Berry Patches, Bears & Oil Sands in the Boreal Forest with Janelle Baker

Dr. Janelle Marie Baker is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Athabasca University in northern Alberta, Canada. Her research is on sakâwiyiniwak (Northern Bush Cree) experiences with wild food contamination in Treaty No. 8 territory, which is currently an area of extreme extraction of oil sands (bitumen) and forests. In this context, Janelle is currently collaborating with Bigstone Cree Nation environmental monitors using community-based methods and traditional ecological knowledge to sample moose and water, and partnering with microbiologists using a metagenomics approach to study the composition of microbiomes to map the source of potential harmful contaminants and identify markers of aquatic system health. Janelle is also a co-PI with Metis anthropologist Zoe Todd on a project that is restor(y)ing land use governance and bull trout population health in a contested area of the Rocky Mountain foothills in Alberta, Canada. Janelle is currently the North Americas Representative on the Board of Directors for the International Society of Ethnobiology. She is the winner of the 2019 Canadian Association for Graduate Studies - ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award, Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences category.