Call to Action #72

The status is Active (Partial). Responsive activity exists because Canadian institutions and Indigenous-led organizations are identifying, digitizing, describing, inventorying, funding, and repatriating Indigenous research, documentary heritage, cultural knowledge, and belongings held in non-Indigenous institutions. Library and Archives Canada’s We Are Here: Sharing Stories initiative digitizes and describes hundreds of thousands of Indigenous-related collection items in LAC holdings, while LAC’s Indigenous Heritage Action Plan and progress reporting address access to Indigenous documentary heritage with advice from an Indigenous Advisory Circle. Indigenous-led and regional work also exists through First Peoples’ Cultural Council’s From Stealing to Healing, which inventories B.C. First Nations Ancestors and Belongings in Canadian institutions, and through B.C.’s co-development of a provincial repatriation policy framework. However, the evidence does not show a comprehensive national compendium, an established Indigenous Knowledge Institute, or centralization of this knowledge in such an Institute. Existing activity is therefore responsive but partial.