Boozhoo News River Readers,

And hello January! It’s the first week back to work for many of us after the holiday break.

We’re catching up with the second half of the top ten list - here are 5 more of the most resonant stories read by the News River audience in 2025!

A reminder its the last week to apply for the first cohort of the #DataBack Fellowship!

It includes one year free access to our data platform Niiwin, plus hands-on support from our team.

Start the #Databack Fellowship Application

Next week we’ll be back with the latest news of 2026 - see you then!

‘Indigenous helpers’ are essential to culturally responsive mental health care

Within my own journey of mental health recovery, I found healing alongside helpers across Turtle Island, rather than within the confines of a mental health institution or pages of a manualized treatment protocol. It’s common for First Nations Peoples to refer to “helpers” or “helping work” when describing individuals who provide relationally-based support to others. As a community psychotherapist and later PhD student, I became increasingly interested in these helpers as unsung heroes of community wellness. They didn’t necessarily have a graduate degree in a mental health field, and they were rarely recognized or compensated for their efforts, yet they made great personal sacrifices to support the healing journeys of those around them.

The ocean as a living relative: Indigenous perspectives on marine stewardship

What happens when you stop seeing the sea as a resource—and start seeing it as family? For two Indigenous members of Oceans Network Canada, this shift isn’t just philosophical—it’s essential for survival. “Non-Indigenous western frameworks can focus more on emphasizing management, ownership and resource use. Seeing the ocean as a family relative changes the relationship, focusing on reciprocity, respect and long-term care. This mindset leads to stewardship practices that sustain ecosystems over multiple generations.”

Preserving Māori language through AI: Peter Lucas-Jones at Radiodays Asia

At the recent Radiodays Asia conference, Peter Lucas-Jones, CEO of Te Reo Irirangi o Te Hiku o Te Ika (Te Hiku Media), delivered an insightful presentation on the innovative use of Māori language radio broadcasts to train speech and language technologies. The initiative is a significant step towards the preservation and revitalization of the Māori language, leveraging decades of radio broadcasts to develop large language learning models. Peter Lucas-Jones, a seasoned Māori language broadcaster and digital content creator, is at the forefront of this project. He emphasized the importance of Indigenous data sovereignty and the role of natural language processing (NLP) in supporting Indigenous language revitalization.

From Science to Sovereignty: Indigenizing Western Scientific Approaches for Culturally Appropriate Wildfire Recovery

As catastrophic wildfires increasingly devastate the interior landscapes of British Columbia, Canada, conventional approaches to post-wildfire recovery often overlook Indigenous values, knowledge systems, and food sovereignty. In collaboration with six Northern St'át'imc communities and guided by the “walking on two legs” framework, which brings together Indigenous and Western knowledge systems led by Indigenous worldview, we reanalyzed post-wildfire vegetation trajectory data from the McKay Creek wildfire. Our study suggests that reframing plant classification by Indigenous values not only deepens understanding of post-wildfire recovery but also supports more effective, place-based decision-making for long-term ecosystem stewardship.

Community control for oral history

Data sovereignty is at the heart of the next phase of Kahnawake’s Oral History Project, with elders’ stories and family life in Kahnawake ready to be archived in a way that above all keeps community knowledge for the community. “It’s looking really good, the possibilities are really exciting,” said Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, project manager. “This is super up to date cutting-edge technology, and it looks fantastic.” The first phase of the project wrapped up in February 2022 and saw 25 elders and their families interviewed over a two-year period. The result was a short film titled “Resistance and Resilience: Stories and Remembrances of our Elders,” which was shortlisted for the prestigious 2023 Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Community Programming.