This post is a way to document many months of collaborative work for an in-person gathering on the banks of the Grand River near Paris Ontario. Through the leadership of Waasekom Niin and ongoing support by a small team (Laura Hamilton, Gus Ganley, Lindsay Swan, Elle Thoni, Michelle Woodhouse, Laura Gilbert, Todd Hoskins, Jessica Keeshig Martin, Danielle Boissoneau, Paul Baines and others) we spent months meeting online to design a weekend that was spirit centred, Indigenous led, and ally supported.
Being Salmon, Being Human : from enlightenment to enlivenment
Converting wild salmon into a commodity is a global fairytale that strips us of ancient and ancestral relations with the gift-giving earth. Weaving storytelling and music, this Norwegian-based performance activates our senses and asks for a critical restoration and re-storying of what it means to be a human living within a larger body. Great Lakes Commons was able to help bring this tour to the region through our trusted community of water protectors who model and crave a more animated and reciprocol relationship with the living waters.
Unpacking Whiteness, Settler Colonialism, and Working Towards Acting in Better Allyship
Great Lakes Commons (GLC) is hosting a Living Great Lakes gathering at the Five Oaks Retreat Centre near Paris, Ontario, this October (11-13).
For white accomplices planning to or thinking about attending the gathering, GLC is organizing a two-hour online meet-up in September to unpack whiteness, settler colonialism, and the commons so as to teach each other how best to show up for this vital work on behalf of our human and nonhuman family.
Relationship Status: Water Friendship workshop
On July 18th, GLC Education & Outreach Coordinator Paul Baines gave a workshop in Cambridge Ontario about our relationship with water. Based on the 2017 Water Friendship pilot project, this event was part of the Common Waters project. Common Waters is a community project that examines our relationship with water and provides a platform for us to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time. It started with three reflections about how we think: We can not solve a problem with same kind of thinking that created it / We count and name what matters to us / If all you have is a hammer, then nails are what you go looking for.
Honouring the Lands & Waters
You may have noticed more and more events and organizations are creating and announcing 'land acknowledgements' to name the Indigenous / traditional territories their work is performed on. While the content and expectation of these statements is evolving, how can our water-based project initiate honouring the lands and waters?
Foxconn's water diversion and discharge is important, because...
Stories and Sovereignty: Winter Tales of Water and Love
The Indigenous Environmental Justice Project (York) and Great Lakes Waterworks/Water Allies (New College/University of Toronto) are pleased to announce a joint winter event series. In these events, we draw on stories as a way of thinking forward on questions of water and water governance, love and sovereignty. In Anishinaabek teachings, winter has traditionally been, and remains, a time for story-telling, reflection, restoration, and envisioning, towards the moment when the sap (sugar water) flows, and the ice breaks in the spring.
Currency Commons: reimagining money to value water protection
There is no money to be made protecting water as the source of life. Financing Great Lakes care today comes through either altruistic charity or legislated compensation. Water restoration costs are a fractional expense for a pollution-based economic system. Advocating for a friendlier version of the current system denies its core impulses and interests. Let’s be honest -- degrading the living earth makes obscene amounts of money and defines our current story about “progress”. How can our collective and radical imaginations connect our desire for connecting money’s value with our values?
Journey for the Waters
Motion. As water flows through our lives, how does it move us? What e-motions are stirring when we witness the state of the Great Lakes?In 2016, from Mother’s Day to Thanksgiving, Great Lakes Commons rallied people across the waters to journey in unity. Walk, bike, paddle, sail, or surf to connect with the lakes and others who are becoming great ancestors -- guardians of the Great Lakes. In 2019, can you journey part of the Great Lakes this year and add motion to this ongoing movement?
Recognizing the Rights of the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes Commons Initiative emerged from a recognition that, despite decades of activism and effort on the part of Indigenous peoples and dedicated local activists, the health of the Lakes has not notably improved and the waters continue to suffer. It has become clear that a transformation of our relationship to these waters and of the region’s governance of water is key for enabling the sustainable protection of the Lakes.
Emergence #4: conditions to let things happen
We invited Edward George to this talk since he has also been reading Emergent Strategy and feels it has great potential for water protection. He was lifted up hearing people talk from all sides of the Great Lakes showing their care. As a young Anishinaabe man, he started his journey with the sacred water walks and paddling the Great Lakes. He has a close relationship with the Great Lakes and with many people across the region. He’s learned from the land, elders, and those doing the work.
Emergence #3: nine practices into a new future
After hosting 2 conversations this summer with our GLC community, this post explores 9 principles of Adrienne Maree Brown’s book “Emergent Strategies” as it applies to protecting the Great Lakes. Martin Urbach recently did the same, but from his position as a music teacher. So this post was inspired by Martin’s approach and uses the same 9 ES principles gathered from the book. Let’s inquire what these could mean for a Great Lakes Commons.
Emergence #2: grief, love, and the possibilities of belonging
On August 28th, we host our second conversation on how to adapt Adrienne Maree Brown’s book “Emergent Strategy” to building a Great Lakes Commons. A handful of us meet from different edges of the basin to share our thoughts. Over the next few months we’ll continue holding space for these ‘emergence’ conversations, since GLC is currently reviewing its role and focus in Great Lakes protection –- two related blog posts are the ones on mapping our movement and unsettling the commons.
Emergence: giving attention and intention to transformative change
This Great Lakes Commons initiative emerged from a confluence of political, emotional, social, and ethical forces that are constantly changing. But how is GLC changing? At the end of July, we invited some of our longest and more curious supporters to talk about what 'emergence' means to them and how GLC can change. The event was inspired by the book Emergent Strategy: shaping change, changing worlds, by Adrienne Maree Brown, since she has laid out many key principles and practices for looking at social movements through the lens of "emergence".
Online Forum: strengthening a Great Lakes Commons
Nestlé's bottled water takings, the privatization of water infrastructure and access to clean affordable water impact Great Lakes communities and Indigenous rights. Residents, Indigenous representatives, and water groups came together in Flint, Michigan last September to oppose the commodification and privatization of water and unsettle water sovereignty.
Mapping the Movement: ways to organize our organizing
What if we could name and categorize our water protection work here in the Great Lakes as well as we can name and categorize the issues? Yes, naming the work of water protection.Let's look at a few frameworks that can hopefully bring clarity, alignment, and energy to our Great Lakes Commons movement.
Unsettling the Commons: the tragedy of Indigenous erasure
From the start, Great Lakes Commons has been seeding a transformative approach to current water governance. Using the histories and frameworks from both 'commons' and 'Indigenous' sources, we continue to map how these principles and practices enrich our connection and protection with these waters. But there's always also been a critical tension between these sources. Craig Fortier's new book Unsettling the Commons: social movements within, against, and beyond settler colonialism helps us name and integrate this tension.
Collaborative Governance: who rules the waters?
In this age of endless easy petitions and staged town halls, surely we've reached the tipping point for public consultation and policy input. Rule makers want our opinion about stopping bottled water, burying nuclear waste, tar sands pipelines, micro-plastics, water shut offs, boil water advisories, nutrient overload, and the list goes on. But rather than being consulted by the rule makers, what if we organized better ways to set the rules ourselves?
Indigenous Led Water Protection: two examples to bring to the Great Lakes?
Water justice is not just about changing the distribution of water access and benefits, but access to the water governing rules too. The human right to water is a challenge globally and even here in the Great Lakes too. In recent years, the struggle for clean and affordable water has risen in Flint, Detroit, and in over 100 First Nations across Canada. This post presents 2 examples of how Indigenous nations are taking back some control over how the waters are governed.
The Gift of Water
“There is a fish in me,” claimed the poet Carl Sandburg. John Muir said: “Rivers flow not past, but through us." Overly poetic? How about this: “We exist to advance the sources of creation and creativity. Refresh your mind and restore your body. Life. Water. Inspiration.” This message adorns a water bottle – “LIFE WTR” – bottled by PepsiCo and sold for $2 per liter. What runs through us if not “life water”? Our brains and hearts are 75% water. Water isn’t a luxury item. We can survive for only 3-5 days without water. Don’t try this at home.