Nicole Stafiej
M.Sc. Student 
[email protected]

Re-imagining cookbooks and nutritional labels to advance Inuit food sovereignty: insights from community-led goose research in Arviat, Nunavut

Nicole is a second generation settler of Polish descent, born and raised in Tiohtià:ke, Montreal. She completed her undergraduate degree at Mcgill University with a major in biology and a minor in natural history. Wanting to apply her skills in the natural sciences to uphold Indigenous methodologies for wildlife management and food sovereignty, Nicole decided to return to McGill to pursue a Masters of Science under the supervision of Murray Humphries and Dominique Henri (ECCC). 

She is now working on an interdisciplinary goose project, led by an Inuit wellness organization in Arviat, Nunavut, The Aqqiumavvik Society. This project, born out of community priorities, is exploring the potential of restoring the community's traditional goose harvest of the overpopulated light geese to advance community food sovereignty.

Grounded in the Aajiiqatigiingniq Research Methodology (ARM), Nicole's project aims to understand the values embedded in the Arviat country food system and explore participatory approaches to community knowledge transmission and mobilization to encourage goose harvesting. 
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©Léna Bureau. Foraging for plants and berries for community kitchen programming.

©Léna Bureau. Nicole helping with processing caribou caught by Young Hunter instructor for community feast

©Léna Bureau. Cooking char burgers in the community kitchen!