By Jeannette Armstrong

A Woman by the name of Jeannette Armstrong is a Okanagan member. Member of the Penticton Indian Band in British Columbia, and teaches a school about Okanagan culture. The whole article is about Jeanette and where she comes from, how she connects to the land, the language.   

• By “Jeannette Armstrong sharing one skin.” Rooms: women, writing, 9 Jan, 2020. 

By B. Toastie

The article is about how place name shape our understanding with the landscapes. It connects to indigenous places that carry a deep history. The article points out the importance of the stories each historical site has. Contrasting colonial and indigenous naming practices and support for cultural sensitivity and respect for historical meanings. 

• Oaster, B. ‘., & Oaster, B. ‘. (2024, January 24). How place names impact the way we see

landscape. High Country News. https://www.hcn.org/issues/54-5/people-places-how-place-names-impact-the-way-we-see-landscape/

By Joe Suina

A young boy, a preschooler, shares his experience in school. The article takes place in the early fifties in Cochiti, an era where electricity had not yet entered pueblo homes. The young man is proud to be who he is and were he comes from, and gives a lot of credit towards his grandma.  When he started school everything changed around him. He explains that school wasn't the best experience he had, and saw that his teacher would slap him with a ruler for speaking his language. He was white washed and was told to leave his culture out of school and speak English instead of his Native language. 

• Suina Joe “And then I went to school”. Rethinking schools, 22 June, 2021.

Research was done by the University of Maryland, Showing that forest fires are becoming more widespread and destructive to the environment globally.  Using data from past researchers. They calculated that forest fires burn twice as much tree cover each year as they did two decades ago. At least 13.5 million hectares of forest burned in total. Forest fires year round destroy homes and polluted drinking water and cause billions of dollars in property damage. 

• MacCarthy, J. (n.d.-b). The latest data confirms: forest fires are getting worse. World Resources Institute. https://www.wri.org/insights/global-trends-forest-fires

The article was about the government mistakes cultural burning,, and prohibits them in columbia. This means indigenous people in Colombia can't have cultural practices that include any fire. Losing their cultural ways and can't treat the landscape. Fire to indigenous people in colombia is important to them, seeing fire as a spiritual energy and a tool for agriculture. Annual cultural burnings are meant to clear deadfall and attract more game. Many people see fires as a horrible act, while others feel its natural and beneficial for the landscape. In the end colombian government issued a law that prohibited burnings and indigenous people lost their touch with fire. 

• Ana María Monsalve Cuartas et al. "The Role of Cultural Fire Values among the Arhuaco, Tikuna, Uitoto, Pijao, and Embera-Chamí Indigenous Peoples of Colombia in Promoting Sustainable Forest Governance." Human Ecology, 53 (2025): 453 - 466. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-025-00618-5.

Back burning is a tactic use as a last resort to try to slow down an approaching wildfire. It's much different from a “prescribed burn” because prescribed are planned from fall to spring (before a fire seasons). Its talk was about should fire fighters use this tactic, rather than relying on a burn scar to maintain a fire. Wildfires often change its course, so there's no predicting a fire's direction. 

• Team, B. R. C. (2020b, January 9). Australia fires: Does controlled burning really work? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51020384