How we as Anishinabek youth are working to reconnect with the land
T
hrough colonization, loss of traditional territory, Residential Schools and the loss of language, First Peoples in Canada have felt a disconnect over the years with Mother Earth. At a January 2015 youth session at the Union of Ontario Indians head office, it was clear that youth throughout the Anishinabek Nation territory are reclaiming the knowledge and traditional ways. Water walks, canoe journeys, letting their voices be heard at rallies, participating in community environmental sessions and learning about the land are all ways that a reconnection to the land is happening. When Anishinaabe people connect back to the land, we are also connecting back to our language, our culture and ourselves. As University of Toronto student and researcher Sylvia Plain says: “Going out and not knowing is okay – it’s an opportunity for us to go out and ask questions of our Elders.” She warns us, however, that when we have that knowledge, we then have a great responsibility to that knowledge. These are a few stories gathered to share the knowledge. They are meant to teach and empower other Anishinabek Youth to do the same. Chi-Miigwetch to the following people for making this booklet possible: Rick Garrick, Sharon Weatherall, Priscilla Goulais, Leah Stock, Judy Currie, Sylvia Plain, Peter Beaucage, Alicia McLeod, Rhonda Couchie, Cameron Petahtegoose and Marci Becking.
1
Our mentors “Your roots are in the land. When I’m not at home, I get homesick for the sound of the lake. The connection we have to the lake – it is connected to our very being. I used to travel around, but always happy to be home where my spirit was at peace again. You will always go back home.” – Elder Peter Beaucage, Nipissing First Nation “Before the creator made the physical land – he created the star realm so we have to think about that first. The air, water, land, fire are all my relations – as well as the hoofed clan. How can I take responsibility in this physical world and relate to other relatives?” – Water protector and researcher Sylvia Plain, Aamjiwnaang First Nation
2
Land is where the knowledge comes from A group of Fort William First Nation youth recently helped reclaim the sugar bush environment on Mt. McKay, a wellknown landmark in the Robinson Superior community. “It was a wonderful experience — the first time the bush had been tapped in over 25 years,” says Jacob McKay, a 27-yearold University of Toronto Aboriginal studies graduate and Youth, Culture and Recreation Program assistant at Fort William. “Being out on the land was something new for me, because I was just coming home. I moved back here in January.” The youth group, including Ryan Saarinen, Beau Boucher, Olivia Pelletier, Daanis
Pelletier, Dalton Demerah and Brett MacLaurin, worked with McKay, project organizer Damien Lee, Helen Pelletier and Cher Chapman to clean up the sugar bush environment and tap about 15 of the thousands of sugar maple trees on Mt. McKay this past spring. “We had environment experts from Lakehead University come and they explained the uniqueness of our sugar bush,” McKay says. “It’s the most northern location for a sugar bush that they’ve known and that they’ve located so far.” Although the experts discovered the Mt. McKay sugar maples were smaller in diameter than sugar maples of a similar age further to the south, McKay says the experts found the sugar bush to be healthy. “They mature earlier and that is in part due to the environment and also to the location that they are at, being on top of the mountain,” McKay says. “It’s really healthy and the tapping of the trees isn’t going to affect the health whatsoever.” The group used a boiling recipe that Lee had learned in southern Ontario. “It came out a little bit runny at first,”
3
McKay says. “The second boil we cooked until about 10 minutes after we were supposed to take it out and that was the thickest and that was the best, in my opinion. The third time we just found a (halfway point) and cooked it for about five minutes, and that produced the most syrup and it really thick as well.” McKay says the outdoor cooking over an open fire gave the syrup a distinctive flavour. “There was that smoky taste to it,” McKay says. “It was really good.” “Personally, it was amazing,” McKay says. “To me, land is pedagogy – land is where experience, observation and reality, inquiry and knowledge all come from. It was a raw experience being there and how you experience it is going to be different from how everyone else experiences it.”
The group shared the first bottles of maple syrup with Elders in the community. “We had just over 20 litres of syrup, so we made sure all the Elders in the community got a taste,” McKay says. “Right away there was such a positive feedback — with just a taste and a smell, they were being brought back to 25 to 35 to 50 years ago when they were in the bush themselves or their relatives or their parents or their grandparents were in the bush doing the same thing. That made it for me; that was a rewarding experience just to see the look on their faces — they were so happy.” McKay enjoyed working on the land to reclaim the sugar bush and produce the syrup. During their harvest, the group discovered a number of remnants of past maple syrup harvests, including an evaporator, tubing and the old foundation of a building.
4
The land encourages youth to become involved Lake and nature walks for youth from the community of about 325 on-reserve citizens over the summer months. “We’re trying to get more people out there to continue asserting our rights,” Desmoulin says. “We’re just trying to promote land use, getting people out there.”
Pic Mobert’s Hannah Desmoulin is looking to get youth from her Robinson Superior community more involved with activities on the land. “I’m planning right now to take some youth out on the land to set some rabbit snares,” says the environmental monitor who graduated from Sault College’s Natural Environment Technician – Conservation and Management program this past May. “Young kids have to get out on the land to learn at a young age. Being out there makes me feel good inside — it’s calming, it’s a powerful feeling.” Desmoulin held a fish derby on White
5
The 31-year-old single parent of two children enrolled in the two-year Natural Environment Technician – Conservation and Management program. “Being outdoors, being on the land, it feels really good being out there,” Desmoulin says. “With the lands and resources department, we annually have a fish derby and a fall moose hunt.” Desmoulin’s position at Hemlo involves a variety of activities, including water sampling and watershed tours. “We test all areas around the mine,” Desmoulin says. “We check the water levels and flows. If levels and flows are dropping, there is a possibility of a beaver dam, so we have to inspect and take action to remove the dam so flows are not affected. ”
Youth hopes to create partnerships in mining Dakota Recollet has a long-term goal to help First Nation communities create sustainable development partnerships with mining companies similar to her own community’s partnerships. “Wahnapitae does a lot of work and partnership agreements with the mining companies that surround them,” says the 23-year-old fourth-year Laurentian University geology student and mother of four young children. “They’ve done a lot of really good work in regards to the environment and keeping everything so it is sustainable for their community.” Recollet says her community has been working with mining companies for about 20 years and says her community is one of the few that have developed sustainable development partnerships with mining companies.
the past two summers. “I still have a lot of things I want to look at,” Recollet says. “There are a lot of opportunities in geology.”
“One day, I hope to bring that knowledge to other communities and help them,” Recollet says.
“The job I’ve been doing is a lot of outdoor work — the first summer I was there I did a lot of their environmental assessments (on) the drills they were doing,” Recollet says. “After [Glencore’s] exploration drills closed up, I would go in and make sure the drilling company cleaned up properly.”
But for now, Recollet plans to return to her summer position in Glencore’s Sudbury Operations exploration department where she has worked for
6
Sisters offer Toxic Tours in their community Two Aamjiwnaang sisters — former Green Teens — are hosting toxic tours of Canada’s Chemical Valley, which includes 63 petrochemical plants located adjacent to their home community.
of adults and 22 per cent of children have asthma and about 35 per cent of births between 1999-2003 were male compared to about 65 per cent female in the Upper Canada Treaties Area 2 community.
“We host these walks through Chemical Valley (for people) to experience the front line,” says Vanessa Gray, a 22-yearold grassroots organizer and Trent University indigenous environmental studies student. “Let’s show you what our reality is like, let’s lay our tobacco down for the water and for the land together and let’s pray in ceremony and let’s set up a sacred fire and let’s talk about solutions.”
“Living in Chemical Valley, you don’t realize the effects that it causes,” says Lindsay Gray, Vanessa’s 19-yearold sister who studies general arts at Seneca College. “We lose so many loved ones, family members and community members … from illness and we also have a lot of sad statistics, like two girls for every boy in our community.” Vanessa says many Chemical Valley companies, such as Suncor Energy, Shell Canada and Imperial Oil, are within walking distance from Aamjiwnaang’s
A number of studies have found that about 40 per cent of Aamjiwnaang’s residents use inhalers, 17 per cent
7
Pipelines protests against Enbridge Inc.’s 639-kilometre reversed Line 9 pipeline between Sarnia and Montreal. “We bring people from all around … on a tour of Chemical Valley,” Lindsay says. “One thing I really like to show people is how much pollution affects us — there’s noise pollution, there’s the breathing in of pollution.”
homes. “For us (community members), it is very normal to be that close to these multinational oil companies,” Vanessa says. “But for many people this is not their reality and it’s a big shock to see how obviously violent this is to our health and land.” Lindsay says the toxic tour participants often find it hard to breathe at some points during the tour, noting the community is exposed to a wide range of smells such as plastic, burning rubber and sulphur and she has been evacuated from her home on more than one occasion due to dangerous spills. “Some people call it the Sarnia nose, where we’re so immune to those smells,” Lindsay says. “We were told once that our noses have been a little bit desensitized because we are constantly smelling different things.” The toxic tours are organized as part of the Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against
8
Vanessa began raising awareness about Chemical Valley’s effects on her community after being inspired by a group of women working against the tar sands in northern Alberta. “I felt the effects from the Chemical Valley (as I was) growing up,” Vanessa says. “Myself, my brother and my sister all suffered from asthma and we were always aware that the water was unsafe. So that was very normal for us to be living in such a contaminated space and not knowing how wrong this was.” Vanessa plans to conduct a study in the future to investigate how toxic her community’s land and water is and if there is anything that can be done about the contamination. “Yes, our water is toxic, we are aware that it is dangerous for our health,” Vanessa says. “But we have so many unanswered questions: what is in this water, who is responsible for dumping in our water source.”
Teen working to protect the water in Beausoleil "Our mother is being poisoned, and in turn she is dying. I want to be a part of something big that can help raise awareness as well as do my best to help prevent any further harm that may come to the environment," said Shane Monague.
caand part of the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER) www. yourcier.org. The purpose of the Vancouver Foundation is to harness the gifts of energy, ideas, time, and money to make meaningful and lasting impacts in communities. At Vancouver Foundation a priority is to help build a more connected and engaged community while insuring that young people are represented in the process.
The environmentally conscious 18 yearold played the key role of an Atlantic watershed leader in the "Our Water - Our Future" project from September 2013 through April 2014. He was one of four students from the Beausoleil First Nation (BFN) and 12 nation-wide in the program funded through the Vancouver Foundation www.vancouverfoundation.
CIER's ultimate impact will be realized when First Nations in Canada are leaders of positive environmental change.
9
They will use the best of western and indigenous knowledge to create a world that is in balance and supports the wellbeing of all living things. CIER envisions “Sustainable First Nation Communities and a Healthy Environment” with a mission to assist First Nations with building the capacity to address the environmental issues they face. Our Water - Our Future is a project in which Indigenous Youth in Canada become water leaders in their communities. During the project the 12 youth came together to discuss their own ideas on ways to help make the future brighter for the environment and specifically the most sacred medicine “water”.
the Atlantic Water Shed within CIER's Our Water - Our Future Project. In September 2014 we met with our group leader, Tori Monague," said Monague. "My time spent representing not only the Atlantic Watershed but also my community, has taught me a great deal about what it takes to be a leader and also the time and dedication that such things require. It was because of having the incredible opportunity to be a part of something as revolutionary as this project was that I found what I want to be in this life - a voice for this beautiful planet we live on and to work with likeminded people for the betterment and protection of our mother Earth."
Monague initially received information on the Our Water - Our Future Project through Christian Island Youth Council Supervisor Vicki Monague and was keen to become involved.
Monague found that despite the vast differences the four communities of Atlantic, Pacific, Hudson and Arctic, knew of the issues and were more than willing to help the youth on their mission to preserve the most sacred medicine - water.
"Being on an island and surrounded by water, we knew this would be the perfect opportunity to be a part of something really big. Harmony Monague, Kallie Copegog, Logan Roote and I submitted our letter of interest to The Centre for Indigenous Environmental Affairs. Sometime later we were informed that the four of us had been chosen to represent
Christian Island was facing rising bacteria levels which led to the deaths of many of the surrounding local wildlife such as the birds and fish species. This in turn affected the local fishing and recreational use of the water fronts as there was a potential to become ill from the botulism bacteria, whether from prolonged exposure or consumption of contaminated food and water.
10
Students learn more about life from the land Pic River’s Lucas Michano-Courchene and a group of nine 14-19 year-olds learned more about life on the land in Pukaskwa National Park this past summer.
Michano-Courchene says. “He knew a lot of (information) when it came to trees and berries that are edible. He knew which mushrooms were edible and which were dangerous to eat.”
“We did a lot of canoeing, we set nets and did a lot of fishing (for) brook trout,” says the 19-year-old Anishinabek youth who has always loved going out on the land. “That was the first time I (ate brook trout) out there and it was really good.”
Michano even took the youth out for a blueberry picking trip. “I learned about all these other berries that are edible that I didn’t even know about,” Michano-Courchene says. “He also taught us which tree is which. Some people don’t know the difference between a lot of trees.”
Michano-Courchene says the youth also learned bush survival skills from Willie Michano during the 10-day outing in July.
Michano also gave the youth some premade emergency kits to carry around with them wherever they go.
“He was really good in the bush,”
“The kits had emergency blankets, waterproof matches, pre-made kindling and a bag of birchbark in case you had to make a fire,” Michano-Courchene says. “He said they’re good to keep in your vehicle if you ever break down in the winter.” The youth also built a sweat lodge during the outing.
11
“We put it up in a day and then we had the sweat the next morning,” Michano-
Courchene says, noting that some of the youth were nervous at first about going into the sweat lodge but ended up enjoying their experience. “It was great. I’ve been in lots but it was nice to see other kids doing it for the first time and enjoying it. It was a great experience all around.” Michano-Courchene says the youth usually started their days by 8:30 every morning with supper scheduled for 4:30. “We were taught different things throughout the day,” MichanoCourchene says. “We had something scheduled for the evening, whether it was going canoeing or going fishing or going blueberry picking or simply just playing volleyball on the beach. We sat around the campfire and talked to everyone and had fun.”
“It was actually a canoe portage route,” Michano-Courchene says. “We went down the creeks and it was really nice.” Michano-Courchene says the youth all learned to respect the environment during the outing. “What we’re doing to the world is not right and is not healthy,” MichanoCourchene says. “First Nations have lived off the land and respected it for a long period of time. We need to respect the environment. A lot of people don’t — look at littering, what is that?” He says First Nations need to send a message to others in the world to respect the environment.
Michano-Courchene says the forest is “really thick” in Pukaskwa National Park. “We were flown in to an inland lake,” Michano-Courchene says. “It is only accessible by a quad trail, and that is really grown in.”
Michano-Courchene says the lake was mid-sized with two creeks.
12
“First Nations people have to exercise their rights in order to get that message through,” Michano-Courchene says. “But I personally don’t think enough First Nations are exercising their native rights.”
Restoring tallgrasses part of Williams Treaty project Alderville’s Cheyenne Blaker has been fighting invasive species with fire to restore the tallgrass prairie environment at her Williams Treaty community’s Black Oak Savannah project. “In this area there are no natural tallgrasses — the natives in this area used to do prescribed burns to make a tallgrass (environment) because it was a better hunting habitat,” says the 23-year-old field technician assistant at Black Oak Savannah this past summer and second-year eco system management student at Fleming College.
150 acres over the past decade, with the tallgrass prairie accounting for about twothirds of the acreage.
“We’re just trying to keep that tradition/ culture alive. They would do the burn in the springtime to get all the dead grass and the sumac and other natural successive species that are trying to (establish themselves).
“We do prescribed burns when needed, which is usually every two-to-three years,” Blaker says, noting about two acres were burned last summer. “We usually rake up the dead grass from the year before and take a lighter to it. Of course, we have water packs on in case the fire gets a little out of control.”
The tallgrasses’ roots go two times as deep as they are tall, so the mass above the ground does die (during the fire), but the roots are still alive and they will come up later in the season. They need fire to survive.” Blaker says Black Oak Savannah habitat has grown in size from about six acres to about
13
“The younger generation tells me they like having a place to hike, to see the nature,” Blaker says. “We even have the nordic pole walking group that comes out weekly to use it and we have snowshoes now, so people can come in and rent snowshoes for the day.”
How can you get involved? GREAT LAKES CANOE JOURNEY www.facebook.com/pages/Great-Lakes-Canoe-Journey/1494570647440714 MOTHER EARTH WATER WALK www.motherearthwaterwalk.com EARTH RANGERS www.earthrangers.com AAMJIWNAANG SOLIDARITY AGAINST CHEMICAL VALLEY www.aamjiwnaangsolidarity.com CENTRE FOR INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES www.yourcier.org ABORIGINAL ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP CIRCLE www.aboriginal-environmental.com OJIBWE CULTURAL FOUNDATION www.ojibweculture.ca GREAT LAKES CULTURAL CAMPS www.culturalcamps.com Or talk to your First Nation or local Friendship Centre about starting your own group!
14
Union of Ontario Indians P.O. Box 711 North Bay, Ontario P1B 8J8 (705) 497-9127 • Toll Free: 1-877-702-5200