Walking Gichigami - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 148

Lake Huron. 2005.
Lake Ontario. 2006.
Lake Erie. 2007.
Lake Michigan, again. 2008.
St. Lawrence River. 2009.
Four Directions Water Walk. 2011.
Lake Monona. 2012.
Mississippi Water Walk. 2013.
Each spring, Josephine and the other Water Keepers - mostly grandmothers from
different clans around the Great Lakes - come together to start another journey.
They come together in spring because it is seen as a time for renewal, regrowth,
and rebirth for the natural habitat. It is a time to start afresh. They share a common
goal - to raise awareness of the issues facing their sacred waters and to inspire
action to remedy these travesties.
Their walks cross borders of all kinds - international, state, provincial, tribal -
to reach their goals. Although they may not frame their work as “transboundary
water governance”, the Walkers' actions help to create, symbolically, a reunified
territory. Similar to the work of the Canoe Journeys of the Yukon and the Coast
Salish, the Great Lakes Ojibwa are consistently faced with fragmented landscapes
and bifurcated policies related to colonial constructions of space, which directly
impact the health of their water. The Grandmothers are also contributing to a
growing discussion related to gender in water governance. For example, Harris
(2009) calls for greater engagement from gender theorists on issues related to water
resources and water governance. The Grandmother Water Walkers provide a sub-
stantial opportunity to make this link between the importance of gender in water
and water governance, and the practicality of the role of women, historically in
caring for and honoring water, which is particularly salient for Ojibwa communities
(see Figure 8.1).
The Ojibwa (or Anishinaabe) are the largest groups of Indigenous peoples north
of Mexico. Historically, the largest settling of Ojibwa communities are located
mainly around the outlet of Sault St. Marie. However, the traditional territory
ranges north into Ontario, Canada, into the U.S. states of Minnesota, Wisconsin,
and Michigan, and as far west as North Dakota (Turtle Mountain). The language
group, Anishinaabemowin, is still spoken today (although the number of speakers
is sharply declining). During the European settlement period, the Ojibwa Nation
set a precedent for their leaders to sign more detailed treaties. Notably, the Ojibwa
tribes retained their hunting, fishing, and gathering rights in the 1837, 1842, and
1854 Treaties with the United States government. The coordination of these rights
for eleven of the Ojibwa tribes in the U.S. is now managed through the Great
Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), while the coordination
of the 1836 Treaty fishing tribes is done through Chippewa Ottawa Resource
Authority (CORA). In 1850, the signing of the Robson Treaty led the British to
acquire all land north of Lake Huron from the Ottawa River to Lake Superior,
which includes the land north of Lake Superior (in what is now Canada).