Our Mission
Woven Paths Inc. provides a range of services to Indigenous communities and their representative organizations, and informed industry looking to work responsibly and appropriately with those organizations, who require support for conducting community-based cultural studies and impact assessment, consultation with government and industry, regulatory participation, community engagement, and lands and resource management. We also support and facilitate the needs of planned or operating local community museums or cultural centres.
It is our mandate that through this work, we seek opportunities for community capacity building to increase related skills, engagement, and the human resource strength of the organization. Woven Paths also collaborates when required, with other accredited associates who provide additional specific expertise.
Who We Are
The Principal of Woven Paths Inc., established in 2013 in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Kim Dertien-Loubert is now based in Sidney, BC, on Tsawout First Nation territory, one of four bands that constitute the W̱SÁNEĆ, or Saanich, First Nations and their traditional territories on the southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. In addition to work in BC, Kim continues to work in northeastern Alberta, on Métis, Cree, and Dene traditional territories. Kim is of Settler and Coast Salish heritage. Her Master’s thesis examined her family’s beginnings and experiences within the larger ethnohistoric fabric of Indigenous-settler relations and colonization of the BC interior. The Woven Paths Inc. logo is derived from original early 20th century beadwork created in connection with and gifted to early family.
Kim’s M.A. in Cultural Anthropology (UBC, 2008) focused on Indigenous studies in Canada regarding historical and contemporary relations with the Crown; Indigenous Knowledge (IK/TK) and resource management; socio-cultural issues such as health and welfare, gender, and identity; and cultural heritage. Kim has applied her education and training over the last nineteen years of her academic and professional career, gaining a breadth of knowledge and experience through: three federal government departments-Canadian Heritage and Archaeological Services Branch Parks Canada, the Litigation Management Branch and specific claims research for Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada; local and national archival and cultural patrimony institutions; the consultative, environment, and lands management arm for a progressive First Nation; a multi-stakeholder non-profit environmental organization policy advisor to the Province of Alberta; and consulting for First Nation and Métis organizations.
Over the last 13 years (since 2009), Kim’s work in Alberta has focused on the assertion of Section 35 Aboriginal and treaty rights, interests, and meaningful participation in the management of lands, traditional resources, and development of the oil sands of northeastern Alberta.
