Keywords

Introduction

It is widely anticipated that global warming and climate change in general will have considerable and adverse impact on ecosystems and human communities. Indeed, climate change has the potential to bring about catastrophic changes to environments that trigger massive shifts in the human experience on the social, economic, political and environmental fronts. Conceivably, climate change would not only affect the landscape but in doing so, cause huge stresses and upheavals in the human experience brought about by lifestyle changes, displacement, shifts in population, and a myriad of other possibilities. Anticipated changes to the ecosystems and the inevitable impacts of these conditions on human populations will most assuredly have deep psychological and life-transforming effects on individuals and whole communities. What happens to the human heart and soul, the epicentre of impact experience, when turbulent change occurs in the things that people care about has received little attention in climate change discourse. Yet, without the appropriate exploration into these issues, gaps would exist in terms of understanding and determining individual and collective vulnerability and what the pertinent responses would be valuable to irrepressible change the projected climatic dimension of the future would spawn. Duerden (2004) has written that:

What we need to know, and what lies fairly in the preview of social scientists, is how human activity will respond to change. From the standpoint of affected populations, the important questions are “What will the impact be on way of life?” and “How shall we adapt?” (p. 210)

Understanding past experiences and the responses by various human communities to massive shifts in their sociocultural circumstance can help in anticipating and alleviating broader social crisis and upheaval in the wake of climate change disruptions. The central intention of this paper is to advance the thesis that understanding adaptation and adaptive capacity in the context of climate change can be enhanced by exploring the interface humans have with their natural environment. Two community case studies were undertaken with Elder focus groups as part of a research project entitled “Nikan Oti: Future – Understanding Adaptation and Adaptive Capacity in Two First Nations” with the intention of understanding adaptation and adaptive capacity and specifically how communities make adjustments to their natural or human systems amidst unprecedented change that impacts them. The research project was undertaken to document exposure sensitivities, adaptive capacities and adaptive strategies to change in two First Nations communities in north central Saskatchewan. This paper will examine some the results of that study and will specifically look at the Elder memory and the value of Elder thought in trying to draw out how human collectives perceive and work with change. Memory work with Elders reveals how First Nation communities underwent changes not only in terms of their experience with the climate and the environment, but also in their sociocultural dimensions, where change was a central and engrossing issue. The Elder memory of the changes that happened to their people and disrupted the life of the community, the philosophies that inherently guided the people to confront unknowns, and the human capacities that help initiate a conciliation of the future will be examined.

Elder Contributions

First Nations Peoples in Canada have a wealth of cultural philosophies, knowledge, and experiences closely tied to the land that may be examined more closely in an effort to create awareness about response attributes to the challenges presented by climate change. Indeed, indigenous people, and Elders in particular, have begun to add their voices and observations to the increasing body of knowledge on climate change. This has particularly been the case in northern regions where livelihood activities often remain tied to the land. For example, in 2003, the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development of the Northwest Territories attended the Dene Nation Elders Gathering in Rae-Edzo to initiate discussions on climate change and develop a series of regional workshops with Elders around this issue. Initiatives such as these and others point to the growing collaboration between western scientists and Indigenous communities, and particularly Elders, to explore and address climate change issues. It is also inevitable that Elders, because of their worldview and knowledge of cultural philosophies associated with close experiences with the land, can also contribute insights about how the broader society can achieve and maintain a more holistic understanding of the natural world order. Specifically, this can be done by exploring how Elders perceive the nature of changes they have experienced out on the land, the past responses and practices of community, past successes and failures, as insights about human self-determination and what is important as humans face up to the natural world of the future and the looming changes we must negotiate if climate change is indeed running rampant.

One of the undercurrents in the focus group sessions with the Elders from James Smith and Shoal Lake relates to the way the issue of climate change is framed. In the western scientific perspective, climate change is largely a physical phenomenon that is observable and can be documented and presented in highly organized ways even if its causes and impacts are not clearly understood yet. Karl and Trenberth (2003), for example, have stated that scientific instrumentation like global climate models, are:

fully coupled, mathematical computer-based models of the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmosphere, land surfaces, oceans and cryosphere and their interaction with each other and with the sun and other influences (p. 1721).

There can be no doubt that scientific data collection and instrumentation is valuable in charting an understanding of the various phenomena that would induce climate change. The Elders from James Smith and Shoal Lake Cree Nations provided a broader interpretation to the concept of climate change in contrast to the largely quantitative context provided by contemporary biological and physical sciences. For the Elders, the issues of “climate” and “change” are complex and interrelated, with each reciprocally affecting each other in some manner. The Elders talked about the notion of change and social–cultural dimensions of the human/natural environment relationship as much as they discussed climate itself. Perhaps another category that can be interpreted from the Elder discourse is the “mental climate” that contributes to the manner in which humans think about and behave towards nature. For the Elders, the issue of climate change is as much about a declining humanity marked by the loss of ecological values as it is about natural forces.

Elders’ perceptions of the natural environment are important in understanding the complex array of challenging questions presented by global climate change. The Elders believe that by understanding the spiritual world, society can more readily understand the functioning of the natural world. With this understanding, knowing becomes possible. Beck et al. (1992), in their book The Sacred state:

[A] knowledgeable human being was one who was sensitive to his/her surroundings. This sensitivity opened him/her to the Grand mysteries and to the possibility of mystical experiences, which was considered the only way to grasp certain intangible laws of the universe (p. 164).

This fundamental principle of First Nations thought is often discounted in western scientific circles. However, understanding its value can lead to insights about the various profiles of climate change just it would on many other important issues. As Jeremy Hayward has stated, “it is just that the modern description leaves out so much – it leaves out the sacredness, the livingness, the soul of the world”. In many instances the Elders can provide the heart and soul, the narrative of the human experience with nature, to western scientific constructs of data and figures with the result that the state of art in climate change understanding may be achievable.

Historical Changes

Timeframe seems an important element in determining the nature of change and assessing the success or failure of the human response to the disruption of lifestyle. The Elders in the study established historical perspectives as they committed to a discourse on change and adaptation experienced by their people. The Elders talked about their history as a field of memory that included the lives of their ancestors along with their own first-hand experiences into a narrative form that illustrated a wide-ranging sequence of events otherwise known as community history. Providing this wider latitude to community consciousness was a way of identifying inconsequential aberrations from the long term and sustained change affecting community life. From this Elder history emerges a picture of the many faces of change that challenged the people over time and the identification of resources that gave a sense of existential continuity and hope for the future of the people. The climate change record which is based almost exclusively on technological and scientific documentation of climatic factors has left serious gaps in understanding these community perspectives of change. As Smithers and Smit (1997) state, “the standard approach is rarely connected to current experience of communities and usually does not relate to the actual adaptive decision-making process in communities” (p. 392).

Change would seem to be the keyword and central issue in trying to understand adaptation and the adaptive capacity of a community. Any change in environment, whether it is climate change affecting eco-regions or sociocultural change that takes place in collectives, creates tensions and tests the capacity of the people to adapt to the shifting circumstances. Many First Nations communities have gone through significant social, economic and political transformations over the course of history that had serious implications for social wellbeing. While some changes are certainly unprecedented, First Nations people are not unfamiliar with change. Serious economic, political and social transitions of the past have tested not only First Nations’ resolve to persist as a people but also measured their capacity for adapting to new realities. For instance, the First Nation communities involved in this study had gone through significant changes as the people shifted from largely traditional subsistence economies to contemporary mainstream lifestyles over the course of the Elder memory. This in itself is a record of adaptation. The communities’ lifestyles were tightly connected to the natural environment through trapping, hunting, fishing, and other means of northern livelihood. The traditional way of life in the northern forests was marked by self-sufficiency. However, the passage to urbanized lifestyles and adoption of mainstream conveniences also shifted the consciousness of the people away from the land that had sustained them in the past. The Elders in the study were very clear that the lifestyle change and an alternate mode of knowledge practice had severe impact on community vitality that is still being felt.

Both communities of James Smith and Shoal Lake had encountered different waves of life changing forces over the course of their histories. The changes to their environments and their collective existence speak of shifts and tensions happening at deeper levels of human experience where the peoples’ perseverance and capacity to effectively respond to life altering forces are rigorously tested. The community experiences and the peoples’ wherewithal to prevail amidst challenge may be the portals to the examination of how humans react and adapt to fundamental changes to their living conditions.

The focus group Elders from both James Smith and Shoal Lake spoke of the passage in eras and lifestyle conversions that altered community dynamics and displaced the philosophies and knowledge that had sustained them in the past. In some instances, the changes that the Elders talked about had a negative impact on the people’s confidence and self-determination. For example, James Smith First Nation Elders identified a catastrophic cattle die-off in their past that had a severe impact on the people’s self-sufficiency. Without the cattle, the people’s sensibilities for independence were disoriented and a domino effect of events was triggered. According to one of the Elders, the loss of livelihood resulting from the cattle die-off created the conditions that led to the introduction of social assistance in the community. The old people of the community at the time had wisely opposed the introduction of social assistance in their community because they saw it as the precursor to the destruction of a people’s independence through a system of welfare. Indeed, the Elders spoke of how the events of that history injured the spirit of the James Smith Cree Nation – the same spirit that the community had relied on to pull the people through the many adversities of the past.

The Shoal Lake Cree Elders said that great changes had similarly taken place in their community since the time of their ancestors. Perhaps the biggest change and the most incendiary was the displacement of traditional knowledge that formerly guided the people through fluctuating circumstances. The insidious effect of this repression of cultural knowledge is felt most acutely in the disposition of the youth. Mainstream influences such as different forms of education and the uptake of a sedentary lifestyle resulted in altered youth behaviours that were considered outside of the norm for the community. One Elder states that “they are not skilled to run their lives in good ways”. Another Elder remarked that:

Presently, the youth say they are men but they only know the book knowledge. They do not actually know how to work. Presently, the youth have a different nature to them.

One of the lady Elders also laments the neglect of traditional environmental education and skills development to young people and how mainstream education has not properly addressed that form of learning. She states:

Our young people will face difficulty if all they are shown are the white ways of life. They are also behaving like the white people in the ways of foolishness.

There is a general recognition that the youth are bearing the impacts of a delicate transition period between the traditional lifestyles of the past and the emergence of contemporary urbanized influences in the community. One of the great challenges for the people of the community is a need to repatriate youth from their communities to traditional environmental and cultural knowledge. Connections to the land traditionally meant that the natural environment provided for an array of health needs including clean air and water, natural foods, medicinal plants, and spiritual grounding.

The Elders from the two communities of James Smith and Shoal Lake Cree Nations had seen their old people, the ancestors, and they remembered the virtues that kept the community people grounded and actively engaged with their environments. Changes brought on by the passage of eras, economic catastrophes, loss of cultural foundations and the impacts of alternate modes of knowledge practice have negatively impacted the communities and have tested the resolve and capacity of a people to persevere and adapt to new realities. For both First Nation communities, the re-engagement with time honoured knowledge and the mobilization of innate human capacities would be the touchstone by which change and adaptation would be negotiated.

Adaptive Capacity

The background to this discussion on climate change is the ever-present worldview as informed by the Elders in the focus group. This worldview is formed and guided by a distinct knowledge tradition with its insights, values, interests, as well as social, economic and political realities of the community people over the course of their history. This worldview is reflected in the philosophies that the Elders discussed in relation to the environment and physical climate. These perspectives provided insights into how people confront significant cultural and social changes taking place in their lives and about inner resources of people that cushion and mediate severe change to circumstances such as those that may be presented by climate change.

Smit and Pilifosova (2003) have suggested that vulnerability is a function of a community’s exposure to climate change effects and its adaptive capacity to deal with that exposure. Further, adaptive capacity is understood as the ability of a community to effectively plan for and cope with climate change impacts. Adaptive capacity is shaped by a number of interrelated factors, including the social, political, economic and cultural systems in place. In addition, the degree to which these systems demonstrate qualities of resilience, stability and flexibility will reflect their adaptive capacity (Smithers and Smit 1997). For both of the communities involved in the study, adaptive capacity was inherently linked to cultural traditions, but it is those same traditions that have been impacted by lifestyle and philosophical changes. Impending changes envisioned for the natural order of the future will assuredly further complicate people’s lives. As noted by Ford and Smith (2004), “while indigenous communities have historically demonstrated adaptability to a variety of stresses, their coping abilities have been put under considerable strain by recent climatic and environmental changes” (p. 394). Indeed, the Elders from the two communities had seen many sociocultural changes take place in their communities over the course of their Elder memory. However, it is the coping mechanisms such as philosophy and the psychological capacity that guided the people through tumultuous changes that seem most insightful and substantial to discussions of how to make adjustments to global climate change. For the people of James Smith and Shoal Lake, the alteration of the physical construct will not offer the final solution. The James Smith and Shoal Lake Cree Nations looked inward to find the resources they needed to thrive in traditional lifestyles and find continuing promise that these attributes are their primary claim to adaptive capacity.

The Elders from the two First Nation communities had faith in the inherent strengths of their own people and believed that time-honoured philosophies of their ancestors would enhance their adaptive capacity. The James Smith Elders saw two adaptation strategies for their community. First was to instil the “drive” of their ancestors to the next generations and secondly to focus on their own capacity to model the virtues that they wanted the young people to adopt. The Shoal Lake Elders believed that adaptation hinged on their people’s deep seated spirituality and philosophy. They saw value in having a land philosophy and the people’s capacity to “intent” the future for the benefit of future generations.

James Smith Capacity To Adapt

The Elders in the James Smith focus group remembered that their ancestors possessed a certain kind of determination that was crucial to a living effectively in traditional lifestyle. This “drive”, as one Elder called it, is the determined effort to do the things necessary for family survival even if the conditions in which to work with were difficult. The Elder explains it in the following way:

It was hard. Sometimes there was no food. They had to travel long distances but they always had faith. My grandpa or my dad, to bring the food whatever it was. No matter if it was storming, a blinding storm, they’d go and get something and bring it home.

The world of the Elders’ ancestors was challenging because there were no modern conveniences and family survival depended on having not only determination but also the skills congruent to the natural environment. Individuals had to find their own spark of resolve to carry out responsibilities even if they were ensconced in challenge. The Elders in the study said that the determination, or the drive, possessed by the ancestors was a valuable virtue befitting the time but also had relevancy for subsequent generations. One Elder recalls that lessons he received were about tenacity and perseverance in the face of challenges that dot the human journey of experience. He states:

I do not own any part of life but a partner of mine once told me not to give up. Do not give up. Therefore I cannot give up simply because I do not own anything.

The Elders also said that a crucial component of determination is having foresight and the ability to plan ahead. One of the James Smith Elders tells us that his grandfather taught him the value and critical skill of planning ahead particularly when interacting with nature. He tells us the following:

They always planned ahead. My grandpa used to say. When you wake up in the morning try and figure out the route you’re going to take. Where ever you’re going to walk to, you will hunt along the way or to find food on the way for your life that day. You have to put all that in order.

Survival in the traditional lifestyle of the indigenous past meant having foresight and always being prepared for the worse, particularly in the natural milieu where people have no control over prevailing conditions. The Elders remembered the determination of the ancestors and also thought of their own past experiences where the access to this inner drive was warranted and proved valuable in surmounting challenges. Hearing the Elders speak of survival virtues such as perseverance and the compulsion to triumph over challenges holds notable promise for human capacity and as a potential paradigm for human adaptation to the stringency of climate change.

Shoal Lake Capacity To Adapt

The Elders from the Shoal Lake Cree Nation felt that they were blessed to have had wise and philosophical ancestors. They have come to know the mindset about land, philosophy and life that pervaded their old people. One Elder said “I am getting old and I am beginning to think like an elder. It is these elders that model the ways and I follow their example”. One Elder felt like she has had the burden of responsibility that goes with Eldership in the community for the longest time. She states:

Presently, as I continue to follow my path in this community of Shoal Lake, I am the oldest amongst us who sit here. I am the oldest and I do not pretend to be young at 80 years on September 2. It seems I have been old for the longest time.

A part of the philosophical mindset or the wisdom that comes with age is the uncanny ability to think and speak in metaphor. One of the images that the Elders constructed as a metaphor for their people and as a way of relating the change in community life is the idea of “land”. That is, when the Elders talk about the land, they are talking about their own people. As an example, when life in the community was under respectable order and people were content, the Elders talked about his time as a beautiful period. One Elder provides this example in his own words. He states “I too have considerable experience in the way that I saw the land. I was shown how the land was and in the many ways of its beauty”. As times and lifestyles changed and people altered their ways, the Elders used the metaphor of the land as a description of what they saw. The oldest in the group of Elders states, “I have seen the changes that have happened in our land”. Presently, the Elders see the extent that people have changed in the community and remark, “It is so that everything is looking different on our land”. During this time of unprecedented change in the community, the people have neglected the wisdom of the Elders for the guidance needed. One Elder sees this negligence in people and states “we do not know how the old people think and what they want. That is the way I see our land”. Another Elder wanting better ways for the people remarked, “It may sound like I am complaining but I am not. I simply want better ways for our land”. Even as the Elders sound off their frustrations and words of counsel for the betterment of the community, the metaphor resurfaces as a wake-up call to the community. Indeed, the Elders recognize and acknowledge their responsibility duty to care for the land (i.e. community people). One Elder tells us “we need to be the caretakers of this land where we had been placed to walk the earth”. Finally, a part of that responsibility to take care of the land (people) is to ensure that the youth are equipped with the life skills necessary to create an optimum community once again. One of the Elders states “the path that we have followed is not recognizable to them. It is true however that the young people we talk about will be guided into the future to see that land in the way that we saw it”. For the Shoal Lake Elders, the teachings and the mind set they received from the old people have instilled in them a way of looking at life and ways to intent the future for the youth. The metaphorical mind speaks volumes of how people need to be tuned to the living pulse of the mothering earth. What befalls the land will befall the people.

First Nation Spiritual Philosophies

The spiritual practices, or the resources of the community people to respond to the unknown, are deeply embedded in the cultures of both communities involved in the study. The people’s spirituality and belief in a Supreme Being are continuous practices that have been observed in the community for many generations and the Elders tell us that the continuity of beliefs was a treasured gift from the ancestors. One Elder stated:

I think that was the greatest gift. The drives they had so much in our old people long ago were so strong in their belief, in their Creator. The Creator gave them strength to survive those storms and those starvation times.

Presently, the Elders acknowledge that the belief in the Supreme Being is what has sustained the community people through many generations and through many changes. One lady Elder tells us so much. She states, “To me our belief and value system has a lot to do with where we are today, our survival and determination to our Creator”. Another Elder also said that “[It] has always been our experience that we were always taken care of”.

Many of the Elders displayed deep inwardness and by its expression revealed their innermost thoughts about the nature of their community existence. They have an inherent belief in the power of their spirituality to move the life-sustaining energies in ways that give them comfort. The spiritual life of the Elders meant that there was always recognition that life had meaning beyond the physical and that people had to transcend the earth bound gratifications. One of the Elders saw the need for higher levels of existence similar to the way the ancestors had lived their lives. He states:

It is considerable how we are tied to earthly pleasures but it is dangerous because it will eventually destroy us. We see that already. We have to try and rise up and try to understand how we can assist the youth to live in good way, the way we have been treated by our parents in the past.

The spirituality of the James Smith and Shoal Lake people was manifested in various ways. For example, one Elder remembers that the old people of the past were a gifted people with human capabilities to forecast the weather and even to look into the future. She tells us:

They were given gifts of foreseeing the future. They were told of the future path by somebody. I have no way of telling who told them these things, but they were powerful. They were never surprised at what was going to happen. They even had capabilities to forecast the weather, they knew those things.

The Elders suggest that the degree the people retain knowledge of the land would determine their coping capabilities in crisis situations. They also saw value in their culture because of their deep belief that it would be the primary factor that can guide them as they negotiate the future. One Elder stated that “that is the only thing that can assist us into the future as I think of it. That is what I have to stand up for as long as I am on this earth”. Without a doubt, the spiritual culture in its various forms sustained the people through many years and the Elders recognize that it was important for the community people to return to those teachings. One of the Elders tells us that the ancestors “technology was good at that time too. Our medicine was good. Our medicine kept us going. We have to go back to some of those things”.

Thought for the Future

The James Smith Elders saw changes happen in their territory, their community and in their people. They recognized that dependency and a general deterioration of values were hurting the people. As counter measures, the Elders identified education, skills development and values teachings as the necessary adjustments that the community would have to make to prepare the next generations for the future. In the community of Shoal Lake, the Elders had deep concerns about the challenges that their youth faced in times of shifting lifestyles and circumstances. The Elders in both communities looked deeply at their own roles to repatriate the youth to a knowledge system conducive to survival.

In the past, community life revolved around the rhythms and patterns of the natural environment. Values, language and the other components of culture were taught within this natural setting. Traditional ways, songs, ceremonies, and insights of First Nations knowledge are tied to the use of the land and the description and deeper understanding of those processes are embedded within indigenous languages. The Elders remembered that this knowledge held the community together as an integrated whole. The knowledge moulded the norms and collective cultural codes that explained how people should live and act within their natural and social environments. The Elders from James Smith and Shoal Lake spoke of these relationships and what it means to be a good human being. Therefore, the Elders clearly see the importance of sustaining connections to the land and environment as a foundation for maintaining cultural continuity and as the basis for healthy individuals.

Berkes and Jolly (2001) have suggested that it is important to consider issues of resilience and adaptation to a changing environment. Such lessons can be learned from First Nations communities that have adapted and responded to severe changes in the past. As global warming is a proven and progressing phenomenon, it will be necessary for human populations to adapt to, as well as attempt to lessen the impacts of, changing environments. Berkes and Jolly provide other examples of adaptive strategies used by the Inuvialuit community of Sachs Harbour to cope with a changing Arctic environment. They highlight the importance of traditional knowledge, both in terms of understanding what is happening on the land and in developing adaptive responses rooted in specific cultural contexts.

The Elders also looked deeply at their own roles and responsibilities to repatriate the youth to a knowledge system that they believe would enhance their adaptive capacity for the future. A part of this strategy for community adjustment was to focus on the youth and find ways that will transform their knowledge and teach skills to the youth for use in a future fraught with uncertainty.

Conclusion

Understanding past experiences and the responses by First Nations to multifaceted changes in their sociocultural dimensions could help broader society understand and determine individual and collective vulnerability and what the pertinent responses would be to irrepressible change the projected climatic dimension of the future would spawn. The two First Nation communities of James Smith and Shoal Cree Nations provided discourse about what happens to the human heart and soul, the epicentre of impact experience, when turbulent change occurs in the things that people care about. The central intent of this paper was to advance the thesis that understanding adaptation and adaptive capacity in the context of climate change can be enhanced by exploring the connections humans have with their natural environment. This paper examined the results of a study involving First Nation Elders and specifically looked at Elder memory and the value of Elder thought in the determination of how human collectives perceive and work with change. Memory work with Elders reveals how First Nation communities underwent changes not only in terms of their experience with the climate and the environment, but also in their socio-cultural dimensions where change was a central and engrossing issue. The Elder memory of the changes that happened to their people and disrupted the life of the community, the philosophies that inherently guided the people to confront unknowns, and the human capacities that help initiate a conciliation of the future were examined. Understanding our past responses to shifts in the human living condition can help mitigate social upheaval in the wake of climate change disruption and the prevention of human misery on a substantial and protracted scale.