If all the elected First Nations along the pipeline route signed agreements, why were there still protesters? The above question kept coming up again and again from observers who didn’t quite understand why a blockade was set up at the Unist’ot’en camp in northern B.C., preventing work to proceed on the Coastal GasLink pipeline. A deal was reached Thursday between Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and the RCMP to allow for pre-construction work, but the question for many still remained.

This chapter explores the intersection of feminist aesthetics and decolonization in the context of Artist and master carver Carey Newman’s acclaimed work, the Witness Blanket. The Witness Blanket is a national monument of the Indian Residential School Era. It is made of items collected from residential schools, churches, government buildings and other traditional structures across Canada. Through a mixture of tangible objects, documents and photographs, the Witness Blanket weaves together a comprehensive narrative of Survivor experience and history of residential schools in Canada. There are 886 contributions in the Witness Blanket, collected during a year-long cross-Canada, in-person engagement process and represented in the form of physical objects and images integrated into the installation. The full installation is 40ft long, with a height of 10. 5ft. Readers can learn more about the Witness Blanket online at http://witnessblanket. ca/, by visiting it in person at the Canadian Museum...

A brief introduction to “Indigenous Knowledges,” a special issue of KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies that includes sixteen contributions in diverse formats, including multimedia. In these editorial remarks, the editors reflect on the discussions that led to the special issue, their responsibility to honour the work of contributors from many different nations and communities, the ways that conventional forms of academic writing can be inhospitable to Indigenous knowledges, and conversation as methodology. This short introduction also links out to the recording of the virtual launch of “Indigenous Knowledges,” hosted and moderated by Shelagh Rogers and featuring editors Robert L. A. Hancock, Ry Moran, Carey Newman, and Andrea Walsh and contributors Jessie Loyer, Darrell Loyer, and Barry Pottle.

This chapter explores master carver Carey Newman’s ongoing journey of transformation. It demonstrates how his individual journey has seeded collective transformation and shifted Canadian consciousness, through a monumental art installation titled The Witness Blanket. This work has led to (more difficult to achieve) legal-structural change, enacted through ceremony in an innovative stewardship agreement between Carey and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The agreement details ongoing collective responsibility for the Witness Blanket. Through storytelling, this chapter attends to the emotional and spiritual dimensions of transformation and exemplifies how transformative learning is an ongoing process rather than an end state. In particular, it shows how the act of bearing witness can promote a sense of responsibility, deep enough to propel individual, collective, and structural change.

For Indigenous Nations on Turtle Island (Canada and the USA), the onset of COVID-19 has exacerbated food insecurity and adverse health outcomes. This situation report examines ways that Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island have met the challenges of the pandemic in their communities and their daily practices of community resurgence through social media. Drawing on the lived experiences of four Indigenous land-based practitioners, we found that social media can offer new forms of connection for Indigenous peoples relating to our foods, lands, waterways, languages, and our living histories.

This report from the field summarizes a conversation between Carey Newman and guest editor, Catherine Etmanski, which took place on January 12, 2018. The conversation focused on Carey’s work engaging people across Canada in a project titled The Witness Blanket. The Witness Blanket is a national monument of the Indian Residential School Era made of items collected from residential schools, from churches, government buildings, and traditional structures from across Canada. In this report, Carey provides insight into the process of collecting artifacts from communities across Canada. Although not all pieces he received were aesthetically pleasing—and neither were the stories associated with them—through this process, he learned the importance of including all voices and stories. With time and reflection, he learned the power of collective truth. While making the Witness Blanket, some items challenged his creativity and tested his commitment to include something from every contributor, but...