Presenters

Claudia works as Conservation Areas Biologist for the Government of the Northwest Territories (NWT). Her work involves protected areas planning, with particular focus on incorporating conservation science into the unique northern conditions of the NWT. She sits on the board of Canadian Council on Ecological Areas.

After completing an undergraduate degree in Geography and Women's Studies at Queen's University, Jen travelled north and has made it her home for over 20 years. Jen completed her Master of Public Health at the University of Alaska Anchorage and is now in the early stages of her PhD at the University of Guelph. Her work seeks to conceptualize, for use in the routine assessment of a mine development, the impacts of colonialism and assimilation policies on Indigenous health and well-being.

A plethora of reasons come to mind when Gillian conveys to people why she is studying Indigenous Community Planning at UBC. However, the first step she wants to address, learn and understand is how the lands worked before colonization. It is important to know this in order to help educate and decolonize people’s ways of thinking. Knowing what came before our current ways of thinking will only able non-aboriginal and aboriginal people to successfully walk together into the future and build trust and respect with one another. Gillian hopes to work for either for a Band, Nation, not for profit, or consulting company that addresses these themes in the future.

Bill Klassen has worked in all three northern Territories mainly in natural resource management and environmental assessment. He assisted the Yukon Agriculture Association with its initial strategic plan and the plan’s subsequent updating. Bill has conducted a number of other agriculture-related studies in the Yukon for various clients.