Askiy Ochi Acimowin - Story of the Land Program Community Outreach

Askiy Ochi Acimowin – Story of the Land is a collaborative research program that will combine the knowledge of the land passed down through the millennia as oral histories by the Elders and Knowledge Keepers of the Lubicon Lake Band, with millennial-scale scientific information archived in local lakes using state of the art paleolimnology analytical techniques. During the first phase of the research, specialized freeze cores were collected from key lakes in the Lubicon Lake Band’s ancestral lands. Prior to beginning, the research members of the field team from Solstice Environmental Management, Carleton University, and AGAT Laboratories were privileged to take part in a tobacco ceremony led by Lubicon Lake Band field team members. Tobacco is a sacred medicine offered as a symbolic representation of respect and gratitude, and was offered in exchange for taking the sediment cores from the lake. Once collected, the sediment cores were prepared and preserved by the field team in Little Buffalo prior to being shipped to Carleton University to start the analytical portion of the project. 

With a detailed knowledge of past climate trends and cycles, it will be possible for the Lubicon Lake Band policy makers and planners to better understand and adapt to the environmental impact of future changes in temperature, rainfall, and forest fire frequency, which can influence the landscape (e.g. changing animal migration patterns and abundance of important plants) and lake water levels (e.g. influencing fish populations).  

This project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada through the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change.

Ce projet a été réalisé avec l'appui financier du gouvernement du Canada agissant par l’entremise due ministére fédéral de l”Environnement et du Changement climatique.

Thank you as well to AGAT Laboratories for their in-kind field support!

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