Indigenous Foodways Initiative

Bakvla exhibit sign on a black and red background with the words Bakvla written in blue across

Project Description

The Indigenous Foodways project is an initiative that began in 2018. The project’s broad goals are to:

Recognize Indigenous traditions and innovations in foodways
Respect Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing
Reflect Indigenous knowledge, traditions, and innovations in exhibitions and programming

This initiative began with a collaborative research project with an Indigenous researcher to develop a respectful research methodology for working with Indigenous communities. We have now engaged with several First Nations communities, collaborating to tell their stories in their voices. These stories have been shared with our audiences, allowing them to recognize, respect, and reflect on Indigenous ways of knowing. These projects have all been research and community-based with direct benefits to communities.

The ongoing outcomes of this initiative can be found below.

Project Outcomes

exhibitions

Person in jeans wearing an orange shirt standing at a log. An axe lies on top of the log.

Nidòndàdizimin nidjìbikànàng: Thriving from Our Roots

This Algonquin language installation emerged out of a research project begun in 2018 with Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. Launched in July 2021, it celebrates the Anishisnàbe Algonquin language, and the presence and resilience of the Anishisnàbe Algonquin peoples on their traditional territories.

A photograph taken from an aerial view shows a small fishing boat along the coast of a rocky shoreline. A man in a black raincoat leans over the edge of the boat to pull in a line from the water; you can faintly see large pieces of kelp attached to the line, under the surface of the water.

Bákvḷá

This collaborative project with Frank Brown, Hereditary Chief ëáëíya̓ sila of the Heiltsuk Nation in BC, documents the seasonal cycle of food gathering known as Bákvḷá. Bákvḷá means to harvest and prepare food for the winter, and to do so in a good way, honouring ancestral Heiltsuk laws. This project shares this knowledge and Heiltsuk traditions of sustainability, focusing on the annual roe-on-kelp fishery. This fishery harvests eggs, or roe, that have been deposited on kelp and hemlock branches.

Blog Posts on the Ingenium Channel

Working on a small boat near the shoreline, Heiltsuk fishers harvest roe-on-kelp from a line in the water.

Bákvḷá: A collaborative exhibition on Heiltsuk place-based foodways

Insert from Jell-O recipe book showing images of syllabub, maple walnut Jell-O, cherry Jell-O, stuffed tomato salad, pineapple mouse, and marbled Jell-O. (“JELLO- 10 c A PACKAGE”)

Retro recipes: Cookbooks from the Ingenium collection

Cariole collected by Marius Barbeau in 1936, Staint-Pascale-de Kamouraska (now Saint Pascal). Ingenium Museums, artifact No. 1967.0197.

Recovering the lost artifacts of ethnologist Marius Barbeau

The Dairy Barn at the Central Experimental Farm in 1894. It is now part of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum.

Historic barns bring architecture to life for students

Two men stand in a dirt field; one bores into the soil while the other looks on.

Excavating Canadian soil science history

Three children sitting on the Dudley bobsled

Rediscovering the Dudley bobsled

Research Publications

Black and white photo of a person sitting on a log in the woods with a small body of water in the background

"The Go Home Bay Biological Station: A Landscape of Science," in Landscapes of Science, Tina Adcock, ed. (Toronto: Network in Canadian History and Environment, 2019). DOI: 10.25071/10315/35685/0

Black and white photo of a display of fish in different class cases

“Fish Out of Water: Fish Exhibition in Late Nineteenth Century Canada.” In Animal Metropolis: Histories of Human-Animal Relations in Canada. Ed. Joanna Dean, Christabelle Sethna, and Darcy Ingram. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2017. Pp. 115-138.

Black and white photo of a landscape of fields on top of a map

“Samuel Wilmot, Fish Culture, and Recreational Fisheries in late 19th century Ontario.” Scientia Canadensis 30, 1 (2007): 75-90.

Black and white photo of the Interior of the Canadian Fisheries Museum in 1907 with taxidermized animals in glass display cases

“Modeling Authority at the Canadian Fisheries Museum, 1884-1918." 2014, PhD dissertation, Carleton University.

A well-used jar with a label that says "Oncorhynchus Gorbusha. Ontario Goose Creek"

With co-author Kiethen Sutherland, "The Pacific Salmon Experiment in Northern Ontario and the “Indian Problem” Environmental History 28.2 (2023)"

Project Lead

Portrait of William Knight taken as a selfie on a porch

Dr. William Knight

Curator, Agriculture and Fisheries
wknight@ingeniumcanada.org

I am a historian of fisheries, food, and museums, subjects that were the focus of my 2014 doctoral dissertation, "Modeling Authority at the Canadian Fisheries Museum, 1884-1918.”

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