• A look at some of the Indigenous journalists creating spaces to investigate the crimes committed at Indian residential schools
• The repatriation of the Ni’isjoohl Memorial Pole stolen from the Nisga’a Nation
• Rick Mercer on his favourite place in Newfoundland and Labrador 
• An Eagle-Eye Tours adventure to New Brunswick and Grand Manan

A major moment happened last summer with the historic visit of Pope Francis to Maskwacis and Lac Ste. Anne in Alberta, both located near sites of former residential schools run by the Catholic Church. For the first time, the international media that arrived to cover the papal apology were joined by a significant corps of Indigenous journalists, there to report on the “pilgrimage,” provide their own analyses and tell their own stories. 

A lack of Indigenous representation in journalism has meant that, until recently, few people with lived experience were telling stories about the lives in First Nations, Métis and Inuit territories. It was common to read, watch or listen to stories about Indigenous people but rare to consume media actually created by them. Indigenous storytelling is not new. What is new is the number and prominence of journalists successfully reclaiming the narrative.

After nearly 100 years, the Ni’isjoohl Memorial Pole stolen from the Nisga’a Nation and displayed in the National Museum of Scotland will be repatriated

In northwestern British Columbia’s Nass Valley, ocean inlets and serpentine rivers carve through mountains, ancient forests and otherworldly lava fields. Like the waters, the Nisga’a Nation, who’ve called the valley home since time immemorial, have long carved their memories, laws and beliefs into monumental house poles and memorial poles.

One summer day in 1929, residents of the Ank’idaa village, a large Nisga’a community on an island in the Nass River a few kilometres upriver from modern-day Lax̱g̱alts’ap, were away hunting and gathering food. That’s when Marius Barbeau, a prolific pole collector, ethnographer and museum curator, stole the pole. The Ni’isjoohl Memorial Pole, as it’s now known, was toppled and then towed down the Nass River, to be sold to the Royal Museum of Scotland (now the National Museum of Scotland). By 1930, it was on display in Edinburgh.

When it comes to Newfoundland and Labrador, I could probably have 100 spots on my top 10 “favourite places” list. But a spot that is particularly special for me is Chapel’s Cove, where I have a summer home. My father and his brother originally built a very small cabin here. It was more like a utility shed with a wood stove. They never bought anything new. At one point, they took out a bucket of bent nails that had been pulled out of old wood. We would sit there and they would be like, “Okay, we got an hour to kill. Let’s straighten nails.” As a kid, I remember thinking, “Surely you could just buy a box of nails!”

species of warblers, including a good chance for rarities like prairie warbler. The interior forests support breeding populations of black-backed woodpecker, spruce grouse, white-winged crossbill and boreal chickadee. As well as northern gannets, we are quite likely to see great and sooty shearwaters, razorbills, Atlantic puffins, common and Arctic terns, and northern fulmars, and there is always a good chance of seeing jaegers, storm-petrels and black-legged kittiwakes.

We also take in the amazing shorebird concentrations of the Bay of Fundy, renowned for the highest tides on earth, and the sand dunes of Kouchibouguac National Park.

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Check out these other upcoming trips:

- An Ocean Quest Adventures trip through Newfoundland
- Heli-hiking in the Cariboos with Robin Esrock
- Wildlife of the Zambezi Valley with Travis Steffens