Where the Indigenous Resources in CARL Actually Come From

CARL is designed not to generate Indigenous knowledge.

When Indigenous Resource Pathways suggests a book, guide, organization, or collection, that suggestion came from somewhere, and a review process decided it could appear. This post is about that process.

We live and work on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the syilx Okanagan people, and we understand that this carries responsibility, not authority.

We are not Indigenous. We do not speak for Indigenous Peoples, Nations, or communities, and that boundary shapes everything below.

Where candidate resources come from

They are collected, not generated. Candidate resources come through three documented channels.

The first is Indigenous-led discovery and review hubs already in the registry. These include American Indians in Children’s Literature, Strong Nations, GoodMinds, FNESC Authentic First Peoples, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the Inuit Art Foundation, NFB Indigenous Cinema, and regional sources such as the Rupertsland Institute, the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Gabriel Dumont Institute, and Éditions Hannenorak.

The second is publisher catalogues, including Theytus Books, Kegedonce Press, Inhabit Media, Pemmican Publications, and the Indigenous list at HighWater Press. HighWater is not Indigenous-owned, so it is treated as a catalogue source, not as an Indigenous-governed organization.

The third is award and selection programs used as evidence for further review. These include the Indigenous Voices Awards, First Nation Communities READ, the American Indian Youth Literature Awards, the Governor General’s Awards, imagineNATIVE, the Norma Fleck Award, and Indigenous categories at the JUNO Awards.

Market sweeps can build a candidate list, but a candidate does not enter the approved registry merely because a model says it exists. Each one goes through verification, an independent adversarial audit, and my sign-off.

What has to be true for a resource to be included

Two things.

It has to be recognized. The creator or the work appears in credible Indigenous-recognizing sources: Indigenous-curated lists and awards first, then publisher lists and reputable coverage. Many of those recognitions already rest on the person’s own declaration of who they are, which is where that belongs.

Our review must not identify an unresolved Nation- or community-level dispute, objection, or credible public concern about the work or creator. This is the screen that does the most work, and it works by deferring to Indigenous communities rather than by us making a call.

We describe people the way they describe themselves. Quoted, not ranked.

What we changed, and why

The first version of this process was stricter, and worse.

It asked whether we could document that someone was Indigenous, weighing one kind of membership statement against another and treating a missing one as a defect. That put us in the position of adjudicating identity, which is precisely what we had said we would not do. It’s also the kind of status-gatekeeping Indigenous writers have been objecting to for a long time. One of our own audits surfaced the problem directly, when a historian pushed back on a “first Treaty player” framing with “status doesn’t define us.”

So the bar moved. Recognition and dispute, not proof.

The passes

The first pass is AI-assisted. It checks that the resource and creator exist, checks that links are live, records the recognition signal, and captures how the creator or source describes them, verbatim. It also notes whether an organization is Indigenous-governed, Indigenous-led, a partnership, or a non-Indigenous publisher. That last one is a statement about organizations rather than a demand on people: a government agency should not be presented as Indigenous-governed.

A second, independent pass is instructed to challenge the first, looking for dead or hijacked links, incorrect governance labels, missed disputes, and other reasons the first pass might be wrong.

Neither pass decides. I read every resource before it can be suggested.

Resources are held or excluded when a Nation, community, or credible source contests the work or the creator, when a recommender withdraws support, when a link no longer functions safely, or when the human read is incomplete.

What happens when there is no verified match

Sometimes CARL doesn’t identify a clear, source-supported match in its reviewed set.

That is not evidence that no Indigenous knowledge or connection exists. It means this system doesn’t have a responsible match it can support.

If there is no direct match but a reviewed collection may help, CARL labels the result Resource Discovery and says: “No direct match found. Here is a vetted place to search for relevant materials.” The collection is a starting point, and the teacher still reviews individual resources before classroom use.

If there is no safe direct match or useful discovery source, CARL returns No Connection Found: “No authentic match found for this topic.” It recommends consulting local community resources, educational partners, or the school’s Indigenous education lead.

When a request requires Nation-, community-, or territory-specific knowledge, CARL returns Local Context Needed. It does not infer which Nation is local to a school. It directs the teacher toward their Indigenous education lead, local community partners, or educational authorities, with Native Land Digital available as a territory-context locator.

That local-context guidance appears only when local context is actually needed. Standard results carry source-specific cautions about matters such as grade fit and content. The system returns registry IDs, so the model cannot invent a title or URL.

The module can offer a place to begin. It can’t substitute for local relationships, protocols, or cultural authority.

What we have not done

This section needs to be especially exact.

We have not yet undertaken consultation with Indigenous educators or communities. We plan to consult Indigenous educators and communities when we can compensate that work properly. Until then, we are not asking anyone to guide this for free.

That means we will not imply partnership, endorsement, or cultural authority that does not exist. Published sources and an internal review process are not the same as community guidance.

The giving-back workflow connected to the Na-mi-quai-ni-mak Community Support Fund is also still in development. Our intention is to support community-led healing and remembrance work through the fund, but donations are not currently triggered every time the module is generated. We will publish the amount, timing, trigger, and reporting process when that workflow is live.

A donation is not a substitute for relationship-building, guidance, or consent. It does not create authority over Indigenous knowledge.