Cree students from Mistissini, Quebec selected to go to national science fair
Their report found that water from their traditional territory was cleaner than water from other sources
Two students from a northern Cree community will be going to Fredericton, New Brunswick, at the end of May after winning second place in their category at the Quebec Indigenous Science Fair.
Errol Mianscum and Mark Petawabano from Voyageur Memorial High School in Mistissini were among 80 students from 21 Indigenous communities invited to present their science projects at the science fair held last week in the twin Cree and Inuit communities of Whapmagoostui and Kuujjuaraapik.
Judges noticed their project, called Niibii: The Source of Life, and chose the two Secondary 3 students (which is the equivalent of being in Grade 9) to go to the 2025 Canada-Wide Science Fair, along with two youth from the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach.
"Participating was a big deal for all of us because we were representing our school," said Petawabano.
The chairperson of the Cree School Board, Sarah Pash, believes the fair was a resounding success.
"The students were able to make connections with their peers in other communities and share their similarities and their cultures", she said. "The fact that it was in the blended community of Whapmagoostui and Kuujjuaraapik was very symbolic of the bringing together of nations."
Pash said the project presented by Mianscum and Petawabano is important for the Cree because it is about the land and it also took elders' knowledge into consideration.
For their project the two teenagers compared different kinds of water. They used bottled water from the store, tap water, snow, and water from a natural spring on their traditional territories near Mistissini.
"For many years, our elders have told us that the water where we are is safe to drink. And we wanted to prove that using science."
And the elders were right, according to the students' report.
"The natural water source from their hunting territories, their family traditional territory, came out to be the cleanest water in terms of other matters present in the water," said Pash. "It really valued that [elder's] knowledge as scientific knowledge."
The team hopes their findings will encourage more people to drink fresh water from local sources. Pash said it's something the local government and other communities may be interested in looking into as well.
"It's very consistent with the research that is already done in our territory and I am sure the Department of Environment at CNG [Cree Nation Government] will be very interested."
Pash said Mianscum and Petawabano are becoming role models for the youth of Eeyou Istchee. She said that their invitation to the national fair demonstrates that a Cree community can make it to the national level when it comes to science.
Other projects presented at the Quebec Indigenous Science Fair included a comparison of Schefferville's landfill and Knob Lake's contaminants, and a study on Labrador tea as a healer for arthritis.