Support My Familys Return To Our Cree Trapline

For the first time in 20 years of campaigning, I finally have a moment to focus on my own healing journey and take a break from fighting against multinational extractive companies, the governments they control and the banks that finance the whole operation.  I had big plans for a healing and writing sabbatical this spring and summer, but like everyone else across Mother Earth, all that changed with the global pandemic.  It was almost as if the Creator said “nope, all you're going to do is go to your grandparents trapline with your sons, cut wood, do ceremonies, learn Cree, hunt, fish, berry-pick and gather medicines.”  So that’s what I’m going to do and I need your support to make this healing journey happen.  

I’m used to asking for money to support international Indigenous delegations, direct actions in the Tar Sands, or art builds against pipelines, but this time I’m asking for your support personally.  All these years of fighting have taken a toll.  I need to prioritize healing, replenish my spirit, and deepen my connection with my sons - all out on our traditional trapline.


A part of this crowdfunding campaign will support the travel of my two son’s, Felix and Jaxson and I to head north to our families ancestral homelands.  We will travel in isolation to go on a hunting and fishing journey so that we may feed our family during this time of Covid. We will learn the bushways of our Cree heritage in our trapline. Our destination is located in between The Pas and Lyn Lake Manitba in the furthest eastern end of Treaty 6 territory. We plan to build a cabin and do things like drop a gill net so that we can catch lake trout, pickrel, white fish and jacks. My son’s and I plan to process these fish in the traditional way. We will get ducks and other animals like rabbits to eat and make lots of campfire bannock, wild berry jams and Labrador and Mint tea. We will canoe and visit the sacred sites nearby in the many lakes and rivers and streams in our homeland. 


Another part of this campaign will support the documentation of this journey by me, on camera, as well as the production of additional video and audio vignettes as part of my broader storytelling project, Life in the City of Dirty Water .  This massive creative undertaking has been another big part of my healing journey and the release of these final digital stories in 2021 will coincide with the publishing of my book “Life in the City of Dirty Water, A Memoir of Healing” by Penguin Books.  

My family and my prayers of protection, healing, happiness and gratitude to everyone across Mother Earth, we thank you for your support. 

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