Courtney is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (2015-2025) in Rural Livelihoods and Sustainable Communities. He is cross appointed between Natural Resource Science and the Tourism Management Department at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia.
Courtney Mason completed his PhD at the University of Alberta where he investigated the displacement of Indigenous peoples in the formation of Banff National Park. Along with the history of educational institutions on the Nakoda reserve at Morley, his dissertation focused on colonial power relations and the experiences of Nakoda peoples in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. He worked as a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow with the Indigenous Health Research Group at the University of Ottawa where he contributed to community-based food security and health programs in rural Northern Ontario (Oji-Cree) and the Northwest Territories (Dene and Métis).
His current research examines rural and Indigenous land use development with a focus on tourism economies, protected area management and policy. He is interested in rural food security, conservation practices and climate change. Recently his research centers on Indigenous-led conservation, ecosystem services, carbon sequestration and species at risk.
He is the author of Spirits of the Rockies: Reasserting an Indigenous Presence in Banff National Park (U of Toronto Press, 2014) and the co-editor of A Land Not Forgotten: Indigenous Food Security and Land-Based Practices in Northern Ontario (U of Manitoba Press, 2017). His research program is funded by SSHRC, CIHR, the Canadian Mountain Network and BC Parks.
He is a SSHRC Leaders representative and was recently inducted as a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada (2025).
In his spare time you will find him fly fishing on local rivers, skiing and hiking with his young family in the Kamloops region and throughout BC.
Current Research Interests:
Histories of Tourism, Parks and Protected Areas Indigenous Methodologies and Land-Use Management
Rural Food Security and Sovereignty Indigenous and Ecotourism
Health and Sport History/Sociology Postcolonial and Poststructural Power Relations
Conservation Fishing Indigenous-led Conservation