Description
Edited by waaseyaa’sin Christine Sy, Ojibwe from Bawating Sault Ste. Marie and Lac Seul First Nation in Northwestern Ontario. Her mother is Mary Chisel-ban, and her father is Jim Hammond from Bell Island, Newfoundland. The mother of a young adult bear and human to a beloved cat with many sweet nicknames, she enjoys photography, following social media content creators, visiting with friends and getting to know family members. Living now in lək̓ʷəŋən territory, she is thrilled to be able throw herself into the winter Salish Sea during the occasional perimenopausal moment. Presently writing a monograph about Anishinaabeg “at the boiling place” – the sugar bush – she has also been published in various literary journals with her most recent poem, “persons on the side of the road,” being published in a special issue of the Great Lakes Review (2023). The fact is the pandemic snatched her literary verve and it’s taking its time returning.
With contributions by: Dr. Tasha Beeds, a Black-Indigenous scholar of nêhiyaw, Scottish-Metis and mixed Bajan ancestry from the Treaty 6 Territories of Saskatchewan. Shirina Evans is a nêhiyaw iskwêw (Cree womxn), mother, scholar and legal researcher. She is a member of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band and a JD/JID candidate at the University of Victoria, where her research focuses on Indigenous land governance, treaty interpretation and the legal infrastructures of settler colonialism. Mariam Georgis is Assyrian from now called Iraq. Joyce Green is a citizen of the Ktunaxa Nation and a member of Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡiʔit (Tobacco Plains Indian Band). She lives in ʔa·kiskaqⱡi?it – “where two trails meet on the prairie” (Cranbrook, BC), in ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa – the unceded and stolen territory of the Ktunaxa Nation. Her ancestry includes English, Ktunaxa and Cree-Scots Metis people and she honours them all. Salam Hamdan is a Palestinian living in ramallah in the West Bank. Loreisa Lepine is the first officially recognized and “ongoing” Indigenous Land Steward at the University of Victoria and is also the first lək̓ʷəŋən woman to teach as a sessional professor in the school of Environmental Studies and the Restoration of Natural Systems Program. Mary Jane Metatawabin is a Mushkego Elder from Fort Albany First Nation. She is a proud grandmother, mother, sister, auntie and daughter. Raised in her language, she translates and interprets the world through the primacy of her Mushkego regional view. Dr. Jo Anne Rey is a Dharug community member, caring for Dharug Ngurra/Country (most of the Sydney basin). Dorothy Taylor is Mississauga Ojibwe Anishinaabe and is recognized as a traditional knowledge holder and Elder. She resides in the Curve Lake community with her husband, Mark. Dorothy is a storyteller and hand drummer. Mavis Underwood is one of sixteen children of George and Geraldine Underwood of STAUTW, Tsawout community in WSANEC Nation. Pride grows with two daughters, Josephine and Geraldine Henry, and Grandma duties to Geraldine's daughter, Grace.
This textured collection of essays by Indigenous contributors from across Turtle Island and beyond illuminates stories, dialogues and curations invoked through the idea of home-lands, waters and relations. From Mushkego poetics and Ktunaxa exhortation to Palestinian, Dharug and nêhiyaw movement, these offerings wrap us in a diversity of womxns’ thoughts and voices.