Indigenous community on Manitoulin Island gets a data centre to help preserve its cultural heritage

An Indigenous community on Manitoulin Island in northeastern Ontario says its new data centre will help it secure its data sovereignty.

The Ogimaa (or chief) of Wiikwemkoong, Tim Ominika, said the community will be using the data centre to store information about programs and services, including the community's education department, health centre and services offered through the band office.

It will also allow the First Nation to preserve its cultural heritage locally.

"It empowers us to digitally preserve and share our Anishinaabe language because that is another thing we are looking at our knowledge, our traditions," Ominika said.

The facility arrived by truck on Friday, May 23.

"It looks like a large storage container," Ominika said.

"But inside… with the data storage system in there, it looks like you're in a movie  when you see all of the data storage and all the compartments. That's what it looks like inside, inside the unit."

Ominika said the community previously used third-party vendors to host its information online.

"Not saying we don't trust any other IT [information technology] businesses out there, but you know, we are just trying to look at paving the way for Anishinabek communities such as our community here," he said.

Although he did not provide the exact cost for the data centre, Ominika said "it wasn't cheap."

He added that it was a worthwhile investment for the community to preserve important cultural data, and information about services, locally. 

Ominika said Wiikwemkoong could make arrangements with other Indigenous communities to store their data.

The data centre is also expected to create some local jobs to keep it running, and Ominika said he hopes it sparks more interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields among young people in the community.