Making Science

Shaylene Johnson says there are a couple of things Mi'kmaq elders rarely do: one is to dole out unwarranted praise, and the other is to stay at a meeting until after lunch.

On a cool June morning in Debert, near Truro, they did both.

The praise and the smiles that creased the elders' lips that day were the result of their encounter with Ms. Johnson and two other University College of Cape Breton (UCCB) Mi'kmaq students from the Toqwa'tu'kl Kjijitaqnn/Integrative Science program. What the elders were seeing in Ms. Johnson and her fellow students on that day was the melding of the past and the future. They saw a way of carrying forward the Mi'kmaq understanding -- their understanding -- of the world.

For the first time at any university in North America there was a science program that incorporated a native understanding of the world. Side by side, sometimes complementing each other, sometimes not, stood western science and Mi'kmaq belief. It was a relief for many of the elders to hear the students conceptualize and put into words the feelings and thoughts many of them had experienced. As one elder put it to Ms. Johnson: "We can sleep in our grave now."

THE PROGRAM
The Toqwa'tu'kl Kjijitaqnn/Integrative Science program at UCCB did not appear magically overnight, of course. It was the product of experimentation -- a single course here and there. There was, for example, an ethno-botany course that reflected Mi'kmaq learning and understanding. Ultimately, the program's real beginning was the result of a casual discussion between two friends, Cheryl Bartlett and Murdena Marshall.

Dr. Bartlett was teaching in the biology department of the university and Ms. Marshall was an associate professor of Mi'kmaq Studies. In a casual corridor discussion, Dr. Bartlett asked Ms. Marshall why she thought there were no Mi'kmaq students in the science program.

Ms. Marshall's answer confirmed what Dr. Bartlett had suspected. The two agreed that western science was fragmented. The different sciences -- like biology, chemistry and physics -- operated independently, with few connections, something very different from the Mi'kmaq world view that searches for linkages. Western science was also largely dismissive of aboriginal knowledge, failing to take into account, for example, the natural inclination of the Mi'kmaq to search for understanding through analogy, metaphor and interpretation.

"Historically, I don't think it was an active dismissal of Native understanding, it was just complete ignorance and thus overlooking," says Dr. Bartlett. "It was later that it evolved into an active pushing away. I think that happened because we in science are so narrowly trained that we don't get an opportunity to come to terms with other ways of knowing. It is a reflection of the system and the way the system works. The system is not there to make connections."

Once the problem was identified, the question for Ms. Marshall and Dr. Bartlett became what to do about it. There were an increasing number of courses at Canadian universities on Native- related subject areas. But there had never been a full-fledged program, and certainly not one in the sciences.

Dr. Bartlett says there are lots of areas in western science that are very congruent with aboriginal thinking. "The challenge," she says, "was to see how they complement each other, and at the same time how they remained distinct.

There were skeptics and critics and there still are, but the tide is changing. The Toqwa'tu'kl Kjijitaqnn/Integrative Science program was launched in 1999-2000. By mid-year the program received an enormous boost from Sable Offshore Energy Inc. The company awarded a $160,000 research grant to Dr. Bartlett to further develop the program.

In December 2002, the program received yet another boost, this time from Industry Canada, which awarded Dr. Bartlett the prestigious Tier 1 Chair in Integrative Science. Considered one of the highest national research honours, the Tier 1 Chair means $1.4 million over a period of seven years and the possibility of renewal for a further seven.

"I've played at the margins my whole life," says Dr. Bartlett. "Great things happen on the margins. Creative ideas happen at the margins. I don't think this idea would have gotten through at a larger university." Dr. Bartlett the biologist looks for an analogy from her own profession. "If you look at nature and the species and sub-species that arise at the margins, why can't our knowledge be the same way?

"What I think this proves is that there is a recognition at the top of some of our research institutions that there is more than one way to learning and knowledge, more than one way to skin a cat."

GRADUATES
Shaylene Johnson is understandably reluctant to use the word "legitimize" to describe what the integrative science program has done. "The Mi'kmaq always knew they had an understanding of the world, but what this program has done is legitimize it in a way," she says.

Take the case of the archaeological find in Debert. "In the Mi'kmaq legends, the beaver was a big creature ... the size of a bear," says Ms. Johnson. "When scientists dug up some of the artifacts at Debert, they also came across the skeleton of a beaver, but it was as big as a bear. It was an ice age animal. My people obviously knew about ice age animals, the only difference was that we didn't document this stuff, it was passed down orally through oral traditions. We didn't have to go digging up bones."

It was precisely that ability to express and integrate western science and Mi'kmaq understanding that so delighted the elders in Debert.

But the exchange between the elders and Ms. Johnson was a two-way street. "It was a life-changing experience for me, because I knew that what I was doing was right," she says. "My elders gave me the approval and praise. That makes me feel all that much better, knowing that what I'm doing is good for me and good for my community."