Tracy Basile
Tracy Basile received a CAF grant in 2020 to research the impact of colonization on North America’s animals. Beaver, birds, buffalo, wolf, and turtle, among multitudes of other species were victims of conquest and exploitation as were the Indigenous peoples by European settlers claiming rights to their land and resources. She writes: “Unraveling these stories and seeing how colonization brought disaster to the indigenous animals of Turtle Island (North America) and finding a way towards repatriation and restoration is the beginning of seeing the world differently, seeing it as all connected. These connections are rarely taught in schools but widely understood in Native cultures.”
Tracy has gathered her research into a website: Animal Footnotes: Stories from Turtle Island. She has invited others to contribute. You can read her first blog here.