Mappers, modelers and an anthropologist
For an exploration geologist searching for mineral deposits, the mountainous terrain of northwestern British Columbia conceals potential payloads of copper and molybdenum. For a forestry scientist, the region’s pines are a valuable resource to be protected and harvested. For some 200 First Nations — Canada’s political term for groups of indigenous peoples — the land is their home and the place of their ancestors. And for MIT graduate student Tom Schilling, it’s a fascinating place for anthropological study. Tom Schilling Photo: Allegra Boverman Schilling grew up in a former mining town in central Wyoming, a few miles from the Wind River Indian Reservation — an area that faced challenges similar to those he now sees in British Columbia. “From an early age, I saw what it meant to be part of a population that was chiefly working in resource-industry jobs,” Schilling says. “There were frequently tensions, but I was a...