HOW SATELLITES AND LIGHT POLLUTION REWRITE INDIGENOUS SKY STORIES

Published in the March/April 2023 issue of SkyNews Magazine

In many ways, Melissa Daniels enjoys a spectacular view of the night sky that many astronomers would envy.

Her home is in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, next to Wood Buffalo National Park — the world’s largest dark-sky preserve — which means that light pollution is non-existent. On the other hand, it means Daniels gets a front-row seat to the sprawling web of space junk, satellites, and spacecraft criss-crossing the night sky.

“They’ve become so frequent in the night sky. You can’t ignore them,” said Daniels, a Denesuliné woman with the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), in an interview with SkyNews. “It’s a reframing of space as an ancestral global commons.”

Astronomically, Daniels said the clutter makes research difficult. As an Indigenous woman, she sees it as a modern form of colonialism.

Concerns about light pollution and satellites are growing among astronomers. When it launched in September 2022, the BlueWalker3 communications satellite became one of the night sky’s brightest objects. And in November 2022, Starlink, a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX, became available throughout Canada. 

The International Astronomical Union has called on governments and corporations to consult with its professional astronomers on future low-orbit satellites and major light-pollution sources.

As Canadians become aware of Canada’s colonial past, Indigenous astronomers argue that preserving the night sky is an act of reconciliation. But that is not happening, according to Hilding Neilson, an astrophysicist at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and a Mi’kmaw from the Qalipu First Nation. Instead, First Nation, Métis, and Inuit leaders are rarely consulted by supporters and opponents of these projects.

Every civilization sees itself in the stars. The night sky acts as a calendar, navigational aid, and schedule for hunts and harvests. The stars are home to gods and ancestors offering guidance and judgement. Cultures write their histories in the cosmos.

Preserving these asterisms has become urgent. Written records are rare for some cultures. In others, the number of people who can pass on their knowledge is shrinking.

Neilson said Indigenous communities deserve the same consultation demanded by astronomers. The idea is that if a pipeline company must meet Indigenous leaders before building in traditional territory, satellite companies should do the same.

“If light pollution is erasing our stories, then these new satellites are rewriting them without consultation or consent,” he said.

For any partnership to form, Neilson said companies must make room for reconciliation within astronomy. Astronomical groups want to preserve sky cultures, including the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. And universities are keen on adding Indigenous asterisms to their curriculum.

But Neilson said many astronomers treat these sky cultures as mythologies and superstitions. He said asterisms were shaped by what people saw on the land.

In the Denesuliné language, for instance, caribou and stars share the same word: etthén. Daniels says before settlers killed most herds, they were as plentiful as the stars.

"By looking at constellations and acknowledging the Indigenous names and stories about them, it's a way of connecting to whose land we're on,” said Neilson.

The locations where much of this astronomy happens is also a flashpoint within astronomy.

Many Kānaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawaii, oppose current and planned observatories atop Mauna Kea. 

Kānaka Maoli see Mauna Kea as culturally and spiritually significant, but argue development has happened without their consultation. Development on the mountain has also become a symbol of colonization to Kānaka Maoli.

A 2019 blockade at the base of the mountain briefly paused construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.

The following year, the Canadian Astronomical Society said it would join the project only with Indigenous consent. Yet, Canada announced in 2015 that it would commit more than $243 million over a 10-year period to the project.

“It doesn’t matter why they’re saying no, it’s that we should accept they’re saying no,” said Neilson. “We don’t have a right to judge how spiritual the mountain is or how important the mountain is, that’s not our right. Our right is to accept a yes or a no.”

Still, Indigenous astronomers are seeing progress. Plenty of young Indigenous people are learning their sky cultures, said Neilson. More astronomers are also curious about them. One day, Neilson pictures sky acknowledgements becoming common within astronomy.

Daniels has used modern programs like Stellarium to teach Denesuliné asterisms to Elders who missed these teachings because they attended residential schools. 

“Everything is written twice: once on the land and once in the sky. We are just living between these spaces,” said Daniels.