We've been thinking a lot about solutions as we've worked with communities. The thing that our community partners talk about all the time is culture, the harm to culture because of residential schools and other colonial histories, but very much because of the hydro dams, and that's ongoing damage. They talk about the fact that restoring the culture is essential to heal the communities and reverse some of the negative effects of colonialism.
In doing so, we can restore women to the position that they held in Cree societies before colonization, which was a position of honour, authority and equality. Women were seen to have a special connection to water, partly associated with the water in the womb in which babies are carried and the water that breaks when babies are born. Women also traditionally were responsible for being midwives, of course, bringing children into the world, and also, at the time of death, caring for the deceased. All of that involved water, so there's this very holistic body of understanding that associates women and water, and women having a special responsibility to water.
You'll see that with women holding water walks in these times, trying to protect and heal the water.