BC Studies no. 216 Winter 2022/23

Janette Bulkan is an associate professor in the department of forest resources management in the faculty of forestry at the University of British Columbia. She has worked/works collaboratively with Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Guyana, Canada and Peru. She is interested in old and new forms of enclosures which are not only about territory but also proprietary access to resources that are then incorporated into complex anastomosing supply chains.

Heather Castleden (she/her) is a professor and the President’s Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria. She is a white settler scholar, trained as a geographer, and she has been doing community-based participatory research in solidarity with Huu-ay-aht First Nations since 2005. She is a former Canada Research Chair, Fulbright Scholar, and is now an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Heather is the co-director of the ‘A SHARED Future’ research program and is the scientific director of the HEC Lab.

Kokas Dan writes: “I have been raised by older people without electricity, indoor water, no TV, radio etc. Our food came from gardens and forests. My education of the wild medicines come from the forest with my grandfather’s teachings and a whole community of people that know this stuff. To me, I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned. Oh yeah, I’m raised in the Líl̓wat ways of survival.”

Huu-ay-aht First Nations is a self-governing, modern treaty Nation whose lands are located in the Barkley Sound region on the west coast of Vancouver Island, at the entrance to Alberni Inlet. The lands and waters making up our traditional territories (ḥahuułi, pronounced “ha-houlthee”) have been occupied by us since time immemorial. Today, Huu-ay-aht citizens number close to 750 and primarily reside around the village of Anacla, the Nation’s principal community close to Bamfield, as well as in Port Alberni, the closest population centre. The balance of our citizens live across Vancouver Island, in the Vancouver area, and beyond.

ReAnne Kennedy is a writer and a student at the University of British Columbia majoring in geography. With a wide range of interests, she hopes to continue writing while also pursuing grad school.

Dorota Kupis holds a master’s degree in history, completed at Concordia University in Montreal. She has contributed to the Alaska History Journal and Yukon News.

Onyx Sloan Morgan is a settler scholar of Irish and Scottish ancestries who grew up on unceded and ancestral lək ̓ʷəŋən territories. Co-lead of the tašiiʔakqin ʔuyaqḥmisukqin (Our Journey, Our Story) research project alongside Heather Castleden and the Huu-ay-aht Research Advisory Committee, for over a decade the team has been researching the negotiation and now implementation of the Maa-nulth Treaty. Onyx is an assistant professor of critical human geography in the Community, Culture, and Global Studies Department at UBC Okanagan.

Tonya Smith is a post-doctoral fellow in the faculty of forestry at the University of British Columbia who has earned a PhD (2022) and master’s degree (2015) in forestry. Tonya is a non-binary queer third-generation Canadian settler of Irish and German ancestry.

Hua Laura Wu studied comparative literature and Chinese literature at the University of Toronto, where she earned her PhD degree. She is now professor emerita at Huron University College in London, Ontario. Her current research interest is the Chinese diaspora in Canada and Chinese Canadian literature and media.

Xueqing Xu, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at York University. Her research is centred on Chinese