Indigenous Women’s Leadership Series: A Celebration of Love and Healing
March 10, 2023
by Kristy Tomkinson and Victoria Hodson with contributions from Marilyn Baptiste
“I am taken back to the words that I’ve learned from Linda Boudreau-Semaganis: ‘When women gather, healing begins.’ And I think that is so true on every level. Our women are powerful. We are the keepers of our tradition, our knowledge. We are the ones that share our culture…all of our ancestors walk behind us.”
– Sharon Morin, Métis Nation Alberta
An image of ripples in the water reflecting the browns and oranges of a sunset.
International Women’s Day is a global day to recognize, celebrate, and uphold women’s and girl’s social, economic, and political achievements.
Indigenous women hold a unique responsibility to care for, protect, and steward the gifts of Mother Earth, ensuring that these gifts are healthy and abundant for the next generations. As Gillian Staveley/Mezdhi of Kaska Nation shared with us:
“We're good mothers. We're good land stewards. We want to protect the land. We want to protect the way of life of our communities. And it's because we've been raised to look at the land as if our children's material and spiritual lives depended on it…And that multi-generational view of land stewardship is what I'm constantly thinking about. You know that my great, great, great grandchildren need to be encountering a healthy place to live and call home, and therefore it's almost like divine human nature that we need to take care of our future families.”
However, this responsibility has been and continues to be tested and challenged by colonial and patriarchal systems of power, ownership, and control. Indigenous women in what is colonially known as ‘Canada’ continue to experience discrimination, neglect, and violence.
Despite this, many Indigenous women, past and present, have led and are leading the way in healing the wounds of colonialism. They are strengthening, reconnecting with, and revitalizing their ethical duties and responsibilities – and are doing so out of love.
Valérie Courtois, a member of the Innu community of Mashteutiatsh, reminded us that one key thing women bring to the world, and to the conservation movement more specifically, is love: “Love for our families, love for communities, love for land, love for language, love for who we are as people.”
About the Indigenous Women’s Leadership Series
Starting on International Women’s Day, 2022, we have had the honour to hold a space throughout the year to celebrate and learn from Indigenous women who carry, grow, and share love for the lands, waters, and communities they call home.
The Indigenous Women’s Leadership Series is a series of four dialogues that are part of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership’s Virtual Campfire Series, and designed and hosted in partnership with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative and the IISAAK OLAM Foundation.
The series of four dialogues set out to explore key thematic areas, including:
The individual dialogues were formed collaboratively with moderators and guest speakers who offered their insights and guidance on the format, flow, and direction of the discussions.
We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the following strong, daring, and brilliant women who joined us and lovingly shared their stories, knowledge, and visions for the future:
Moderators:
Valérie Courtois, Mashteutiatsh (Québec)
Gillian Staveley/Mezdhi, Kaska Nation (B.C.)
Marilyn Baptiste, Xeni Gwet’in First Nation (B.C.)
Guest Speakers:
The Trailblazers:
The Honourable Ethel Blondin-Andrew, P.C., O.C , Shútao’tine (Mountain Dene) from Tulit’a (NWT)
Bev Sellars, Xat’sull First Nation (B.C.)
Amberly Quakegesic, Brunswick House First Nation (Ontario)
Marilyn Baptiste, Xeni Gwet’in First Nation (B.C.)
Stephanie Thorassie, Sayisi Dene First Nation (Manitoba)
The Stewards:
Elder Linda Boudreau-Semaganis, Métis Nation of Alberta
Celeste Smith, Oneida First Nation (Ontario)
Sharon Morin, Métis Nation Alberta
Tara Marsden/Naxginkw, Gitanyow First Nation (B.C.)
The Grandmothers:
Elder Linda Boudreau-Semaganis, Métis Nation of Alberta
Elder Marilyn Capreol, Shawanaga First Nation (Ontario)
Sophia Rabliauskas, Poplar River First Nation (Manitoba)
Chief Marilyn Slett, Heiltsuk Nation (B.C.)
The Next Generations
Doreen William-Grinder, Xeni Gwet’in First Nation (B.C.)
chuutsqa/Layla Rorick, Hesquiaht First Nation (B.C.)
Jillian Smith, Beausoleil First Nation (Ontario)
Shauna Yeomans-Lindstrom, Taku River Tlingit First Nation (Yukon)
Briana Greer, Métis Nation of British Columbia
Key Learning
Regardless of age, we are all on a continuous learning journey. Throughout this dialogue series, we heard from several generations of Grandmothers, mothers, aunties, and daughters.
While we met in a virtual space, we imagined we were sitting around a campfire, or around the kitchen table with some tea, and had the opportunity to learn more about each other and our life journeys.
While each dialogue has a unique focus, several common threads are woven throughout. We explore a few of them below:
One common topic is that the sector or practice of ‘conservation’ does not exist in isolation from the rest of life. Stewardship has been practiced by Indigenous Peoples since time immemorial. For example, each of the Grandmothers point out that they do not consider themselves scientists or conservationists, but they have strong relationships with the lands and waters of their homelands.
As Chief Marilyn Slett of Heiltsuk Nation shares,
“When we talk about conservation or eco-based system management, these are new words and new terms used for something that we've always done…It's a part of our lifeblood, you know, and it gets passed down from generation to generation.”
Click on the play button below to hear Chief Marilyn’s story:
With this relationship comes a great responsibility to nurture it. Celeste Smith of Oneida Nation shares an epiphany she had while she was away studying to be a lawyer. Her great aunt, a seedkeeper, passed away, taking the knowledge she had with her.
“She had all these seeds. Where were the seeds going to go, and who was going to farm the land?... And so, if I'm not working for our people like, what am I talking about? I'm talking about saving our rights? I'm talking about saving our cultural rights? But if I’m not actually practicing those cultural rights, what am I going to save if they disappear? Here's my own family with my own seeds and my own agriculture practices, and I didn't get a chance to learn enough to even keep them going.”
Click on the play button below to hear Celeste’s story:
Stories of intergenerational trauma due to the past and ongoing harms of colonialism emerge from each of the dialogues, but so do stories of generational healing and transformational change. Her Honourable Ethel Blondin-Andrew, a Shútao'tine and residential school survivor, reflects on the “magic” of seeing youth reconnect with and learn about their cultural identities and ways of life on the land.
In addition, Stephanie Thorassie of Sayisi Dene First Nation speaks of being within the first generation to emerge from the immediate devastation of colonialism and feels a responsibility to share her community’s story of survival and their collective vision for the future. Click on the play button below to hear Stephanie’s story:
Generational healing is a theme that threads throughout the Next Generations dialogue. For example, Shauna Yeomans-Lindstrom of Taku River Tlingit First Nation encourages youth to connect and reconnect with each other, their communities, their gifts, and their teachings for healing and survival:
“And so, how do we shift into being gentle warriors again? We come from such loving people and welcoming people, and I see that coming back full circle. That's going to be our strength, not only for welcoming our own people home. But we have this gift and this message and teachings that's really going to affect and be crucial for the survival of all humans and our planet.”
What Shauna’s reflection below:
Finally, strength and humility shine through each of the dialogues: the strength to stand up and protect Mother Earth; and the humility of knowing we cannot do this alone and we are stronger together.
We learn from many of the dialogues that strength can be gathered from our ancestors, from the gifts of Mother Earth, from our communities, from reconnecting with the lands and waters, and from reconnecting with traditional practices and languages.
Many of the guest speakers share the names and stories of other women and men, who have inspired them and lifted them up along their leadership journey. For example, Bev Sellars shares the powerful story of Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores, an Indigenous leader of the Lenca tribe in Honduras, who was murdered in her own home.
Click on the play button below to hear Bev share Berta’s story:
A Final Reflection
In writing this blog, it is very difficult to parse out the highlights and key moments from each of the dialogues for two reasons:
Every moment, story, and insight is a gift.
It would be a disservice to separate and examine them in isolation.
We encourage you to view and/or listen to the dialogues in their entirety to capture the abundance and beauty of the gifts that these inspiring women share.
Each of the dialogues are divided into chapters to help you navigate to specific stories and topics of conversation.
We hope you take them all in, reflect, and share them widely with the ones you love.