The professional practice of planning and the state-controlled mechanisms under which western-science planning operate offer little to improve the lives of Indigenous people and their communities. Arguably, western-science planning along with its many legal tools, collectively reproduce existing colonial relations in the interest of state domination over, and suppression of, Indigenous people. In this paper, we describe a different planning model, one that Viswanathan (2019) refers to as “parallel planning”, wherein Indigenous planning principles are practiced in parallel to western-science planning, with each approach informing, and complementing, the other. Our case example is from the Saskatchewan River Delta wherein Indigenous values nested in traditional knowledge in the land and water are the centrepiece of a planning process supported by the western-science planning framework. Challenges facing this approach will be discussed alongside suggestions on how these challenges may be overcome.

Access to drinkable water is essential to human life. The consequence of unsafe drinking water can be damaging to communities and catastrophic to human health. Today, one in five First Nation communities in Canada is on a boil water advisory, with some advisories lasting over 10 years. Factors contributing to this problem stretch back to colonial structures and institutional arrangement that reproduce woefully inadequate community drinking water systems. Notwithstanding these challenges, First Nation communities remain diligent, adaptive, and innovative in their efforts to provide drinkable water to their community members. One example is through the practice of source water protection planning. Source water is untreated water from groundwater or surface water that supplies drinking water for human consumption. Source water protection is operationalized through land and water planning activities aimed at reducing the risk of contamination from entering a public drinking water supply. Here, we introduce a source water protection planning process at Muskowekwan First Nation, Treaty 4, Saskatchewan. The planning process followed a community-based participatory approach guided by trust, respect, and reciprocity between community members and university researchers. Community members identified threats to the drinking water source followed by restorative land management actions to reduce those threats. The result of this process produced much more than a planning document but engaged multiple community members in a process of empowerment and self-determination. The process of plan-making produced many unintended results including human–land connectivity, reconnection with the water spirit, as well as the reclaiming of indigenous planning. Source water protection planning may not correct all the current water system inadequacies that exist on many First Nations, but it will empower communities to take action to protect their drinking water sources for future generations as a pathway to local water security.