Our Team
Carrie Allison
Carrie Allison is the facilitator and creator of the Lake Nipissing Beading Project. She created, organized and facilitated a similar project, The Shubenacadie River Beading Project. The Shubenacadie River Beading Project is an activist/community project, beaded in the company and guidance of the water protectors of the Stop Alton Gas group, their allies, and other members of the community who wish to be involved. This community-based project stands in solidarity with water protectors and the Stop Alton Gas group; who are actively occupying space along the Shubenacadie River to protest the destruction of the rivers’ ecosystem by the environmental threat Alton Gas poses.
Carrie Allison is a nêhiýaw/cree, Métis, and European descent visual artist based in K’jipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She grew up on the unceded and unsurrendered lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Allison’s maternal roots are based in maskotewisipiy (High Prairie, Alberta), Treaty 8.
Allison holds a Master in Fine Art, a Bachelor in Art History, and a Bachelor in Fine Art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Her work has been exhibited nationally in The Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, Urban Shaman, Winnipeg, and Beaverbrook Art Gallery, New Brunswick. She has had solo exhibitions at Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, the Owens Art Gallery, The Museum of Natural History, and The New Gallery. Allison has received grants from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Arts Nova Scotia and Canada Council for the Arts and is the 2020 recipient of the Melissa Levin Award from the Textile Museum of Canada. Allison’s work has been shown in Canadian Art, Esse and Visual Arts News.
Glenna Beaucage
Aanin. Boozhoo. Glenna Beaucage Ndoon Zhinkaaz. I am blessed to have spent my lifetime living on the north shore of Lake Nipissing as have all of my generations of family before me. From my very humble beginnings in a log cabin on an island in the West Arm of Lake Nipissing, to a family of fishers, tourist guides and camp workers, hunters, trappers and harvesters to my still humble living at Nbisiing Shkongan. I am the manager of our Culture and Heritage Sector and before that, was librarian for many years. My full interest has been in working with my community in reclaiming our culture, heritage and language, placing our imprint back on Lake Nipissing, despite the many attempts of surrounding communities to displace us from our territory. I learned to bead as a teenager, from watching my mom and grandmother. My grandmother tanned hides and I have a piece of her handmade equipment pieces. I bead and do leatherwork for personal uses for family needs. When I retire I plan to spend more time with cultural arts, hopefully.
Ysabel Castle
“I am currently an MESc student at Nipissing University, and also hold a BA in Environmental Geography from Nipissing University and an Environmental Technician diploma from Canadore College. I work as a lab instructor and a research assistant for the geography department at Nipissing, with a focus on GIS and Remote Sensing. I moved to North Bay to attend university in 2010, and finding myself at home here, never left. Since this place has given me so much, my hope is to give something in return by my own work and research. As such, my research interests involve anything that touches on the geography of North Bay and the surrounding region; within that rather broad field I find archaeology and ecology especially fascinating, and have recently discovered an interest in the hydrology of Lake Nipissing. In my spare time, I volunteer as a scout leader, and am an avid hiker and canoer.”
Jane Commanda
Jane Commanda is Councillor for Nipissing First Nation and holds the Culture and Heritage portfolio. She was born and raised in Nipissing First Nation and is the mother of two grown boys. Jane has been a Part Time Professor at Canadore College since 2009. She has a background in Cartography and loves learning new things.
Jane sits on the Research Committee with Nipissing First Nation which is how she became involved in the Lake Nipissing Beading Project. She represents the council when meeting with the team and reports back to them with info and updates on the project.
Kirsten Greer
Kirsten Greer currently lives and works on the traditional territory of the Nbisiing Nishnaabeg, and the lands protected by the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850. She is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Geography and History at Nipissing University, and the Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Global Environmental Histories and Geographies. Her CRC program addresses specifically reparations “in place” from Northern Ontario to the Caribbean through interdisciplinary, integrative, and engaged (community-based) scholarship in global environmental change research. As a critical historical geographer, she is interested in human-environment relations in the past; the environmental histories and legacies of the British Empire; and the politics of biodiversity heritage in the global North Atlantic. Over the years, Greer has been working in relationship with Dokis First Nation and Nipissing First Nation to reclaim the old histories and geographies of the region. For the Lake Nipissing Beading Project, she is helping to facilitate the project, and is researching the histories and decolonial methodologies in remote sensing and critical GIS. She is of Scottish-Scandinavian descent, from the unceded lands of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal.
Katie Hemsworth
Katie Hemsworth (she/her) is a settler scholar and a current postdoctoral fellow at Nipissing University’s Centre for Understanding Semi-Peripheries. She was born and raised on Anishinaabeg territory in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the lands outlined in the Robinson Superior treaty of 1850. She completed a PhD in Human Geography (Queen’s University) and her scholarly interests include community-oriented research, geographies of sound and listening, and historical geographies of settler colonialism. At Nipissing University, Dr. Hemsworth acknowledges her responsibility to uphold Robinson Huron Treaty responsibilities that have been neglected by the uneven colonial systems she both inherited and inhabits. For the Lake Nipissing Beading Project, she sees her role as a listener, research facilitator, and as an advocate for place-based storytelling, particularly in ways that challenge the colonial histories of her own discipline of geography. She helped secure funding for a partnership between Nipissing University, Dokis First Nation, and Nipissing First Nation, through which she also collaborates with museums, archives, and artists. The Lake Nipissing Beading Project is one extension of this partnership, and she is grateful to work in relationship with all the beings involved in this initiative
Joan McLeod
Joan McLeod Shabogesic is a proud NBisiing Nishnabekwe. Ms. McLeod Shabogesic is of the heron/crane doodem. She was employed as the Nipissing Land Manager for 37 years until her retirement in April of 2019. Joan was involved with and settled three land claims that increased the Nipissings’ land holdings but also established lucrative settlement trusts. Land repatriation, management and land claim research provided her with opportunities to delve into the historical documentation of the NBisiing People. Retirement has provided her with opportunity to continue her research of the Nbisiing People. Her post-secondary education was with the Nipissing College attaining a Bachelor of Arts in History from Laurentian University. In June of 2020, she was conferred by Nipissing University an Honourary Doctorate Letters.
Cindy Peltier
I am Nishinaabe-kwe with connections to Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and Nipissing First Nation. I am an Associate Professor and inaugural Chair in Indigenous Education in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. My research is community-based and focuses on the intersections between Indigenous peoples’ health and education. Grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, my work seeks to employ appropriate methodologies to ensure cultural safety. With successful funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, my priority continues to be sharing research findings in ways that will be meaningful for Indigenous peoples and communities.
My role on this project involves working with educators and pre-service teachers to transform the knowledges shared into curriculum for K-12 students.
Randy Restoule
Randy Restoule has been the Consultation Coordinator at Dokis First Nation for 4 years, previously he has worked for Dokis in the position of Economic Development Officer for 6 years. His experience includes operating a manufacturing business for 4 years and he is a certified Computer Network Engineer.
His work experience includes policy development, GIS systems, environmental assessments, forest management and fisheries surveying. Randy has conducted much research in the history of Dokis and it’s people which will be used in part to support several specific land claims against the Government of Canada.
Katrina Srigley
Katrina Srigley lives and works on Nbisiing Nishnaabeg territory. She is a Professor in the Department of History at Nipissing University, co-editor of the award-winning collection Beyond Women’s Words: Feminisms and the Practices of Oral History in the Twenty-First century (Routledge 2018), and author of the award-winning monograph Breadwinning Daughters: Young Working Women in a Depression-era City (U of T 2010). Her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)-funded projects, developed in partnership with Nipissing First Nation, examine the history of Nbisiing Nishinaabeg territory through Nishinaabeg ways of knowing, recording, and sharing the past. Professor Srigley is currently co-authoring a book with Glenna Beaucage (Cultural and Heritage Manager, Nipissing First Nation) titled Gaa Bi Kidwaad Maa Nbisiing/The Stories of Nbisiing. --
Suzanne Whiteduck
Suzanne Campeau Whiteduck is from Nipssing First Nation. She has a background in Office Administration and now works from her home in her husband’s community of Kitgan Zibi Anishinabeg.
Suzanne was born in Ottawa, ON and moved to Nipssing with her parents when she was 16. When she finished school she moved back to Ottawa and started working at the Assembly of First Nations. While there, she worked with many departments, like Environment, Education and even the National Chief’s office during Shawn Atleo’s term. With the birth of her daughter Charlotte in 2016, Suzanne decided to put her career on hold and stay home to raise her.
Suzanne is very connected to her Anishinabe roots in Nipissing and is very passionate about sharing her story of Indigenious Motherhood.
Lake Nipissing Beading Project During a Global Pandemic:
Suzanne organized and facilitated the Speaker Series for this project. She was also helping out in an administrative role as well.