It was 1973 and I was fresh out of High School. Somewhere in my archives, this morning, once receiving a message from a Lethbridge friend, I found, without too much looking, a copy of the University paper, the Meliorist. I laughed out loud as I read the profiles for our Mugwump Party. And guess what? We got in! I served my first year as part of the student council. This is where I met dear friend, artist and intellectual, Phil. I wanted to publish bits of this quickly and move on to the list of things to do for today.
How would I describe my importance to Mugwump, as I look back?
First Year Votes
Female Votes
No Fear of Speaking
Opinionated
Also, Easily Influenced
As I look at the profiles of these folk, I still feel very proud of these gentlemen. They DID influence me and my thinking about a lot of matters. It was through 73-77 that I formulated values and ideas that I still hold. The U of L was a perfect fit for me. I know that Phil continues to be a very strong artist (I own one of his wonderful pieces) and an involved activist. I wonder what the others have been up to.
The snow has been coming down steadily since last evening and this morning there was a thick blanket. It’s beautiful, but it is also a bit overwhelming as one anticipates the many months of darkness and cold.
The weekend, however, held many blessings. I spent the past months contacting people, media and organizations about the importance of recognizing that on September 28th each year, we are to remember and recognize over 100,000 children who were brought to Canada to serve as indentured servants across the nation. My great grandfather was one. This year marks 150 years since the arrival of the first of these children.
I really enjoy my friendships in this group, including Bruce, Hazel, Connie, Donna and Anna and really appreciate all of their hard work and their dedication. I am also grateful to my daughter, Erin, who attended but who also dragged chairs around, assisting where she could and Kelly, Hazel’s daughter, for her wonderful support in loading, displaying and just generally being helpful and included.
Five descendants shared their family narrative with the large group of people who came out on a dreary bad-weather day. Every generation was represented and questions were thoughtful and engaged the panel. There was lots of time for socializing and connecting with one another. A very special artifact for the group in Western Canada, of course, is the Memory Quilt that was lovingly constructed by Hazel.
As I drove home late in the afternoon, I felt grateful for the presentations and grateful for the people I worked with.
In the evening, I turned on my porch light, but unlike other nights, I took a moment to pause and think about the injustice that was perpetrated on so many innocents. I hope to, over time, help in educating the public about this part of Canada’s history.
The Beacons of Light, in recognition of 150 years included the lighting of the Calgary Tower and last night’s lighting of Reconciliation Bridge. Thanks to Bruce Skilling for his photograph of the bridge.
Photo Credit: Bruce Skilling
Photo Credit: Anna Webber
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Connie Falk
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Kathleen Moors
Photo Credit: Session Attendee
Photo Credit: Session Attendee
Photo Credit: Bruce Skilling
Photo Credit: Bruce Skilling
If you would like to be included in our contacts, have any questions at all or would like to suggest venues and activities, we’d love to hear from you. You may contact me through this blog or through the e mail connected to this blog. We also invite you to peruse our Facebook page, although our group is primarily made up of descendants living in the west. We are most agreeable to helping you with your research questions.
Finally, I will try to post Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s remarks.
I started walking daily at the river, once prompted by a friend. I remember this friend in the same ways that I remember the pond, where I had for six years, taken respite from the world, from work and from my worries. I circled the same still water and watched its changes, daily…apart from a very few days when the roads were too icy on the hill to make it there OR when I drove to Ontario to visit my mother…or to be with my loved ones when they celebrated her life.
I became a new person at the pond. I became a soldier for sustainability there. I became an observer of what human beings have become, in the order of dismissing their responsibilities to the earth. My sadness grew exponentially over those years as I communicated with management and staff in many big businesses that surrounded the area, scrolled through sustainability reports, became an activist with the City of Calgary, and talked about nothing more than what was happening in this single ecosystem. I picked litter…garbage…most days, filling and depositing bags and bags of human filth by the one bin that remained…”$13 dollars a bin to empty”, the city worker chimed in one day when I asked him, “What is going on with our city?” He explained that it is a vision for the city that people will learn to take their litter out with them…”much cheaper”. I sighed. That was when I began to lose it. I was crying during my walks, instead of taking in the bliss of the Mergansers, the Pintails, the Coots and Grebes.
Arriving home to upload my photographs, I would notice for the first time, plastic bags lying on the slopes as Black Capped Night Herons fed. I’d notice a 2L plastic bottle as a backdrop to the beautiful gesture of a Great Blue Heron. The evidence of our thoughtlessness was in my face daily.
2015 Pond Study With Litter
I left the pond about a year ago and came to the edge of the Bow River. I’m still questioned about why the redundant act of circling the same location. To that, I can only say that by returning again and again to the same place, one really comes to know it…much like being with one person every single day. I really come to know this place in all sorts of weather and in all sorts of moods. I notice. I observe change and transition and presence with a keen eye. New is easy to see. I never see the same thing. And, while there are still signs of human carelessness, I do not directly see the road development, hear the machines or feel wholly responsible to clean up other people’s mess.
I feel as though I am walking in the middle of a Clea Roberts poem when I am at the river…and that is a beautiful place to be.
Mr. and Mrs. 2018 Bow River
Please, if you can, read Clea Robert’s poem, The Forest, from Auguries. Perhaps then, my readers will understand why I come to this same place. Blessings for a remarkable day.
I sit here eating a hot bowl of hamburger soup for breakfast, nursing a cold that after days, seems to hang in. The soup is comforting and healing.
There are no photographs on this particular post, but a link, here, for everything you might want to find out. Calgary’s Walk With Our Sisters memorial installation has been two years in the works (maybe more) and has traveled Canada. It has just a few more visits and will be retired to Batoche. This stop in Calgary is an amazing opportunity for us to connect with the journey…to think about our sisters who are missing and murdered and to think of their families and friends. It is important for us to honour their lives and their life force because these sisters remain with us, as long as we remember.
As most of you know, at the onset of Canada’s 150, I decided that I wanted to embark on a journey of gathering knowledge and understanding about Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. I didn’t know how to begin. Sable Sweetgrass hosted an online book club and this peeked my interest, so I began to read along and reflect on the authors and books that we were reading. It was Sable who told me about the book club at Forest Lawn Public Library, hosted by Indigenous Pride with 12CSI and 12CSI Community Safety Initiative.
I attended my first monthly gathering at the library some time after that, intending to read a book a month, for a year, with a focus on Indigenous authors. After bonding with this group and having my mind and awareness open up, I decided that I wanted to continue with the group and to enter into my own personal journey with Truth and Reconciliation and the 94 calls to action. Michelle Robinson has been key in my life as an agent of change and her embrace is assisting me in becoming fearless in this journey. I can not judge what other Canadians do with the knowledge of Residential Schools or with the initial shock of colonial movement across our nation. I am responsible, first, to grow in knowledge and then to go forward to be a strong advocate on behalf of our brothers and sisters.
I was invited to volunteer with Walk With Our Sisters and this has also expanded my knowledge. As a result, I am inviting all of my readers to participate at some level during the weeks ahead.
Last week, a lovely group of women gathered to tie tobacco and I grew new friendships and new knowledge. I really love the fact that working with our hands created such a warm community feeling. My mother would have loved it.
Yesterday, I attended an orientation and was blessed by Autumn EagleSpeaker’s clear and welcoming approach. Autumn is a strong woman who is a source of inspiration for these coming days. It was evident how she has inspired so many others on this journey. I am grateful for our meeting. I was further blessed to meet Christi Belcourt, artist and visionary where this memorial is concerned. We were given an extended opportunity to preview the work that has been done to this point and to be given more information about the ceremony and protocol involved.
I loved being given the story of the shape of the Calgary installation, with consideration for the two rivers, the elbow, the native plants and medicines and the dress. The configuration of the vamps has been very specific to each city’s Indigenous peoples along the way, while the vamps themselves represent and include a wide variety of peoples, even expanding beyond international borders.
I am really looking forward to my shift later on today, the final installation shift prior to the Opening Ceremonies tomorrow afternoon, at 2. I hope my readers will attend. I hope that you will even extend this to volunteering a few hours, if it is possible.
Just ending this post with a lovely video of Christi describing the world of plants represented in a large painting in acrylic. Amazing stuff!
I have a huge appreciation for skilled craft and for unique approaches to materiality. I’ve always supported emerging/existing artists and artisans and when I first saw Adam Weaver’s spoons, I knew that I wanted to invest in a spoon each month for a year, so that I would have a beautiful collection to enjoy for a very long time.
While attending the University of Lethbridge, my friend, Brian, carved me a beautiful wooden spoon and I treasured it for as many years as I could, when at some point, the spoon split and it was no more. The idea of hand carved spoons has been nostalgic ever since. Sometimes I think that with mass-production, we have lost touch with some of these hand crafted items.
This morning, Adam Weaver (Heirloom Spoon) came to my place in order to deliver January and February and so that I might select, from a collection of other carved spoons, March and April.
We shared a coffee at the feast table and I had the chance to look at and hold the spoons as he set them out in front of me. They were all so unique and so lovely.
I’m very grateful for the new friendships, Adam and Pascia. Thank you for taking the huge diagonal across the city to meet with me and to visit about travel, tools, art and life. May you be richly blessed on your journey.
If interested, you can access Heirloom spoons via Etsy, as well as through various artisan events.
January: carved out of maple…a beautiful long-necked spoon with a leather toggle at one end and a beautiful scooped bowl on the other. The wood was gifted Adam from Brampton, Ontario…so, given my family history and my connections with Ontario, this one sings to me.
February: carved out of a piece of knotty birch wood, found right here at the edge of our beautiful Bow River. It was harvested from trees cut down by some city workers.
It turns out that I couldn’t resist May either…picking up a coffee scoop as a gift for my own birthday. The scoop is carved from Applewood, harvested right beside the studios at Artpoint Gallery. They’re demolishing everything around there to build the new C-train line. :0( I love the many concentric circles that draw the eye into the depth of the bowl of the spoon.
The smaller lighter spoon is made from a piece of Ash (Latin name: Fraxinus Excelsior!) found in a small village called Clare, in England. I like the feel of this spoon in my hand…it’s flat and seems to have some sort of interesting weight/balance thing going on. I just like it so much.
The big ladle…I chose for March…it felt the most womb-like to me and I was thinking about the birth of my son on March 17, 1990. Adam used the natural curve of the wood. This piece was from an arborist-friend of Adam’s again, harvested in Calgary. I’m wondering if this would be my favourite arborist who trims up May (Mayday) every year for me, before the spring.
When Adam puts his tools down and stops carving, he plants and tends gardens and fits in a lot of travel… as well, he enjoys his authentic relationship with wood and beautiful objects.
At a point, I got myself out of sync on the reading selections for the Aboriginal Pride with 12CSI reading list. It all began at the reading of Clearing the Plains. I haven’t reviewed this book yet because, honestly, I still have a chapter to go. (Intense) This one should be required reading for every post secondary student…but, more on that another time!
Regardless, I attended the book clubs for those few months, as I am always so grateful for the fact that such excellent conversations occur and I learn so much.
The Oil Man and the Sea: Navigating the Northern Gateway by Arno Kopecky did not seem, by its title, to be anything I would ever consider picking up to read and yet, upon the recommendation by a book club member, I did. While Arno Kopecky is not an Indigenous author, the book was suggested for its connection to numerous Indigenous activists, elders, fishermen and various people impacted by development and encroachment around the Northern Gateway. This author introduced me to many of the issues surrounding the history and planning for transportation of product in a highly pristine and essential part of Canada. One might argue that the narrative might be skewed, given that the writer is speaking from a non-indigenous voice, however, I feel that my personal journey addressing the Calls to Action involves a lot of discernment and listening..to many voices. I have been living in a sort of fog all of these years, where it comes to this discourse.
45. We call upon the Government of Canada, on behalf of
all Canadians, to jointly develop with Aboriginal peoples
a Royal Proclamation of Reconciliation to be issued by
the Crown. The proclamation would build on the Royal
Proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of Niagara of 1764,
and reaffirm the nation-to-nation relationship between
Aboriginal peoples and the Crown. The proclamation
would include, but not be limited to, the following
commitments:
i. Repudiate concepts used to justify European
sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples such
as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius.
ii. Adopt and implement the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as
the framework for reconciliation.
iii. Renew or establish Treaty relationships based on
principles of mutual recognition, mutual respect,
and shared responsibility for maintaining those
relationships into the future.
iv. Reconcile Aboriginal and Crown constitutional
and legal orders to ensure that Aboriginal peoples
are full partners in Confederation, including the
recognition and integration of Indigenous laws and
legal traditions in negotiation and implementation
processes involving Treaties, land claims, and other
constructive agreements.
47. We call upon federal, provincial, territorial, and
municipal governments to repudiate concepts used to
justify European sovereignty over Indigenous peoples
and lands, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra
nullius, and to reform those laws, government policies,
and litigation strategies that continue to rely on such
concepts.
This book is built for the adventurer and for the person who has a big appreciation for wild parts of Canada that, despite the challenges in favour of development, industry and encroachment, remains one of the few places that exemplify that particular MAGIC that comes with WILD.
My preamble…then, I’ll carry on about the book. This next paragraph is from my gut…a simple formulation of my own feelings. Yes. I drive a car. Yes. I purchase packaged items. Don’t throw tomatoes.
The Canadian government has demonstrated tremendous determination to create/grow an economy built on the back of energy. There is no way that Canadians see ‘everything that goes on’, given the vast and oft-isolated topographical regions of this country, our home. What we don’t see, can’t bother us. And yet, living in these far off places, our indigenous brothers and sisters are well-aware of the tapping out of resources, the destruction and the economic hardship resulting from the abandonment of industry as it becomes obsolete or sucked dry. There are witnesses.
I’m just going to let you sit with those images. I’ve been sitting with them, and all I have to say is that things are way out of control and so much about it has to do with economics and employment. ‘Corporate’ Canada wants YOU!
Enough of a side-lined rant!
The book is a good one…it moves very quickly. It isn’t a struggle and it is certainly not dark or apocalyptic. Arno Kopecky and photographer Ilja Herb, take the reader on a magical journey (I felt like I was there) aboard a small sailing boat…well, is forty-one feet, small? It seems small to me. Neither of them had prior experience sailing. So, one aspect of the book is the story of negotiating this boat through British Columbia’s central coast. So, firstly, this would be considered an adventure book as in this part of our country, the inland passages are linked together by a dramatic network of fjords, islands and lush forested land masses interspersed with inlets. I was enamoured by the descriptions of place throughout and feel as though I was introduced to the Great Bear Rainforest in a very honest way.
Second to this, I enjoyed the many personal narratives by the people and accounts about the people who, in several cases, gave these men safe harbour, assisted in repairs and often contributed to the content of the book through interviews. Several participants have committed their lives to the protection of this land and water, knowing full well that this is likely the last great wilderness on earth. The writer seemed naive at times, meeting such wise and dedicated individuals.
Third, I grew in my knowledge about the history and planning of Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway. My knowledge now exceeds what I’ve picked up over news stories these last many years. The book was generous in terms of presenting several different perspectives, as well. I learned that the weather through this region is unpredictable and that the waters to be negotiated are prone to storms and crazy conditions. It doesn’t take much for Canadians to realize the risk that such conditions pose to wildlife and environment.
The book was beautiful in its rich description of the land, the wildlife, the people and the waters. I highly recommend this read. As a result of this reading, I send out unlimited positive wishes regarding our human reliance on non-renewable energy sources and the almost obsessive willingness we have to challenge the delicate eco-systems of our nation, in order to continue down the same path, rather than pour that same energy into alternative solutions.
What comes of all of it is that we need to challenge our thinking. My readers are either extremely right on this issue OR extremely left…I think that the important thing is that we discern the various implications and decide what is most important to us. This book revealed to me the physical nature of the rugged coastline, the past issues surrounding the use of oil tankers in even more benign waters…and the high potential for an ecological disaster.
My peeps, as captured by Michelle Robinson. I love this lady…and I love her archive of photographs! We were visited that night by APTN National News.
The poetry of Clea Roberts has been a source of great inspiration since attending a Wordfest session, Into the Quiet, this year. Every poem is an elegant string of words, sparse but potent. I am left, after reading, with a sense of wonderment about this world of ours.
Because of the immediacy of social media, I have been able to access other people’s travel, adventure and world exploration over months and years…Nepal, Venice, Spain, Croatia, Haida Gwaii. I get the sense of how vast our life experiences can be…to eat seafood in Japan, observe the art of the masters in far off galleries, stand at the top of the Empire State building. I enjoy all of this very much. It all comes into my home, while I sit in my pajamas at the keyboard, with my cup of coffee on the desk, to my right.
However, nothing moves me more than these poems. Because somewhere in these images, lies the remembrance of camping with my parents, the smell of woodfires burning, the soft conversations as neighbours drift off to sleep. The childhood listening.
The poems of Clea Roberts take me to that beautiful intimate place of connection in a much smaller place, full of limitless possibilities.
In the meantime, for two weeks, I have been observing a single Horned Grebe on a pond, hoping to capture just one focused photograph. I have watched muskrats frantically building winter homes in the cattails on the north side of the fence while bulldozers plow and reshape former dwellings. I see miracles every evening as the sun begins to set.
One poem to share this morning…from Auguries by Clea Roberts
It was 1996 when I received the gift of Perfection of the Morning from a friend. Sharyn had grown to mean so much to me over the years, having taught my children and worked along side me for the strength of Fine Arts in Education. Her gift was a blessing and I began to list Sharon Butala as one of my favourite authors. I felt Butala’s work really move my life forward in positive and meaningful ways. Interesting that yesterday, when I looked over my shoulder from the front of the crowded room at the Fish Creek CPL, I should see Sharyn sitting in the back row.
The book on the program for readings and discussion was Sharon Butala’s Where I Live Now. I was flanked on either side by two dear friends, Pat on one side and Denise on the other. I had never met the author and was beyond excited, packing up all of my books for Sharon’s generous signing before the session began. Because Denise knows Sharon personally, it felt as though I was sitting down next to a friend when she sat in the front row, with my stack in front of her.
And that is how I felt yesterday…blessed…enriched…treated to a very special moment on a Sunday afternoon. Sharon’s eyes lit up as she enthusiastically described her experiences on the ranch, her memories, transitions and disappointments. In good humoured and delightful fashion, she talked about the prizes of writing and the surprises of writing. Vulnerable, she spoke of loneliness, identity, and hope. The topics in discussion were ones that often cross my mind as a 62 year old woman, single in the world.
I think that one of my favourite moments, related to the book, was the recollection of the special day when Sharon edged the top of a ridge, to look down and see her husband, Peter, sleeping in the grass in one of the fields…I felt as though she had let us in to a very private and pivotal moment in her experience. I felt very touched by that.
I enjoy the company of my friends and treasured conversations with Denise, Pat and Sharyn. What a lovely way to spend Sunday afternoon. Thanks again, CPL.
As I head out to the pond with Max…thought I would post a bit of a flash back. I found a wee video in my archive, that I had made in 2011, the first year I began picking litter at this location and got into the ritual of circling the pond. Beneath the video, some photographs taken during the past week.
The drainage of the pond began and the people I spoke with promised that lots of volume would be left for the healthy fledging of the young birds. The project was stopped for a day so that the biologist who worked for the contractor could assess my concerns regarding the nests and the fledge. Readers, look at the following photographs and tell me about volume.
“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
I was pretty excited as I drove out to Mount Royal University that day! I was going to be meeting up with my sister-in-law, Karen. She had driven into town to enjoy some of the Wordfest events and because of her extensive time in the north, she was more than familiar with the topics of this particular book. She had worked with our neighbours to the north. She had lived with our neighbours to the north. She held a wealth of knowledge within her, but stuff that we had never really made opportunity to speak about. I, on the other hand, was dumber than door nails about the challenges of the north. Like most Canadians, living in the south, we don’t know about what we don’t see. Out of sight-out of mind. It’s shameful, really. I feel shame.
Today, however, as part and parcel of my own journey of truth, I feel I have had a very generous introduction to the topic through the book, The Right to be Cold, and can now build upon knowledge that exists within me, however scant that knowledge might be. If the Globe and Mail can refer to this book as ‘revelatory’, so can I! And it was! To gain any insights about the wrongs of the past and sadly, the present, is to liberate ones self. It is only in educating myself about these mistakes that I can go forward to make change happen within me and in the outside world.
Mount Royal always stumps me, in terms of locating absolutely anything. It isn’t as simple as the posted maps convey. I wandered for quite some time before coming upon the theater where Sheila Watt-Cloutier would be speaking. The people who gathered seemed casual and friendly, calling out to one another. It turns out that some people were connected through the story and through the north. I felt like a blank slate…pretty excited. When Karen settled in next to me, she quietly told me about some of the people in the room. Embraces were shared.
I want my readers to read this book. There are chapters within these pages that overwhelm the reader with unfamiliar acronyms (NGO, POP, ICC, KSB, INC, CAIPAP, UNEP and so on…), but if possible, move beyond these to understand the huge complexities faced by our northern neighbours as they work tirelessly to advocate for safety and health for their families and future generations. Also, pay close attention to the work that has been happening in the past…the voices that have reached out desperately on behalf of human beings, voices that, like the author’s, spoke always from the heart and out of concern for the other.
I can not imagine what it would be like to be so impacted by colonization, industry, and ignorance that my identity, culture and even the health of the foods I ate were at risk. There is a dark history in our country. And while it seems too late to be educated and make a difference, we have no choice. For the Inuit people to lose their way of life is for us to lose what is distinct about our Nation. I grieve. I grieve because while I am typing these sentences, years have gone by since the writing of Watt-Cloutier’s book…and the exponential loss of the ice is going on at this very moment.
The Right to be Cold is written in the memoir genre, a form of writing that consistently appeals to me. I found the narratives about Sheila’s early years very powerful. As my readers know me fairly well, there were tears in many places. Yes, at times, I had to put the book down. The writer does not, however, write from a place of victim. In fact, I think it is important to her that we not place the story of the north in the context of a victimized people. Instead, she speaks from a place of strength and hard work and strong belief.
I was blessed, a short while ago, to attend an exhibit at the Glenbow Museum titled North of Ordinary: The Arctic Photographs of Geraldine and Douglas Moodie. Those photographs did for me what Sheila Watt-Cloutier did with words. We have sacrificed much by not caring for the north…the ice and snow…and the animals and people who needed to be heard. In fact, sometimes I think that we, as people of the south, cared more for the animals of the north than the people. And…isn’t that just crazy?
There was a bench where I could sit down. I felt the breath knocked out of me. I felt the truth, like a blow to my gut. I compared the images captured by the Moodies with the current news stories published about the north…suicides among the youth, housing crisis and melting ice. It wasn’t many years ago that I heard a teacher who had worked up at Cross Lake, Manitoba say something like…”I don’t get why, when there is fresh fish to be caught, that the people would go pay such huge prices and buy processed fish sticks from the store?” Read this book!
When I was a little girl sitting in a DND school, I learned about the ‘Eskimos’. I drew pictures of igloos and harpooning. But, I was given no context. Along the way, I was given nothing. I guess the most magical truth that I received was from my father who had a thirteen month long period away from home. We lived in Ste. Sylvestre, in Quebec, at the time. It was in the late 1950s. My father brought us stories and experiences. Apart from that, I knew nothing about the north.
Studio portraits, above, taken by the Moodies.
We have stolen a pristine and health-filled life from the people of the north. We have tried to take away all of their traditions, culture and ways of being.
Photos taken by my father’s old camera…
I’ve poured myself another coffee…never really got writing about Sheila’s talk that morning at Mount Royal. She was inspiring. She was light-hearted. She was serious. Sheila has impacted me and opened up my heart, with the writing of this book. As an author, she has connected me to the narrative that is our north country and to the fine citizens that have made the north their home over time and forever.
I was grateful to Wordfest for hosting Sheila and I was grateful to have my sister-friend, Karen, sitting next to me. Here is a little capture of Karen alongside her longtime friend, Sally Luttmer.
….okay, well, I just had a long Skype session with Karen and thank goodness because the writing of this post had become very difficult. I’ve settled…deciding to conclude this post with a quote and a short thought of my own.
On August 26, 2017 my grandson, Steven, came into this world. It is a powerful and natural thing that he breast feeds and that his Mommy, for now, is his whole world. It should be that this is the very safest place for my grandson to be, and it is. Imagine, then, the sad fact that in the north, this generous and natural relationship should be, in fact, dangerous to the infant population, in that country foods have, over generations, been tainted with POPs at a level far greater than we can know or understand. The peoples living in the north are struggling for their children and their children’s children. We must contribute to their hope and to their futures. We must be a strong force, where we can, in their right to be cold!
Book discussion happened with Aboriginal Pride with 12CSI Chapters and Chat. Photographs below credited to Michelle Robinson…woman who has opened my eyes to more than you know!
