WIIKWEMKOONG UNCEDED TERRITORY, Ontario (AP) — For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have passed down their traditions and culture through oral storytelling. Now, a Canadian Indigenous community is using a data center to help preserve its heritage.
The Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory in rural Ontario installed a small data center as it modernized its recordkeeping systems. Among the digital files it holds are video recordings of Anishinaabe speaking their native language.
“Our language is one of the biggest things that most First Nations across the country are losing,” said Wiikwemkoong Chief Tim Ominika. “We will have our knowledge keepers, our language speakers who may be moving on to the spirit world, but their legacy is still going to be protected for many years to come by having our own data systems in place and protecting that.”
The idea of digital sovereignty has gained momentum in places like Europe, where leaders are wary of the widespread influence of American Big Tech. For the Wiikwemkoong First Nation and other Indigenous communities, it is also about asserting authority over their own information after historically being excluded from its collection and use by colonizers.
About the size of a single-car garage, the data center installed last year also stores the community’s corporate documents, health data for residents, and security camera footage.