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This paper engages narratives from Tess Lea's (2020) book 'Wild Policy' for how they help consider the messy or 'wild' nature of global policy interventions on sustainability, including in its latest formation as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We do so alongside data from research on education in the territory of Nunavut, as well as informed by our experiences as settler and Cree university researchers concerned with place and land-informed education policy. Engaging with a methodological framing of policy ecology, the article considers both policy artifacts and 'ambiences' or materialities, and their interrelations. We examine how a Saskatchewan university's draft SDG plan manifests aspects of pre-fabricated globally mobile 'wild policy', including in its gaps in land-informed Indigenous engagement. Instead, we suggest how more systemic and decolonizing approaches to land-informed education policy, as in development in Inuit-based higher education in Nunavut, can inform both future policy decision-making and policy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explain how principals across Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, and Nunavut (Canada) promoted educational success for Indigenous students. Herein, success incorporates academic, physical, emotional and spiritual wellness. For this qualitative, multi-case study, the data were 29 individual interviews conducted with 17 principals. This study showed that building and nurturing relationships with Indigenous students, parents1 and the community supported Indigenous student success. Building principal-student relationships included principals informally talking with students and leading extracurricular activities for students. Building principal-parent relationships meant spending face-to-face time with parents, viewing parents as the experts of their child and not judging parents. Principal-community relationships formed when principals educated themselves about the culture of Indigenous communities, were present within the school community and were friends with Indigenous peoples. An implication of the study is that thick forms of social capital between principals and the members of Indigenous school communities are integral aspects of decolonizing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]