Title Pending 17636

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.The people of Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation (SAFN)are located on the North shore of the Georgian Bay, on Lake Huron, situated in what is now known as Mid-Northern Ontario, Canada. They have lived here since time immemorial. Over the past 174 years, SAFN has been subject to environmental and cultural exploitation via logging and pulp and paper mill by-products, mining including uranium mining, proposed nuclear waste sites, and unauthorized industrial waste sites, which has been contested by the Anishnaabek. The exploitive colonial extraction of natural resources from the community and the surrounding area represents both a historical and a current struggle to resolve. Here we explore the determinants of health impacting Indigenous communities and to identify areas of strength plus those in need of improvement as it relates to broader understandings of community wellbeing. We propose that these determinants of health help to understand environmental and cultural exploitation that exists from colonial extraction of natural resources while First Nations, like SAFN, express community resilience by utilizing environmental stewardship, cultural continuity, and self-determination to move into a more sustainable future that respects traditional (Anishnaabek) concepts.