Andrew Wiebe (he/them) is Indigi-Queer (Red River Michif). His project, Lii Lozh di Kaastor (The Beaver Lodge), thinks about how to systematically build Indigenous and Queer stories into traditional archival practice through a methodology inspired by our relationship with beavers. This relational approach situation how beavers can teach us how to build Indigenous memory into institutions by being attentive to how beaver dams are building worlds by regenerating ecosystems non-linearly (upstream, the world is renewed, and this relationship also changes the downstream perspective). In the sense of an archive, we can view the beaver dam through Leanne Betasmoke Simpson’s description in A Short History of the Blockade: Giant Beavers, diplomacy, and Regeneration in Nishnaabewin to assert that the blockade (the dam as a structure) is a space of diplomacy between these two worlds, where Indigenous Knowledge can structurally coexist with traditional archival practice.
Ultimately, his project aims to work with and against traditional archives to reexamine how to privilege Indigenous methods of sharing community Knowledge even within a traditionally Western style of remembering. The goal is to move beyond the apocalypse that Indigenous people currently face and prompt ways of coexisting.
