• The compact Miyawaki forests beginning to replace backyard lawns  
• Why Inuit are seeking greater involvement with climate change decision making 
• Kimberly Murray, Canada’s new Special Interlocutor for Missing Children, Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with former Residential Schools, on her role and the ongoing search for justice
• A featured trip with Canadian Geographic Adventures 

A tree is not just a tree. It is part of a collaboration of living creatures both intricate and mysterious — microbes, fungi, shrubs, ground- covers. In turn, this assemblage attracts insects, birds and mammals in a merry mashup of collegiality.

This refashioned understanding of the tree is giving rise to a tiny, forested revolution in cities across the world, including several in Canada. Rather than planting lawns around a solitary tree — once the ideal — municipalities, homeowners, schools, businesses and others are planting Miyawaki forests.

Named after the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki who invented them about 40 years ago, the densely planted forests are perhaps the size of a tennis court, often even smaller. But these minuscule forests are mighty, containing hundreds of plants, each striving to get its share of sun and rain. Done the right way, the forests achieve mature heights in about 20 years, rather than 100 or more, because they grow up rather than out.

“It’s one of those few things that when you first create it, it just gets better over time,” says landscape architect Heather Schibli. Her firm manages CanPlant, an organization that is beginning to track Miyawaki forests in Canada and the native species they contain.

Inuit have always shared a deep connection with their land and the natural world, but with the Arctic warming at a much faster rate than any other region of the globe, this relationship is being severely disrupted. Now, Inuit from Alaska and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) of Canada are calling for more Inuit involvement in government decisions about the Arctic so that their way of life can continue. 

In September 2020, the Inuit Circumpolar Council Alaska (ICC Alaska) published an extensive report on Inuit self-governance and food sovereignty — a multifaceted concept that encompasses the rights of Inuit to harvest healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods from land, air, and water. In a series of meetings, focus groups and workshops, dozens of Inuit from across Alaska and the ISR shared concerns about the changes happening in their homeland and threatening their way of life. The report’s findings are summarized in a recently-released policy paper that puts forward five calls to action for greater recognition and participation of Inuit in decisions related to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

“The only way Inuit can obtain food security and have food sovereignty is to manage their resources themselves, including those within both marine and territorial environments,” says Vernon Blaine Amos, a resident of Sachs Harbour, N.W.T. and one of the authors of the policy paper.

“Many people have said this was genocide. Justice Sinclair says it’s genocide. The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has called it genocide. So how do we investigate that?  What are the patterns that we see from Residential School to Residential School in relation to the deaths of the children, and who do we hold accountable for that?”

Kimberly Murray is our guest on this episode of Explore. She is Canada’s first Independent Special Interlocutor for Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Former Residential Schools. 

When hundreds of unmarked children’s graves were found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, it shocked Canadians and the world. Searches began across the country at dozens of sites of former Residential Schools, where thousands of children died in abusive environments after being torn away from their families in a government effort to wipe out Indigenous culture. 

Kimberly Murray’s job is to help make the process of finding unmarked graves and identifying lost children easier for Indigenous communities across the country. And as she discusses in this interview, in her new role she is also seeking ways to bring those responsible for the abuse and deaths of these children to justice. This includes a possible special prosecutor, and people trained in investigations of genocide. 

Kimberly Murray is the former Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. She was the Province of Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice. And most recently she led the search for unmarked graves at the Six Nations of the Grand River, working to recover the missing children and unmarked burials at the Mohawk Institute.
She is a proud member of the Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation.

Editor’s note: The subject matter discussed in this episode may be distressing or triggering for some listeners. If you are a residential school survivor in distress or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools crisis line toll-free at 1-866-925-4419.

On this special trip with Canadian Geographic Adventures, you’ll explore this cross-boundary region that is gaining international attention. On a 5-day expedition cruise, you’ll visit remote, natural and historic islands that are off the ferry routes and that most never get a chance to see. You’ll learn of Canada’s history in the region, as well as the history that’s existed far longer, the Coast Salish history.

Here, snow-capped mountains in southern British Columbia and Washington State ring an inland sea, full of intricate waterways that wind among hundreds of warm islands. Upwelling creates food for the inhabitants of a rich marine world — mammals, seabirds, fish and others.

Meet your RCGS Travel Ambassador: Emily Choy

Check out these other upcoming trips:

- Belize and Tikal with Myrna Pearman 
- Grizzly Bears of Toba Inlet with Wilson and Charlene Bearhead 
- Saskatchewan Whooping Cranes with Myrna Pearman