Representatives from the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage Site project partnership gathered in Winnipeg today to celebrate the send-off of their nomination package to the Paris, France headquarters of UNESCO.
“This is the completion of many years of effort by our partnership”, noted Alex Peters, who is a co-chair of the Pimachiowin Aki partnership and a representative for Pikangikum First Nation. Peters went on to add that: “Back in 1999 when our Elders were considering planning issues related to Dedicated Protected Areas in the Whitefeather Forest they wanted to create opportunities for future generations of our youth. It was at that time that they decided to pursue a World Heritage Site opportunity.”

Peters noted how the late Elder Oliver Hill, who as Coordinator of the Whitefeather Forest Initiative Steering Group until he passed away in December 2011, played a key role linking to other First Nations at the beginning of the efforts of the on the project.

Peters added: “For me, the achievement today for future generations of our youth pays tribute to the work of Oliver Hill. This project is an important part of his legacy and the legacy that all of the Elders of Pikangikum are leaving with us through the Whitefeather Forest Initiative Steering Group. We are grateful for this legacy and especially grateful to those Elders who are no longer with us. Their desire to build a positive economic future for our community has been our motivation to keep going.”

The Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage Site nomination process will now be carried forward by Canada at UNESCO. A successful inscription of the proposed Pimachiowin Aki site would create significant new opportunities in indigenous cultural tourism.

For more information, please visit the Pimachiowin Aki web site and the Press Releases at: http://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?archive=&item=13025

For further information, please contact Alex Peters Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation

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Two representatives from the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project attended the 32nd Session of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Committee that was held in Quebec City in early July, 2008 (http://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/32COM/). Alex Peters attended as Co-Chair of the Pimachiowin Aki Assembly of Partners and Gord Jones attended as Project Manager for the partnership.

The Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project is rooted in a partnership that includes Pikangikum First Nation, Little Grand Rapids First Nation, Pauingassi First Nation and Poplar River First Nation as well as the Governments of Manitoba and Ontario. The Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project Area is an Ojibway cultural landscape and encompasses approximately 40,000 square kilometers and includes ancestral lands of the four First Nations, as well as Woodland Caribou Signature Site in Ontario and Atikaki Provincial Park in Manitoba.

The Pimachiowin Aki partners are working to achieve World Heritage designation for an Ojibway cultural landscape that will straddle the Ontario-Manitoba boundary. Designation will support exciting new opportunities including in indigenous eco-cultural tourism.

The Pimachiowin Aki area was added to Canada’s Tentative List for World Heritage Sites when the list was updated in 2004. Here is what the federal Minister of the Environment said about the area when the updated list was announced: “These places are of outstanding universal value to all humankind and reflect our human creative genius. They are of exceptional cultural or natural significance.” (http://pc.gc.ca./apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?id=791&andor1=nr)

The Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site would celebrate the magnificent beauty of the northern forest as well as how this forest has supported the livelihoods of First Nation people for countless generations up to the present time. The site would also celebrate the customary resource stewardship traditions of the First Nations. For example, in bringing Manomin to the Whitefeather Forest years ago, the ancestors of Pikangikum people who are alive today nurtured the ecological abundance and diversity of the forest in harmony with the gifts that the Creator gave them. This legacy continues to this day.

It is this legacy – a legacy that also includes numerous pictographs, thousands of kilometers of summer travel routes (inaa onaanan) and winter travel routes (biboonimiikanaa) as well as beautiful lakes, rivers and vast northern forests which has drawn international attention to the Pimachiowin Aki area as an indigenous cultural landscape. Central to the partnership is bringing together the indigenous legacy of caring for the land into a strong cross-cultural collaboration with the resource management achievements and traditions of Manitoba and Ontario. Working together and building consensus to strengthen contemporary resource stewardship are key features of the cross-cultural partnership for the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project. They are the foundation of the partnership.

The Pimachiowin Aki representatives attended the 32nd Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to learn more about the work of the Committee. This knowledge will help Pimachiowin Aki put forward the strongest possible case for World Heritage status for lands within the Project area.

The work of the partnership is already building on a strong foundation. This is how it was expressed in report of the World Heritage Boreal Zone Workshop that was held in St. Petersburg, Russia in October, 2003: “This site is also internationally significant because of the planned integration of traditional and western ecological knowledge for land management and protection. The agreement between the First Nations in whose traditional territory this site is located is precedent setting.”

Posted: September 15, 2008.

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The rich cultural relationship between Pikangikum First Nation people and fire in the Whitefeather Forest will soon be on display at the Red Lake Heritage Centre. Art and research are being brought together to celebrate this relationship.

The display will feature paintings created by the gifted young Ojibway artist from Pikangikum, Mario Peters. His paintings will highlight knowledge and teachings about fire from the rich Indigenous Knowledge tradition and the Keeping the Land stewardship tradition of Pikangikum people. This information has been brought together through the collaborative documentation efforts of Pikangikum Elders, Head Trappers, and other community members renowned for their knowledge of the Whitefeather Forest. They have been working with a PhD student from the University of Manitoba, Andy Miller.

Peeshaskoosaywahseegay – Burning the dead grass in the early spring
along creeks and marshes
Geeminozahgeegink – for the land to grow beautifully

Fire has been an important feature of life for Pikangikum people in the Whitefeather Forest for countless generations. As Elder Whitehead Moose from Pikangikum has noted, stories about the fire and the Whitefeather Forest have been passed on among Pikangikum people since forests were placed on the land and the ancestors of Pikangikum people placed in those forests by the Creator.

Until now, much of the cultural tradition of Pikangikum people related to fire has remained largely invisible to the larger world. The display at the Red Lake Heritage Centre will feature not only how Pikangikum people have lived with fire in the Whitefeather Forest and not only how fire has provided them with heat with which to stay warm and cook, but how they have also used fire as a landscape management tool to enrich the diversity and abundance of life in the Whitefeather Forest. Pikangikum Elders and other Indigenous Knowledge experts from the community believe that their knowledge of fire will support Forest Management Planning in the Whitefeather Forest that incorporates their Keeping the Land stewardship approach.

Posted: September 15, 2008.

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