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Piikani Monitoring of Bison and Sweetgrass

Initiative Overview

Location:

Piikani Nation, Alberta

Duration:

Major Supporters:

University of Calgary Mobilizing Climate Action Grant for Southern Alberta

The Resilience Institute team is excited to continue our climate work with the Piikani Nation, now in collaboration with the University of Calgary’s Biogeoscience Institute (BGI).

A new project titled Building a Monitoring Program Inspired by the Traditional Piikani Winter Count will bring knowledge holders from the Piikani Nation together with students and climate experts from the University of Calgary. The project will look at methods for weaving traditional ways of documenting and sharing change from the Piikani Nation, known as the Winter Count, with good practices from other community-based monitoring techniques. Workshops will begin in early spring of 2024.

This project will bring together knowledge experts from the Piikani Nation in southern Alberta, academia, government, and the charitable sector to develop the capacity of the Piikani People to monitor key climate indicators.

BGI has been leading research in the Canadian Rockies since 1950. The Barrier Lake and RB Miller Field Stations, both located in Alberta’s Kananaskis country, create an environment that inspires high quality land-based research, education, and community connections. The field stations enhance learner experiences and create a space for weaving Western and Indigenous perspectives.

About the image above:

“The symbols on the elk hide pictured here is an interpretation of art forms that go back to our stories, to ceremony, and to our ways of knowing.” – Albertine Crow Shoe, Stories of Resilience author, describing the Winter Count

Laura Stewart

Board Member

Laura Stewart is the Community Wildfire Resilience Coordinator with Forsite Fire, supporting communities across Canada with wildfire risk assessments, mitigation planning, and program delivery. She has more than a decade of experience advancing wildfire resilience at Indigenous, municipal, provincial/territorial, and national levels. Previously, Laura served nearly eleven years as Alberta’s Provincial FireSmart Specialist, leading community, WUI, neighbourhood, and Home Ignition Zone programs, coordinating funding, and partnering with communities and fire services across the province. She has also served as Board Chair with both the Partners in Protection Association (FireSmart Canada) and the Community Wildfire Resilience Association of Alberta.

 

Sara Walsh, PhD

Board Member

Sara Walsh, PhD, is a disaster risk reduction and climate resilience specialist with more than 15 years of experience spanning Canada, Nepal, the Middle East, and North Africa. Until November 2025, she served as Thematic Lead for Climate and Resilience with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), where she supported Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to strengthen their climate and risk reduction work across the region. Sara currently works as a freelance consultant with the United Nations, governments, and humanitarian organizations on recovery, risk governance, and community-based resilience. She teaches at a Canadian university and holds a PhD in Disaster Risk Reduction. Her work emphasizes anticipatory action, equity, and bridging research with practice to shape more resilient and sustainable futures.

Alison Criscitiello

Board Member

Alison Criscitiello, PhD, is an ice core scientist and high-altitude mountaineer who explores the history of climate and sea ice in polar and high-alpine regions using ice core chemistry. Alison’s work also focuses on environmental contaminant histories in ice cores from the Canadian high Arctic and the water towers of the Canadian Rockies. In 2010, she led the first all-women’s ascent of Lingsarmo, a 22,818-foot peak in the Indian Himalaya. Alison has earned three American Alpine Club (AAC) climbing awards, the John Lauchlan and Mugs Stump alpine climbing awards, as well as the first Ph.D. in Glaciology ever conferred by MIT. She is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Canadian Ice Core Lab at the University of Alberta. She is the co-founder of Girls on Ice Canada.