Meet 2 Innu women pioneers in astrophysics and land stewardship

Laurie Rousseau-Nepton says she wants to understand the very large and the very small, and that’s why she became the first Indigenous woman in Canada to obtain a doctorate in astrophysics.

Rousseau-Nepton received her doctorate in 2017 from Laval University in Quebec. She said at the time she didn’t know she was the first Indigenous woman in Canada to do this.

But she said she realized her community’s ancestral knowledge was missing from the study of the stars.

“I made it my mission to find it again, to recover that knowledge and reconnect it,” Rousseau-Nepton said.

During this quest, she discovered a story showing that her Innu ancestors observed solar eclipses.

“I started looking and found a beautiful story about eclipses and these stories really highlighted the fact that our ancestors had a deep understanding of these phenomena, and for me it was like a revelation. I wanted to know more.”

Rousseau-Nepton, who is Innu and a member of the Pekuakamiulnuatsh First Nation in Quebec, said Indigenous ancestors had a passion for learning and understanding physical concepts of the world around them.

She said this engagement with the natural world can contribute to new scientific discoveries today.

“Our identity in studying and learning needs to be important…it needs to loom large,” she said.

Rousseau-Nepton is an assistant professor at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto.

Shackleton Medal winner

Valérie Courtois, also an Innu from Mashteuiatsh in Quebec, became the third person to receive the Shackleton Medal and the first Indigenous person when she received the award earlier this year.

Outdoor clothing company Shackleton launched the medal and £10,000 prize in 2022, recognizing her for “courage, determination, ingenuity and leadership” in protecting the world’s polar regions.

Valérie Courtois (left) receives the Shackleton Medal. (Canadian geography)

Courtois said she thinks more Indigenous leaders should receive this type of recognition.

“So many people deserve this kind of recognition and so it was a very humbling experience,” Courtois said.

She is executive director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, a national network aimed at strengthening indigenous leadership as a means to protect land and water.

When asked what impact winning the medal would have on his work, Courtois replied: “I hope this kind of attention will help galvanize public support for the work we do.” »

Valérie Courtois picks berries in the field. (Indigenous Leadership Initiative)

Courtois said she sees two ongoing, urgent environmental crises: biodiversity loss and climate change, and one way to address them would be to include more Indigenous perspectives.

“The best course of action is empowerment and recognition of the national identity of indigenous peoples and the contributions we can make to decision-making and the integration of our values ​​and knowledge systems,” she declared.