An online magazine about indigenous culture in Canada may have just celebrated its second edition, but it has plans for print in its near future.

Muskrat Magazine launched its first issue last year, with the second released last month, said publisher Rebeka Tabobondung. "But now that we've got two publications under our belt, we're excited, because it opens up another funding envelope for us to begin publishing more often and to move into print as well," she said.



The publisher said the magazine is "exploring some funding avenues in terms of our third issue around this summer. We don't have a complete timeline yet, but we hope to produce a nice publication [focused around] the War of 1812."

The magazine was first launched because "there's a real gap in the media landscape around indigenous arts and culture, and critical commentary," she explained. "We wanted to create content that was accessible to both the aboriginal and non-aboriginal community."

The magazine aspires to share "knowledge that evolved from the land", she added.

While Tabobondung said she is eyeing newsstand and subscriptions as means of print distribution down the road, "At its core, I think our magazine is very much a multimedia digital project. What we see in terms of going to print is also filling a void of [related] literature ... so this knowledge can have a space within different content forums [such as] libraries and schools."

The magazine's core team is comprised of four people with support from freelance contributors, she said.

Last week CBC Toronto's Metro Morning radio show profiled a contributor to Muskrat's latest edition, which focuses on Native food, said Tabobondung. And while the magazine hasn't directly covered the dire housing situation in the First Nation community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario, which has been popular in the media of late, she said Metro Morning managed to link the Muskrat content to the crisis by discussing "food security".

However, Tabobondung said future issues will focus more on Native issues, including sustainable housing.