Climate science: Relationships with the land – University of Victoria

February 5, 2025

For Janna Wale, science is everywhere.

As a Gitxsan woman from Gitanmaax First Nation in British Columbia’s northwestern Interior who is also Cree-Métis on her mother’s side, she understands and values the science inherent in monitoring the seasons and harvests of her people, in their ways of preserving salmon, and in their observations of and adaptations to changes in climate over generations.

At the same time, she’s an academic, with degrees in natural resources sciences and sustainability, credentials she earned from institutions with roots in colonialism while seeking to bridge the gap between Western and Indigenous knowledges and science.

“I think when people think about science, it’s… white lab coats and old men wearing ties,” says Wale, who is the Indigenous research and partnerships lead with UVic-hosted Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS). “Not just classrooms are science, right? A lot of the science that I do, the science that I understand in practice, has come from spending time with my dad and learning about different processes that are happening on the Land, on the river just through his observation, and learning from other community members.