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Photo Courtesy of Bill Snow, Bison Cultural Project, Banff National Park, Alberta

Braiding Knowledges Canada (BKC) is a not-for-profit corporation focused on drivers and outcomes of environmental and societal change in support of conservation, restoration, adaptation, and well-being. This is all in pursuit of our goal: to enhance the well-being of All Our Relations—the land and everything in and on it, including humans and their plant, animal, living, and non-living relations.

BKC is committed to cultivating trusting, authentic, reciprocal relationships and inclusive, decolonizing practices with our partners and researchers through place-based, community-driven research, training, and knowledge exchanges.

Call for Proposals:
BKC is accepting applications for Knowledge Hubs, Land-Based Learning Programs, and Impact Connectors for 2027/28 and 2028/29.

Deadline: November 6, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. MST

We aim to deliver and mobilize knowledge arising from locally-relevant research, essential for advancing Reconciliation through Research, training the next generations of leaders, and informing federal policy and practices in Canada.

BKC will continue to grow the work of the Canadian Mountain Network to significantly enhance the influence of self-determined, place-based, and co-produced knowledge within Canada’s science culture such that, over time and on a path towards reconciliation, Indigenous and local knowledge approaches contribute more to public policy and decision-making and become more fully and equitably reciprocal with federal science priorities.

Photo by Pierre-Emmanuel Chaillon – Epéchile Production, Land-Based Learning Camp, Yukon

Our Commitment to Reconciliation

BKC is dedicated to advancing the braiding of Indigenous and Western ways of knowing and doing, setting an unparalleled example within Canada and serving as a model for the global community. BKC will advance knowledge of health, culture, and the environment through multiple knowledge systems, to connect our ways of knowing to ways of being to inform policy and decision-making in Canada.

Photo Courtesy of Bill Snow, Bison Cultural Project, Banff National Park, Alberta

Our Knowledge Hubs

BKC advances the state of knowledge on Canada’s environmental priorities by enabling research that braids knowledges focused on environmental change.

Supporting a Seasonal Round Knowledge Hub

The seasonal round is an annual harvesting method practiced by West Moberly First Nation and Saulteau First Nations, in what is now called the Peace Region of northeast British Columbia, that provides access to resources at optimal times of the year. Given the wide variety of plants and animals utilized by the Nations, these activities occur throughout the year across the entire territory. The variety, distribution, and abundance of large mammals such as moose and caribou play a critical role in the past and present practice of the seasonal round and will continue to in the future.

Porcupine Caribou
Knowledge Hub

The Porcupine Caribou Knowledge Hub is a collaboration among regional co-management organizations, Indigenous organizations, and university and government researchers. Together, they have been working for decades to bring Indigenous and scientific knowledge systems together to understand ecological change in the summer range of the Porcupine Caribou Herd and assess the current and future impact of these changes on local livelihoods.

What is Braiding Knowledges?

Braiding knowledge is the coming together of knowledges. Each knowledge system is a strand of the braid. The first strand is Western knowledge, the second strand comprises Indigenous knowledges, and the third strand is federal science priorities, uniting the first two and making the braid stronger for greater impact. The braiding of knowledges offers a basket of outcomes that advance conservation, restoration, adaptation, and well-being.

Why Braid Knowledges?

Canada’s landscapes are undergoing rapid and uncertain change, necessitating renewed relationships among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples across Canada to guide conservation, restoration, adaptation, and support overall well-being.

The essence of knowledge braiding is a recognition of and respect for the inherent validity of different ways of knowing and the understanding that strength can be achieved not by trying to turn one way of knowing into another or assessing which is right and which is wrong, but by bringing them together in a space of equality where they can work together towards something more and better.

BKC provides a safe space for researchers to collaborate and ethically “braid” Western and Indigenous knowledge systems aligned with BKC’s core value, All Our Relations, which recognizes that we are connected to, dependent on, and responsible for each other and for the land, water, plants, and animals that sustain us.

This inclusive and equitable approach fosters better evidence and policy development. Through research, training, and community engagement, BKC promotes a model of decolonized research in Canada.

News & Events

International Mountain Day 2023

Braiding Knowledges Canada (BKC) is honored to host its inaugural Gathering from

Knowledge Sharing Summit 2023

Braiding Knowledges Canada (BKC) is honored to host its inaugural Gathering from

Thanks to Our Partners:

Sustaining Partner and Host Institution

Our Commitment to Reconciliation

BKC’s goals, objectives, scope, structure and core activities are outlined in the Strategic Plan, and will guide our operations, performance management, and reporting for the next five years.

Braiding Knowledges Canada

Our Commitment to Reconciliation

Our Knowledge Hubs

Supporting a Seasonal Round Knowledge Hub

Porcupine Caribou
Knowledge Hub

What is Braiding Knowledges?

Why Braid Knowledges?

News & Events

International Mountain Day 2023

Knowledge Sharing Summit 2023

Thanks to Our Partners:

Our Commitment to Reconciliation

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