A North American Indigenous Narrative-based Inquiry of Culture and Land

This research uses a narrative cultural inquiry study to address the need to save the land our Mother Earth (Aki) and the relationship with Indigenous Spirituality through the topics/themes of Spirit Houses, Sa'be (Sasquatch) and Sacred landscape features such as Spiritual Sites, Ceremony and Pictographs within the geography of Turtle Island, North America in Northern Ontario, Canada. The rationale of this study was to address the larger inaadiziwin (philosophy) of Indigenous character and way of life with nature or “All My Relations” for the author.

North American countries will test USMCA rules

Headline NORTH AMERICA: Countries will test USMCA rules

Experimental Susceptibility of North American Raccoons (Procyon lotor) and Striped Skunks (Mephitis mephitis) to SARS-CoV-2

Recent spillback events of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to animals has raised concerns about it becoming endemic in wildlife. A sylvatic cycle of SARS-CoV-2 could present multiple opportunities for repeated spillback into human populations and other susceptible wildlife. Based on their taxonomy and natural history, two native North American wildlife species —the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) and the raccoon (Procyon lotor) —represent a high likelihood of susceptibility and ecological opportunity of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2. Eight skunks and raccoons were each intranasally inoculated with one of two doses of the virus (103 PFU and 105 PFU) and housed in pairs. To evaluate direct transmission, a naïve animal was added to each inoculated pair 48 h post-inoculation. Four control animals of each species were handled like the experimental groups. At predetermined intervals, we collected nasal and rectal swabs to quantify virus shed via virus isolation and detect viral RNA via rRT-PCR and blood for serum neutralization. Lastly, animals were euthanized at staggered intervals to describe disease progression through histopathology and immunohistochemistry. No animals developed clinical disease. All intranasally inoculated animals seroconverted, suggesting both species are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The highest titers in skunks and raccoons were 1:128 and 1:64, respectively. Low quantities of virus were isolated from 2/8 inoculated skunks for up to day 5 post-inoculation, however no virus was isolated from inoculated raccoons or direct contacts of either species. Neither species had gross lesions, but recovering mild chronic pneumonia consistent with viral insult was recorded histologically in 5/8 inoculated skunks. Unlike another SARS-CoV-2 infection trial in these species, we detected neutralizing antibodies in inoculated raccoons; thus, future wildlife serologic surveillance results must be interpreted with caution. Due to the inability to isolate virus from raccoons, the lack of evidence of direct transmission between both species, and low amount of virus shed by skunks, it seems unlikely for SARS-CoV-2 to become established in raccoon and skunk populations and for virus to spillback into humans. Continued outbreaks in non-domestic species, wild and captive, highlight that additional research on the susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife, especially musteloidea, and of conservation concern, is needed.

Healthcare highways in your community

This abstract serves to introduce a 10 minute video in which I will discuss issues pertaining to the structure of the healthcare system in Quebec. At the same time I will review the concept of community within and around that system. The relationship and interplay between the two will be explored in the hope that the viewer might find resonance and meaning, and perhaps a springboard to further reflection and conversation. Many perceive a need for change in both the organizational systems as well as in the existing cultures within healthcare institutions, both in and outside of Quebec. Yet we often feel powerless to act. I will touch upon ideas on how we can make a difference using our individual influence to bring about the changes we seek. The concepts under discussion are abstract. In the hope of creating a greater degree of tangibility, I will offer a metaphor – namely the long-term detrimental effects brought about by the disruption, and in many cases destruction, of vibrant North American communities, caused by the building of highways straight through their hearts. I will suggest that though there may have been benefits to the society as a whole arising from the building of those highways, the adverse effects extended well beyond the individual communities involved. With this metaphor in mind, I will present the argument that the current structure of healthcare in Quebec, brought into effect in 2015, has resulted in over-bureaucratization and “decommunitization”, with a consequent diminution in the presence and role of culture, ultimately representing a loss for the community at large. Unintended deleterious societal effects arising from social system restructuring, are a phenomenon not unique to healthcare, nor to Quebec. It may take years for these consequences to become manifest, by which time they may prove difficult to reverse.