Climate Action Figures

Season 3, Episode 1: Mike

• John Whidden • Season 3 • Episode 1

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In this episode of Climate Action Figures, host John Whidden introduces Mike McDougall Price, a science teacher at Piikani Nation Secondary School. Mike discusses the importance of traditional Blackfoot and Piikani practices, his efforts to connect students to their language and culture, and various sustainable initiatives at his school, including a composting program and the cultivation of traditional plants. The episode also covers the integration of Indigenous ways of knowing with modern science to address climate change and promote sustainability.

00:00 Introduction to Climate Action Figures Season 3

00:39 QuickFix: Water Conservation Tips

01:25 Meet Mike McDougall Price

01:28 Traditional Baths and Health Benefits

02:24 Mike's Role in Piikani Nation Secondary School

03:05 Connecting Students to Piikani Language and Culture

04:12 Greenhouse and Composting Programs

06:26 Sustainability Award and Sweetgrass Research

10:55 Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Science

19:50 Climate Actions and Future Vision

22:01 Conclusion and Final Thoughts


https://www.ted.com/talks/gabe_brown_how_regenerative_agriculture_brings_life_back_to_the_land

https://blog.ted.com/ted-radio-hour-everything-is-connected/

https://carboncowboys.org/

climateactionfigures@gmail.com
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https://www.instagram.com/climateactionfigures/
https://www.youtube.com/@ClimateActionFigures

Mike:

Okay. This is Mike McDougall Price. Blackfoot name, double Chaser. You were watching Climate Action Figures.

John:

Welcome to a brand new season of Climate Action Figures, season three. My name is John Whidden, and this week on the show you get to meet Mike. we always start with a QuickFix: if you're new to Climate Action Figures, this is a simple action that any of us can do to help the environment, sent in by an audience member. So get on it, pause the episode right now, and send yours in to: climateactionfigures@gmail.com or Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, however you want to get your QuickFix to us. This week's QuickFix comes from Janice from Calgary who says it's time for us to really consider our water use. If you collect water in basins when you shower, you can use the water for houseplant or outdoor trees. Old water in dog dishes can also serve to water vegetation, and when we shower, we can do military showers. They make you feel more invigorated. Well, welcome Mike.

Mike:

Yeah, thanks for having me. in response to the QuickFix, um, I like the idea of traditional baths in accordance to our Blackfoot and Piikani cultures. just finding a nice cold river or lake or stream and getting into those, uh, those traditional baths can be, not only wonderful, in saving water initiatives, but also, uh, rejuvenating, invigorating, and, um. Replenishing our, our, our health. Our human health, which we seem to be struggling a lot with, uh, in this modern age.

John:

she said military showers, I can only assume that means cold. So you're not against the cold, but you're thinking to, to lie down in a, in a natural water source is a better way to do it.

Mike:

Oh, definitely. We actually do, uh, traditional baths here at the school. I've Just loading up a tub full of ice and, and putting some water in there and sitting in it for about three minutes. Uh, getting in the, the health benefits, um, that our ancestors once, once partook in.

John:

Yeah. That would kill any swelling in your body, I'm sure. Now, Mike, you're a member of the Piikani Nation that's a part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, and you're also a science teacher at Piikani Nation Secondary School. Correct.

Mike:

A member of the nation itself, Piikani and, uh, the Blackfoot Confederacy. Yes. So, um, not a science major by any means. Just kind, kind of got thrown into it, um, in becoming a teacher. So, uh, here I am exploring and learning as I go, uh, the world of science and, uh, incorporating our, our Blackfoot traditional beliefs, um, and practices with it.

John:

Well, maybe that's the best way is to learn with the students as you go. Right?

Mike:

Exactly. That's what I tell them. We're learning all this together,

John:

And now aside from classroom teaching, I've been told that you make great efforts to connect students to the Piikani language and culture. Tell us a little about that.

Mike:

I mean, the language itself, I greet my, my students every day as I, uh, as I will with you. You know, giving them, um. And I an idea of who they are, kind of that identity. So I, I'll greet them with the day of the week and the month you know, gestures of, um, gratitude for our, our mornings. We say Ii-taa-mik-kss-ka-nao-to-ni good morning.

John:

Why is that connection to language so important to you?

Mike:

our people and our, our ancestral ways of knowing carrying on the traditional values, the beliefs the culture, the ceremony, it's very much important to me. Um, as an upbringing, I was brought up in, into it, all of it. And, um, maybe I didn't necessarily understand it. As we get older, we, we hopefully start to understand it a little bit. But having, being, uh, thrown into the, being a science teacher. it's brought me even closer to connections to the land, to the culture to the environment, and of course the climate. I think that's kind of the, the defining, uh, the defining subject.

John:

now

Mike:

I.

John:

Oversee a composting program and a"where things grow" that has a Blackfoot name that I won't attempt, but you can tell us what that is, and several other very cool programs. Uh, would you like to tell us about some of those?

Mike:

It's a scientific, traditional, spiritual and cross curricular plant-based curriculum. Developed, through this this greenhouse that, that the school has had since I, since I arrived. I can't, I don't know when it was built, but the title of the greenhouse is Itai'nssimao'p where things grow, this project of where things grow. You mentioned the compost program. So having arrived at the school, this is now my third year teaching. Um, we've got a wonderful food program for our students here. we've got a K to 12 school, so we feed right up from kindergarten to to grade 12. so we do bring a lot of food into the school, big food program, and there's a lot of waste. So I noticed the waste right away and it, and it didn't sit well with me, so I, um, proposed that we get some sort of a greenhouse or a composting program to go along with the greenhouse we have the capacity out here. We've got, we've got, you know, bits of land here and, and so we brought in a, a good program with the, um, Resilience Institute. And we have now some, some tumblers. We, we put all our food scraps in and, um, and we, we compost and we've, we've since added some vermaculture and some worms to help aid in that, uh, that decomposition process. We built our own little garden bed in, in behind the greenhouse outdoors, and we put our compost back there already. And, we're looking at planting some of our wonderful plants that we've been, uh, we've been donated here and we've actually, uh, started growing some of our own, uh, species of, tobacco, in fact, uh, and sweet grass.

John:

A lot of these things that you're growing have to do with traditional medicines or, uh, traditional ceremony.

Mike:

Not specific to that. We are, we're growing contemporary vegetables, tomatoes, and, uh, peppers. We've got in the greenhouse there and, um, I've got some peas and whatnot. Just anything that, that will hopefully grow some food. That's the idea is to grow our own food and bring it right, right back into our cafeteria and feed, feed our students and our staff with our own food.

John:

And you've gone on in this program to win a sustainability award.

Mike:

Yeah.

John:

to share

Mike:

Yeah, that's actually a good segue. I was just thinking of, uh, Brett Weighill, our assistant principal, former former science teacher. I kind of have, uh, filled in his shoes, so to speak, but he's done such amazing things for, for the program, for the community itself. The Sweetgrass specifically is one that, um, you know, he's kind of a, him and his wife are, are doctors specifically in sweet Grass now. Um, looking at at it on under microscope and whatnot and, um. So he's kind of, um, allowed me to, so to speak, take it on as my own baby, I guess. And, you know, just kinda keep the, the regenerative process going. Just keep the plants kind of growing and thriving and, myself, I'm, I'm not part of any society. We, we speak to societies and ceremony in the community. my mother is part of the Black Horse Society so this was kind of my, um, my way of getting back into my community and, and. Just, again, connecting myself to, to the plants, the medicines, um, but also getting more, uh, connected to the language and the culture myself, learning the language, getting back into, learning some of the ceremonies and, and, uh, we've since been, uh, honored with, um, um, the rights, the transfer of this precious tobacco plant. a sacred, um, honor for us to have a, to have the rights to it. We're supposed to learn the, the songs we have to, get to that point where we, we understand and know the songs before we can actually, um, transfer these rights to other people in the community. But that's the idea. And hopefully we have this, this wonderful medicines to, to share down the road.

John:

And I'll just use that to segue into the fact that we are going to speak with Brett and several of your students in the coming weeks.

Mike:

And again, speaking to the, to the sustainability award, so partnership again with the the Resilience Institute as well as, um, Piikani Lands Department, um, they, they brought us, um, a bunch of the sweetgrass, uh, to house in our, in our. Greenhouse last fall, they did some documenting, um, with myself and some of the students. And, um, lo and behold, there's a documentary out you can find on YouTube. There's a couple actually articles you can find. One that, that speaks to the, the award itself. So this, uh, this National Award was given to us. for the, uh, it's a national sustainability award. Around our sweet grass. And it's a, again, it's a resilience against, it's based around resilience against climate change and identifying whether or not sweet grass can sequester carbon from the atmosphere, so to speak. And so I've been doing my re research around carbon sequestration in this term called draw down. Numerous documentaries out there that speak to this term of draw down and carbon sequestration can our tobacco do the same thing? Right. Sequester the carbon. So that's, that's kind of the next phase. We've got mint out there and willows and, So the kind of, the sky's the limit for us, and it's a huge honor.

John:

It sounds like a fascinating program. Uh, what do you, where do you see it going? What's the future of this program?

Mike:

my vision of course is aligned with our, with the elder who, who transferred the tobacco to me in the sense that the tobacco being so heavily commercialized One day I would like to see the nation go, go commercial-free tobacco, so to speak, and have our own tobacco, readily available, you know, we'll never have to depend on commercial tobacco. Sweetgrass being the same. If we can reintroduce it back into our, our land down in the river bottom. because of the, the development 50 years ago with the Old Man River Dam that's caused so much damage downstream. Now we're, we're seeing a lot of those, those impacts and we, it's hard to find sweet grass. Um, at one point we believe the tobacco also grew here. And I've seen how resilient the plants are themselves. And, you know, they just keep regenerating on their own. You just give'em the right conditions and away they go. So hopefully we have tobacco readily available in our river bottoms, in our, our marshy, our wetland areas. to, to bring the community together, I think is where, is hopefully where I see where I see the future of this going. extending to surrounding communities and, and sharing, sharing these wonderful medicines

John:

Clearly tradition, uh, language, your culture is very important to you. How about the importance of First Nation ways of seeing the world as, as a settler, what can I, what can we learn from that?

Mike:

Hmm. as a science teacher too, you know, we're told to, you know, open our textbooks and look at the, uh, kind of the old paradigm of science and science in its own, we know is so it's, so, it's durable, but tentative. That's a tenet of our, of our science. And I teach to the Native tenets of science our esteemed elder from, from our Blood Reserve, from Kainai, Dr. Leroy Little Bear. In fact, I've got some, some good teachings from him. I took a couple classes with him at the university. In fact, he'd been teaching there for well over 50 years. My father actually took lessons from him and he spoke to it he's got a really nice. A neat book, Indigenous Ways of Knowing he's quoted in the book these tenets of science. And so the first one is, is based around, space and land. Let's say plants for example, plants need space and they need land, you know, in order to thrive and grow. And so do so does anything, anything living above the land. And I'm watching a, a really cool TED talk right now regenerative agriculture, brings life back. To the land. I've been doing a, a lot of research around this and, and just identifying that, you know, life in general is, is so important on the land, multi-species of plants and animals bring, bring joy, bring life, bring, bring happiness instead of, the quote the, the farmer has is: you know, I would go out every day looking to kill something, whether it's a pest or a weed, or, you know, every day I am looking to kill something. Where with this better way of farming, regenerative agriculture, we have this notion to what more life can I bring? What diversity can I, can I, provide what, what more di diversity, and I've actually heard of new species of butterfly being discovered down in, uh, in Waterton Lakes Park area.

John:

If some of our audience members are interested in reading or seeing things further into that world or, or just generally First Nation ways of, experiencing and seeing the world. Do you have recommendations in terms of books, Ted Talks? I know for me, Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass was critical in terms of really opening my eyes to First Nations ways of seeing and comparing that to our modern scientific method. I should ask if you like that as a

Mike:

Yeah.

John:

are, are there other ones as well that you would recommend?

Mike:

there's a couple other ones. Um, I look at, um. A Ted Talk called everything is connected. And it speaks to three different stories. One's a story of the mind, one's a story of the breath, and one's a story of the, of the heart, the gentleman who presents the TED Talk, he really, interconnects modern science with Indigenous science and, I use it all the time with my class in order to help, to help bridge that gap. So you, and speaking to understanding, I just give you the one tenet of science base and land. The next is constant flux and motion and how, the land is constantly moving. You could just think of like natural disasters, tectonic plate movements, super continents dividing, you know, we know that climate change is inevitable and First Nations Indigenous people knew that all along climate change was inevitable. How could we adapt to it we've always been able to adapt to it. How can we adapt to it in our next phase of climate change? how can we mitigate it, right? How can we kind of slow down the process? We talk about water quality and degradation the second Native tenet of sign is how everything is animate and imbued, with a spirit. we as again, Blackfoot people First Nations, we considered the rocks to hold our, spirits of our ancestors. Our grandfathers are in the rocks and, and we use the rocks in our ceremonies. We heat them up and we, we heat our water and we make sweat lodges and, another connection to the water. I use another reference. There is, um, Sacred Relationship so Sacred Relationship is a website that I've used. It has a curriculum that teaches to our relationship with water, essentially. it follows a number of First Nations all over Alberta including some Blackfoot elders, some late elders, uh, Narcisse Blood is, one from Kainai. And from right here, from Piikani, Leo Pard, and there's really neat scenes. They're in Waterton Lakes. They're off Belly River. They're, they're offering tobacco. They're praying and they speak to our connection to the, to the water and our, our relationship to it. why water is such a, such an important, um, resource to First Nations and of course to everybody. So everything being animate with Spirit, even the water, you know, when we say it's an inorganic molecule, but, but it's, it's very much organic to so many of us, to all of us to life. And so we go into the fourth tenet of science is, relationship. And of course, we all know what relationship means. It's relationship to the land, to each other, to ourselves, and of course, renewal. Being the fifth Native tenet of science. Is that renewal, regeneration of the land. And, and I've seen it in so many of these Documentaries that they're, um, talking about regeneration and this regenerative agriculture. And again, so I connect that right away to our, our Indigenous ways of knowing. And I think if anyone wants to that, that's a really good way of, of connecting themselves to Indigenous ways of knowing in regards to any aspect of their lives.

John:

Well, thanks for sharing those, and we'll include links to any of the ones that are linked, in our show notes today. Now, Mike, I sometimes wonder if First Nations ways of, uh, seeing the world is going to be the main way that we will need to get ourselves out of the climate mess we're in. Tell me if that's flawed thinking or unfair thinking, or dangerous thinking or just, settler thinking. What do you think about that?

Mike:

I think it's, it's definitely where a lot of people are, have already started moving themselves and their, their lives into that, um, that way of thinking that, all of our ancestors at one point were hunter gatherers, you know, according to what modern science says. And, and I believe it. It's there. It's in our DNA, we should be able to fall, fall back to it one way or another. and so, yeah, I think that, with the new technologies that I've been researching in regards to artificial intelligence we think about what do they call it? It's, it's like a bioengineering, so to speak, where, you know, the, these big, big corporations are in, in laboratories they're playing god, so to speak, and I've heard now they're, they're playing with microbiology, microorganisms in the soil. They're actually creating microorganisms in the soil. And what might that lead to in regards to, okay, yeah, they're already genetically modifying the plants to be resistant to pests. And, and now I've heard the, the pests, the plants, the weeds themselves are becoming more and more resistant to those. chemicals. I always say we gotta go back to nature it's good. The, these good things are coming to me. Another reference is, um, this Carbon Cowboys You can find on YouTube. It's a docuseries and it's all revolves around regenerative agriculture. So increasing the microbiome, not just in the soil, but in our bodies understanding that our microbiome, our gut biology, gut biome is like our second brain. And we hold more, more microbiology than any other organism on the planet. Therefore, we emit more energy. And it's this idea, and I use Zach Bush as another reference, Dr. Zach Bush, and he used to be a doctor guy worked around, people dying and, he's totally shifted his, his outlook on life now, his work. Is this idea of that we are energy before we're even a cell. And that goes back to this Blackfoot, indigenous First Nations. Notion of spirituality. You know, we hold the spirit, we hold the energy before we're even a cell, a physical, the, the matter, you know? And so again, I go back to we need to go, we need to be part of nature. And I do a lot of earthing and grounding work with my options class. Any of my classes, I'm, I'm sitting on a, on a grounding mat as we speak in my classroom. It's connected to my ground outlet. It's supposed to help me just get rid of toxins, you know, just discharge some of that harmful energy that we're absorbing through these devices, through our lights, all the artificial stuff that's around us. Going back to nature, growing our own food, feeling better about it. I even do fasting with the kids. I talk to them about what's, you know, the benefits of fasting cleansing wellbeing bridging, you know, I, I, we use that term two eye seeing, so it's taking western ways of knowing and native ways of knowing and bridging them.

John:

I get this, I get the sense that your students are lucky to have you as a teacher, and I want to be in your class too. But thank you very much for bringing some of your class to us today. I know the bell is gonna go soon, so we have to let you go. But before we do, tell us about your climate action. What have you chosen today? I.

Mike:

Well, geez, um, climate action ranges from my own composting at home, gardening. Spreading the education and the knowledge that I'm, that I'm learning. I think that's a, that's another big step, in just, you know, letting our voices be heard and, and hopefully, um, getting the students to absorb some of that, some of that knowledge and to get them to think. That's kind of what we're supposed to do as teachers. We're supposed to get the kids to think, get'em to think outside the box. growing sweet grass and tobacco as part of it. Saving water or, or speaking to, our precious resource of water, even though we are in Canada and we have, you know, second largest fresh water supply, what have you, we still have so many First Nations here in Alberta, in Canada, that don't have clean drinking water. And so that one is, is another one that we try to, uh, we try to educate the kids around, you know, like, how lucky are we that we live right here, right on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. And we've got all this fresh water coming our way and, you know, do we, uh, do we promote, you know, the mining and things like that? Well, you know, let's, let's learn about that

John:

Many great climate actions for us today. Last question for you, Mike. What gives you hope?

Mike:

uh, hope, Seeing these kids here every day, you know, wanting to learn those that are here and they wanna learn and they're ready to learn. I think that gives me the most hope. We're in the process of building a brand new school from, uh, kindergarten to grade 12. Uh, and that in its own will be a beacon of hope, so to speak, um, for the whole community. And so if we can provide ourselves with our own food and our own tobacco and our own medicines. Just like, you know, we were able to in the old days. I think that will go a long way for us as far as, uh. You know, being less dependent and being more of that sovereign nation that we, claim to, to, to want to be, or claim to be. Well, let's go do it. Let's, let's be sovereign, let's be independent and more sustainable in regards to, to climate initiatives and just better, better health in general

John:

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Mike.

Mike:

Yeah. It's been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

John:

Thank you, dear listener or viewer. And, if you have enjoyed what you've heard here today and you have gleaned some wisdom from it, please share with someone you think would enjoy hearing the podcast or seeing it on YouTube. We will be back again next week, same time, same place to hear from one of Mike's students, another climate action figure. Until then.

Mike:

Kiitaakitamaatsin Mohpoowa, we'll see you again in this life or the next. Go figures!