Natalya Assance was browsing a Facebook page for biology jobs when she found an offer for a summer position as an Indigenous field research assistant to monitor fish populations, no experience required.
Assance, from the Beausoleil First Nation in Ontario, had recently graduated from the Ecosystem Management Technician program at Fleming College. She applied right away.
“I was super excited for it,” Assance said. “And I got the job!”
She trained at Montreal’s Concordia University for before travelling to Mistissini with the rest of her team, her first time that far from home. Once in the community, Assance spent seven to eight hours a day on Lake Mistassini catching fish, taking measurements and collecting parts of the fins for genetic analysis – extracting the DNA to determine relationships between fish and where they spawned.
After returning to their base at Osprey Lodge each evening, her team would measure fish that guides had caught during the day.
“It was my first time fishing,” Assance noted with a laugh. “By the end I was getting better at casting; before, it wouldn’t go very far. It would take me a whole day to catch a fish.”
Assance found the community very welcoming; people were encouraged to see an Indigenous woman engaged in research. “They told me to come back, now I know it’s a cool little community I can come visit when I want to go fishing.”
The research is a collaborative project between Mistissini, Concordia University’s Fraser Lab, and the FISHES (Fostering Indigenous Small-scale fisheries for Health, Economy and food Security) project run by Genome Canada.
The project began in 2018 in several Indigenous communities across northern Canada.
Dylan Fraser, a biology professor who runs the Fraser Lab, said the goal is to “facilitate the development and monitoring and sustainable management of fisheries where Indigenous communities are present. It aims to promote a strong presence of Indigenous-led conservation and Indigenous-knowledge input in how fisheries are run and managed.”
It’s meant to help Indigenous communities manage conservation efforts and comes as the Cree begin managing Quebec’s largest wildlife reserve through Nibiischii. “It really is a critical step towards Indigenous-led conservation in the province, and recognizing Indigenous sovereignty over lands,” he explained.
The genetic information researchers gather helps understand how fish survive rising water temperatures, evolving food sources, and changing ice break-ups. It also tells them where various fish populations are spawning.