Executive Summary

The Canadian Mountain Assessment (CMA) provides a first-of-its-kind look at what we know, do not know, and need to know about diverse and rapidly changing mountain systems in Canada. The assessment includes insights from both Indigenous and Western academic knowledge systems and represents a unique effort to enhance understanding of mountains through respectful inclusion of multiple bodies of knowledge. The CMA is a text-based document, but it also includes a variety of visual materials as well as access to video recordings of conversations with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals from mountain areas in Canada. The CMA is the country’s first formal assessment of mountain systems knowledge; it is guided by five overarching principles (Figure 0.1).

The CMA is composed of six chapters, summarised below.

Chapter 1. Introduction

This chapter provides the context and rationale for the assessment, as well as details about the CMA’s governance, conceptual and ethical foundations, methodology, and structure. It also calls attention to important caveats and limitations as well as salient innovations and contributions of the CMA.

Chapter 2. Mountain Environments

The Mountain Environments chapter examines the biogeophysical characteristics of mountain regions in Canada. It assesses the state of knowledge for a wide range of environmental topics including geology; weather and climate; snow, ice, and permafrost; water; hazards; ecosystems and biodiversity; and connections between mountains and lowland/coastal environments. While demonstrating a significant amount of scientific work related to mountain environments in Canada, the chapter also illustrates the general lack of engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems in relation to mountain environments in existing Western academic research. Contributions from Indigenous Peoples are nevertheless included in the chapter by way of CMA authors as well as knowledges shared during the CMA’s Learning Circle. In its conclusion, the chapter identifies gaps in our current understanding of mountain environments and invites mountain researchers to engage with Indigenous communities to learn more about their unique perspectives and understandings of mountain environments in Canada.

Chapter 3. Mountains as Homelands

The Mountains as Homelands chapter considers how mountains in Canada are experienced and shaped as Homelands by Indigenous Peoples and homes by non-Indigenous people. The chapter approaches this broad topic by considering how mountainous environments are made into significant places through practice, representation, and relations among people. It weaves together knowledge from Indigenous Peoples and scholarly literature, and draws on conceptual approaches offered by relational thinking, multi­species scholarship, and ontologies studies. The chapter begins by examining storytelling as an important means of place-making in mountain Homelands. It then considers how an emerging field of mountain archaeology corroborates and supports Indigenous presence in mountain Homelands. Moving beyond strict divisions between nature and culture, a substantial portion of the chapter explores how multispecies relations underpin mountains as homes and Homelands. The chapter then examines the forms and ongoing impacts of colonialism and power in mountain places in Canada. This includes the role of parks and protected areas, and private land, in mountain regions, and how science, labour, recreation, and art have shaped perceptions and experiences of mountain places. It assesses how such practices can contribute to discrepancies in access to mountains as homes and Homelands. The chapter concludes with the topic of Indigenous governance in mountain places. Overall, the chapter finds that the literature on these topics is better represented in the western mountain regions, that the role of private land in constituting mountain places is generally under-examined, and that there are opportunities for scholarship that documents and explores Indigenous resistance to incursions on mountain Homelands and the reassertion of Indigenous governance in mountains.

Chapter 4. Gifts of the Mountains

The Gifts of the Mountains chapter explores the contributions of mountains to the wellbeing of human communities. It uses the framing of gifts as an alternative to the conventional descriptions of resources or ecosystem services, and reveals how, for many people in Canada, mountains provide material, artistic, pedagogical, emotional, and spiritual gifts. The chapter also discusses how particular users and communities receive benefits derived from energy, minerals, and forests found in mountains. Importantly, the chapter calls attention to the idea that many gifts from mountains are situated in reciprocal relationships where users receive foods, medicines, water, or recreational space, as personal gifts which, in turn, inspire wonder, awe, respect, and care. Such reciprocity is often, but not exclusively, associated with Indigenous worldviews. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates that gifts from mountains are unevenly distributed and that some benefits derived from mountains may come at a cost to others seeking to enjoy the same mountain spaces. Furthermore, many gifts of the mountains are under increasing pressure from drivers of environmental and social change.

Chapter 5. Mountains Under Pressure

The Mountains Under Pressure chapter examines the drivers of recent and future change in mountain systems in Canada, as well as impacts to mountain ecosystems and communities, focusing on the period from the “great acceleration” of increasing human population and activity in 1950 out to 2100. Key issues assessed include climate change, land use development, resource extraction, pollution, tourism and recreation, population growth, invasive species, and governance practices, including associated threats to the sustainability of mountain environments, livelihoods, and gifts of the mountains. The chapter demonstrates that these pressures are often interconnected and compounding, and describes how each drives biophysical, political, socio-cultural, and ecological changes, with effects that vary from region to region. However, while changes have been acutely observed and felt by many Indigenous Peoples as well as non-Indigenous mountain communities, monitoring of both anthropogenic pressures and their implications is currently limited across mountain systems in Canada, making prediction of future threats difficult to assess, particularly in mountainous areas of northern Canada. The chapter concludes by calling attention to the need for enhanced research and monitoring efforts, as well as the importance of supporting adaptation to the challenges (and opportunities) posed by increasing rates of climate and anthropogenic change in mountain areas in Canada.

Chapter 6. Desirable Mountain Futures

The Desirable Mountain Futures chapter reflects on the CMA’s knowledge co-creation process and the findings of its substantive chapters. It discusses how much was already known about mountains in Canada, but also how divides between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems have limited appreciation for the depth and diversity of existing mountain systems knowledge. It also describes how, in coming together across time, cultures, and landscapes, the CMA led to new insights about mountains in Canada. The chapter then discusses four cross-cutting themes that emerged from the CMA: Connectivity; elevating Indigenous knowledges; access and barriers to relationships with mountains; and humility. Ultimately, this chapter reveals how the CMA is only a beginning. It concludes by calling attention to opportunities for research, relationships, and actions that support ideals of the CMA.

By way of these chapters, the CMA aims to enhance appreciation for the diversity and significance of mountains in Canada; to clarify challenges and opportunities pertinent to mountain systems in the country; to motivate and inform mountain-focused research and policy; and, more broadly, to cultivate a community of practice related to mountains in Canada.