembly of First Nations committees, some of which she still sits on today. She continues as an advisor, advocate, and Knowledge Keeper for Children and Families, Climate/Environment and Adaptation, Emergency Management, Natural Resources/Forestry, Wildlife Protection and Land and Tribal Rights.