Photo: Naomi McIlwraith
Three Indigenous-led walks organized by Sierra Club Canada will connect people to the ecological richness of Edmonton's river valley through Indigenous stories, culture and worldview. Poet Naomi McIlwraith, who was born and raised in amiskwacîwâskahikan (the Cree word for "Beaver Hills House", also known as Edmonton) and helps oversee programming at Fort Edmonton’s Indigenous Peoples Experience, is one of the guides. "We don't just have human relatives,” she says. “We have non-human -- or, I like to say deeper than human -- relatives like the trees, the rocks, the river, water, the sun, the grass". She has logged many hours on the North Saskatchewan River, canoeing from Rocky Mountain House to Lake Winnipeg, then up the Winnipeg River to Thunder Bay, Ontario. Her great uncle was a guide who drowned on the Winnipeg River in 1914. "What's happening now is we're reclaiming and we're recovering those stories and many of those stories are in our relationships with our deeper than human relatives," she says.
|
|
More:
