Ethnobotanical Sites Added to the Indigenous Cultural Map

​A new upgrade is coming to the Great Niagara Escarpment Indigenous Cultural Map. Plenty Canada received a generous donation from Canadian Heritage to add ten more destination sites to the Map, Plenty Canada’s multimedia online resource containing stunning photography, captivating video, and contextual information that identifies important Indigenous historic, cultural, and natural world locations along more than 750 kilometres from Niagara Falls to the western region of Manitoulin Island.
 
The ten destinations being added include the following:
 
•  Boyd Conservation Area
•  Cootes Paradise
•  Goulding Lake
•  Cape Chin
•  Summit Bog
•  Ball's Falls Conservation Area
•  Beamer Memorial
•  Copperkettle
•  Red Hill Valley
•  Nottawasaga Bluffs Conservation Area
 
With research conducted by Dr. Jessica Dolan and Mia Yu Zhao Ni, these ten new destination sites will include ethnobotanical research and the location's historical and cultural significance to Indigenous peoples. Each destination pin on the map will also feature beautiful imagery of the locations and photography of the ethnobotany species identified during fieldwork in 2022. Each pin will also have translations available in Kanien’kéha (Mohawk), Michif (Métis), and Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabek).
 
Not only will these locations be available on the Great Niagara Escarpment Indigenous Cultural Map, but they will also be presented as destination pins on a new mapping platform being developed by Plenty Canada called the Greenbelt Indigenous Botanical Survey. The Survey will include twenty-three destination pins, including these ten, that are critical to the Indigenous ethnobotanical regions of the Greenbelt and which are significantly connected to historic Indigenous trails.
 
These ten destinations on the Great Niagara Escarpment Indigenous Cultural Map preview a sampling of the full content that will be uploaded onto the Greenbelt Indigenous Botanical Survey, where visitors will enjoy learning about the Greenbelt's extensive ethnobotanical Indigenous plants and their significant connection to Indigenous communities.
 
•  The ten destination pins will be made public on the Great Niagara Escarpment Indigenous Cultural Map by April 1, 2023.
 
• The Greenbelt Indigenous Botanical Survey will be available to the public by the end of this year and also be accessible through a link on the Great Niagara Escarpment Indigenous Cultural Map’s menu.
 
Though the Cultural Map remains in prototype phase, the platform in its current operational form reveals virtually unlimited research, and educational possibilities, as well as applications across a wide swath of Indigenous subject matter related to the Niagara Escarpment.

You can visit the Great Niagara Escarpment Indigenous Cultural Map here: 
 http://www.thegreatniagaraescarpment.ca/
 
— Amanda Marie Harwood