Department of History

Courtney is a first-generation Syilx scholar and PhD student whose research focuses on Indigenous fire stewardship and land use in the Pacific Northwest. Her work takes a community-engaged, microhistorical approach grounded in oral history.

She examines the intersections and tensions between Indigenous science and hegemonic models of scientific forestry, exploring how these frameworks have shaped forest management policy and practice. Their current research investigates Syilx participation in the forestry industry, the legacies of 20th-century forest policy in British Columbia and Washington, and the historical and ongoing role of cultural burning in Syilx territory. Her work is concerned with how Indigenous fire ecologies are negotiated within contemporary fire management systems and the implications of integrating Indigenous knowledge into state-led strategies for wildfire coexistence.