Student Spotlight: Kelsey Watson-Daniels
Kelsey Watson-Daniels
Lands Officer Technician & Taxation Administrator for Mistawasis Nêhiyawak.
My name is Kelsey Watson-Daniels. I'm the lands officer technician and taxation administrator for Mistawasis Nêhiyawak. This is also where I currently live.
Mistawasis Nêhiyawak is located in Saskatchewan, an hour and a half north of the city of Saskatoon and 45 minutes west of Prince Albert.
Our community is mainly agricultural land. We sit right on the cusp of the boreal forest, so we do have a lot of lakes, but the majority of our reserve is agricultural lands.
There's about 1,500 people living on reserve. We have 40,000 acres of land under our main reserve and about 10,000 acres more Additions to Reserve (ATR) lands, with more to come as we are settling our Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE) agreement with a specific claim to buy more land.
There is a lot of opportunity for us, once we get our TLE agreement done. I believe that will be a really big stepping stone to becoming a bigger part of the local economy here.
My day-to-day role in Mistawasis as the lands officer technician consists of registering permits, developing and implementing our Environmental Management Plan (EMP) and Land Use Plan (LUP). We are in the final stages of our EMP and are waiting for our LUP to be ratified.
I’ve been working with Mistawasis for about four years as the lands technician, and as the tax administrator for the last three years. Mistawasis, through the Regional Municipality of Leask, took a modified approach to taxing agricultural land. Normally, the cost of preparing agricultural assessments can be a barrier to First Nations exercising their tax jurisdiction. As the first First Nation to successfully implement this approach, Mistawasis determines the average property taxes per acre in the adjacent rural municipality and charges agricultural taxpayers based on the number of acres in their possession.
I would have been so lost in so many different ways without the Tulo Centre Tax Administration program. Without the knowledge I have gained through their program, I don't think I would be able to do my job. After finishing my certificate, I’m able to answer questions that people, and Chief and Council ask me. So it's been a really big help and I’m really happy I took the program.
My experience as a Tulo Centre student was great. My ability to learn excels in a classroom setting, so I really liked going there for a week at a time. I also enjoyed the online program. I was able to manage my time around the schedule, get what I needed to get done during class, and then get back to work once it was finished.
It’s really good to get to know your classmates that you're in the cohort with because they're going to be the ones who you're more than likely going to ask for help. Being able to reach out to your classmates who have either been doing this for years, or who you were learning with is invaluable.
I sit on the board of directors for the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Land Technicians. This is something that I enjoy doing because we get to help out all the lands managers across Saskatchewan with any issues they may have.
I also enjoy photography, videos, and computers. I do a lot of drone work as well. I'm a certified drone pilot and advanced drone pilot, so I can fly in certain places where you wouldn't normally be able to, which is pretty cool.
