Reconstructing the Pre-European Contact Shoreline of Burrard Inlet (Vancouver, BC, Canada) (2022)

Together, different types of information from early Euro-Canadian settlers and Indigenous Knowledge can establish a strong understanding of historical environmental conditions, and the pace and magnitude of total regional change since European contact. This method of using both Western and Indigenous ways of knowing is referred to as Two-Eyed Seeing (Bartlett et al. 2012) and has wide applications, including for fisheries management and historical research across Canada (Giles et al. 2016, Mantyka-Pringle et al. 2017, Abu et al. 2019). Importantly, Two-Eyed Seeing can focus on specific places and impacts to more accurately assess long-term change in a region. In this paper, we use this approach to quantify shoreline change within Burrard Inlet, the centre of Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s territory, and the main harbour of metropolitan Vancouver and Canada’s largest port. Find the report here and a piece by the Vancouver Sun here.

Recommended citation: ‘Taft, S., Oldford, G., M.I., Lilley, P.L., Oetterich, S.B., Morin, J., George, M., George, M., and Christensen, V. . "Reconstructing the Pre-European Contact Shoreline of Burrard Inlet (Vancouver, BC, Canada) using participatory mapping and a two-eyed seeing approach " Institute for Oceans & Fisheries (Fisheries Centre) Research Reports. Vol XX, March 2022’