By Sonal Gupta, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer When Eric Zscheile began negotiating with Parks Canada in the early 1990s, there was little room for Mi’kmaq voices in the process. The relationship between Mi’kmaq people and the federal agency was — as in many parts of Canada — strained. “Most Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia refused to go inside a national park then,” he said. “They felt they were being excluded from Mi’kma’ki — from their own land.” Three decades later, those dynamics have shifted. Parks Canada and the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs recently signed the Toqi’maliaptmu’k arrangement — a provincewide co-management agreement that gives Mi’kmaq communities a direct role in governing national parks and historic sites. The deal covers all Parks Canada sites in the province…
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