Kitakiwi Masinahikanan (Our Map)

Members of Nibinamik First Nation, an Anishinaabe community in the Far North of Ontario, are in the process of updating their land use plan. As part of this land use planning project, Nibinamik seeks an accompanying and informing map of their traditional territory. Through a partnership between Nibinamik and Ryerson University, we explored the substantive and procedural values informing the mapping, and by extension the land use planning, project. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on Indigenous counter-mapping and in reference to the guiding provincial policy framework. Importantly, Nibinamik seeks an alternate process to that imposed by the province, while simultaneously seeking recognition by the province. In this way, Nibinamik resists the province’s claims to exclusive power over crown lands, and asserts claims to shared power over traditional territory. Key words: counter-mapping; Indigenous Planning; northern Ontario