Biinaagami — a term bestowed upon this initiative by Anishinaabek grandmothers Barbara Nolan and Donna Debassige of Mnidoo Mnising (“Island of the Great Spirit” or Manitoulin Island) — translates to “clean, pure waters” in Anishinaabemowin. It stands as a testament to our undertaking, not just in name but in spirit.

The big return of pink salmon we’re seeing this fall took far too long. A catalyst was removing open-pen fish farming in the Discovery Islands. To keep our salmon coming back means we need to keep our big trees standing.

Working in communications in the environmental sector, you used to have to really pull on the climate change thread to explain to the public that things were bad, getting worse and about to be catastrophic. But now, we need only a gentle tug at that thread to see that climate change is the devil holding together our new hellscape.

What is a settler? Official definition states it as, “a person who moves with a group of others to live in a new country or area.”

Now, dictionaries and definitions in the English language are creations of colonialism, or at least the colonial system so many of us still use and function under. This means understanding our representation as settlers needs to be acknowledged more, not just the stated definition, but much more than that.