Miskwaagamiiwi-ziibi (Red River) Water Walk reflects responsible, respectful and reciprocal relationship with water

As the sun rises over the Southwood Circle Dock on September 23, 2026, Anishinaabe Grandmother Lucy Ducharme, a citizen of Roseau River Anishinaabe Nation, will place an offering in the Red River and fill a copper pail with its red-coloured water. She will begin to walk north along the river, side-by-side with her son-in-law Jason Parenteau, a Lenape man born in Vancouver and a member of Moravian of the Thames Delaware Nation, who will be carrying an eagle staff.

The copper vessel and eagle staff are carried by one pair of core walkers then passed to the next pair of walkers. In this fashion, the water and the walkers flow continuously until we reach the Main Street Boat Launch, 30 kilometres away. As we walk, we are in Anishinaabe Ceremony from the beginning of the walk until the end. We carry tobacco to offer to any flowing streams or rivers we cross, and to honor any animals we may meet. When we walk, we offer prayers or songs for the water.

Water Walks are based in Anishinaabe Ceremonial Water Teachings. We walk to honour all Nibi (water) and to share our good words, prayers, songs and intentions with the water spirits so that there will be healthy rivers, lakes and oceans for our ancestors and the generations to come.

All are invited to join in this walk for as little or as long as they are able, offering their prayers, songs and hopes for the water’s healing as they walk.

The Miskwaagamiiwi-ziibi Water Walk is a culmination of Just Waters’ work with Anishinaabe, Cree, and Nakoda Knowledge Keeper Ramona Milliea. Throughout the past year and a half, Milliea has led us through a series of events that followed the arc of the 4Rs: Respect, Relationship, Responsibility and Reciprocity.

Starting in February 2025 at Water Justice is Menstruation Justice: A conversation with co-resistors, Ramona Milliea and Bill Milliea conducted a water and tobacco ceremony which included teachings on respect.

Dr. Kathy Bird joined Just Waters at the intersection of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers for a surprisingly warm September 2025 event titled Winnipeg, Wastewater and Environmental Racism.

Calling attention to water’s connectedness, Bird spoke from her experience growing up in Norway House Cree Nation. Bird pointed at the Red River streaming beside her and told us, “Whatever is flowing here would eventually flow by my front yard.” 

Bird called out the massive amounts of sewage dumped into Winnipeg’s rivers every year, saying, “We need to get back to those basic and sacred teachings that when a spill happens here or something happens with the water purification system and all the sludge goes into the rivers… it affects every form of life. Not only us but the tiniest bugs and the fish. It changes things.” 

This sacred relationship with the water was underscored at Aadizookaan: Winter Storytelling Gathering. With the Anishinaabe, and many other Indigenous cultures in Manitoba and Turtle Island, winter is time for stories, for telling and for listening. At Aadizookaan, Jason Bone, Elder Margaret Lavallee and Jason Parenteau all shared knowledge, including about water, and how people should live with it.

Just Waters’ year of learning about the 4Rs continued in March of 2026 with a gathering of Anishinaabe grandmothers, mothers and youth called Respecting That Which Gives Us Life. We were honoured to take part in a water ceremony with a water drum and learned about water songs and the responsibilities to the water that are held by Nookomis Hilda Atkinson and Nookomis Louise Pierre from Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation. Nookomis Hilda and Nookomis Louise showed great pride in their children and grandchildren, who are taking up these sacred responsibilities to the water.

Dr. Tasha Beeds spoke powerfully about her experiences participating in water walks across Canada and the United States and raising awareness about the condition of our water systems.

Graduate student Taylor Galvin and Kookum Nameo, a sturgeon puppet and part of Galvin’s sacred bundle, engaged us with stories and teachings. By engaging us in discussion about our responsibilities to protect the waters and the sturgeon, Galvin and Kookum Nameo ended the event with a sense of hope and action.

We engaged with the final “R,” reciprocity, in April 2026 at Rivers, Relatives and Reciprocity: How we care for the waters. We met again at the Forks, where Grandmother Judy Da Silva from Grassy Narrows First Nation, Grandmother Ivy Canard from Sagkeeng First Nation, and Grandmother Chickadee Richard, a member of Sandy Bay First Nation, conducted a water offering ceremony and shared teachings about this act of reciprocity.

According to Milliea, early spring is the time the waters break free from the winter sleep, and it is the time when Anishinaabe-Kwe place water offerings to bodies of water in their respective traditional territories. Offerings, she says, “reflect a core teaching of living in balance. Offerings are a way of acknowledging and honouring a respectful relationship with the spirit of all living things – people, land, water, and all of Creation. Offerings are given with humility and gratitude, acknowledging that nothing is taken without giving something in return.” 

Led by three young Anishinaabe-kwe who carried the offering bundles, over 100 people walked down to the Assiniboine River and placed the offerings into the fast-flowing waters as the group sang the Nibi song – “Water we love you, we thank you, we respect you.”

We returned to the Forks event space to hear Lake Winnipeg Indigenous Collective Director Daniel Gladu Kanu speak to the impacts of Winnipeg’s sewage outflows on Lake Winnipeg and the communities that live in relationship with the lake, and call for us to join in advocacy work for the lake.

Just Waters Research Associate-Matriarch, curator and artist Jaimie Isaac along with artists KC Adams and Val T. Vint offered insights into the 2018 creation of Niimaamaa, a 30-foot tall sculpture located at nearby Niizhoziibean. Isaac, an award-winning curator and interdisciplinary artist, and citizen of Sagkeeng First Nation, then led us a community poster build.

We will see these posters put to good use at the Miskwaagamiiwi-ziibi Water Walk. See our website for more information on the walk.

Funded by the University of Manitoba’s Ignite programme, Just Waters is an interdisciplinary project that explores the connections between water, justice and injustice. Led by historian Adele Perry, Just Waters enters the particular context of Treaty One and the deep knowledges and history of water in this place. 

These events are one of the ways we create and communicate knowledge about water. At the same time, they celebrate and explore the crucial ways that Indigenous people share knowledge with community and across generations. 

We are grateful to the Grandmothers, Knowledge Keepers, artists and youth who invite us to explore our relationship with water through ceremony, sacred teachings, creating and sharing knowledge, storytelling and art, and show us how to embody our respect for the water through specific responsibilities and acts of reciprocity.