Saulteau First Nations looking to create culturally informed emergency documents

MOBERLY LAKE, B.C. — Saulteau First Nations is applying for the Wawanesa Community Wildfire Prevention Grant to create culturally informed emergency documents to be used in combination with their cultural burning project, which aims to revitalize community knowledge around wildfire management. 

The First Nation has requested a letter of support from the Peace River Regional District (PRRD) to aid their grant application, which the district board voted in favour of issuing at their January 11th meeting. 

“The objective of this project is to help educate the SFN community about relative emergency threats and steps to prepare for, mitigate, and as necessary respond to those events,” wrote Saulteau First Nations to the PRRD. 

The project will focus on FireSmart principles and the Sendai Framework principle that aims for an ‘all-of-society’ approach in emergency management. 

“Creating community-specific materials can aid an individual’s understanding of their place within contemporary emergency management while acknowledging the harmful and layered history that has often existed between Indigenous communities and provincial emergency response agencies,” they further explained. 

An emergency management manual and supporting educational materials would be created, using art from a local First Nations artist and translated into two of Saulteau’s traditional languages, delivered to 80 percent of on-reserve homes, and making them available to off-reserve members through their youth centre and online. 

The letter of support was specifically requested through the PRRD on behalf of the Moberly Lake Fire Department, which currently does not have a fire chief.

If successful in their grant, work on creating the materials would start in March and finish by July or August, costing $9,500, with the funding provided by Wawanesa Insurance. 

Saulteau’s letter to the PRRD can be read below: