George Gordon First Nation Climate Observatory: AN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY-BASED
CLIMATE MONITORING PROGRAM By Wayne Bitternose, Wicehtowak Limnos Consulting Services LP The George Gordon First Nation Climate Observatory is a three-year Indigenous community-based climate monitoring program funded by Crown Indigenous
Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and developed by Wicehtowak Limnos Consulting Services on behalf of George Gordon First Nation. Located five miles south of Punnichy, Saskatchewan in the Little Touchwood Hills, a unique ecoregion of the Aspen Parkland. The objectives for this project are to foster climate change awareness, inform community adaptation actions, and address climate data gaps. A state-ofthe-art automated weather station was installed in November 2018 and has been gathering meteorological data since we came online. Community members of George Gordon First Nation have access to the real-time weather data through an app and they can also follow a Facebook page that we created to display the weather data at intervals throughout the day. We have also deployed three HOBO data loggers in three lakes located on GGFN. These data loggers are brought up once a year and the data are downloaded to be analyzed. Along with monitoring the climate, we have also carried out wildlife and vegetation surveys. These were carried out in each of the three years since the start of the program in 2018. We have also joined the Water Rangers, a group of citizen scientists, which monitor lakes and rivers throughout Canada with the use of a water sampling kit. Taking pH measurements, shoreline visual observations, aquatic wildlife, alkalinity, temperature, turbidity, and depth of our lakes and sloughs located on George Gordon First Nation. We have also purchased kits to be used by the George Gordon Education Centre. We have recently been awarded another
44 SASKATCHEWAN energy REPORT 2022
three years of funding for the Climate Observatory, where we will move into climate action planning as well as continuing to monitor the climate.
GEORGE GORDON FIRST NATION PLASTIC WASTE STEWARDSHIP – A ZERO PLASTIC WASTE INITIATIVE In 2020, Wicehtowak Limnos Consulting Services LP secured funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada through the Zero Plastic Waste Initiative in conjunction with George Gordon First Nation, to develop a plastic waste management program. We started with six single-stream recycling bins, placed in the Core Area, school, and the local store. These bins accept all manner of household recyclables, from flattened cardboard, glass, plastics, and tin cans. Awareness and educational material have been distributed to the school and community to raise awareness and to help reduce the amounts of recyclable material from entering our landfill. We have purchased smaller bins that were distributed to households that wanted to participate. Three roller bins were also purchased for the George Gordon Education Centre, to make it easier for them to collect recyclables from each classroom, common areas, and teachers’ lounge and then to the bin located on school grounds. Landfill inspections were also carried out monthly to make observations of any material that should not be making its way into the landfill. Bi-weekly bin checks are also carried out to ensure hazardous and nonrecyclable material does not get placed in the bins.
