As our (official) MILBE program comes to a close, we ended with a 220km canoe paddle along the Saskatchewan River Delta from the E.B. Campbell Dam near Tobin Lake, SK, returning to the first community that hosted us over two years ago, Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN).
Our final course was one I was most looking forward to throughout the entirety of our program, as it was so meaningfully centred around Queering Land-Based Education. This course, taught by Dr. Alex Wilson (who is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation), provided the opportunity to consider Queerness as more than an identity but as something that can be observed and enacted by/through people, the Land/Water/Sky, inter-species relationality, and beyond.
To help prep for the journey ahead, and also ensure we had our vehicles at the final destination, we all gathered in OCN prior to the start of our canoe trip and travelled out together.
Once we arrived at our drop-off location we hauled the canoes down to the water, packed in our gear and quickly set off down river!
On the first evening of our paddle (after our 30km “warm-up”), we stayed at our Hosts home, Big Eddy Lodge. Our hosts, the Carriere Family, included partners Solomon and Renee Carriere, and their daughters Michela Carriere and Martina Manley (our paddling guides). This work would not be possible without the support from our professor Alex Wilson, additional guide Karla Ramsey, Michela’s husband Léo Claret, OCN members Omar Constant and Crystal Sinclair-Constant, and so many others.
Our second day we paddled ~40km and we stayed at a place Michela referred to as Mosquito Beach. While one can assume why this beach was given its name, the night we camped there the mosquitos weren’t so “bad” – something Michela stressed was unusual and concerning this time of year. Still there were enough mosquitos after sunset to quickly send us into our tents for an early night, something we didn’t mind as the muscle fatigue began to really set in.
Every morning was early, as this was the best time of day to travel on the water, and we still needed to make and clean up breakfast, break-down camp, and pack the canoes with our gear. Yet, we quickly fell into routine…
After several hours paddling, and loading/unloading the canoes and our gear for a vehicle assisted portage, we spent our third evening camped on the lawn at Leon Budd’s cabin. As the latrine digger for a relatively large group, it was always nice to be spoiled with a camp spot that had an out-house — yet work wasn’t done until all camp jobs were complete.
Each morning we would give an offering to the Delta, to give thanks and ask for safe passage. On our fourth day, we offered Yarrow to the water.
That evening, we stayed on a flat, sandy, open area along the river, and experienced our first rain of the trip (thankfully after dinner)! This was a good chance to catch up on journalling and reflect with those in our tents — we even had some of the solo tenting folks come visit.
On our second last day, about 15km into our paddle, one of our cohort members experienced a non-life-threatening medical emergency, and as a result they needed medical attention and thus our guides decided for all our sake that we should not continue paddling for the day. Land-Based Education (like most things) does not come without risk, and what’s most important is mitigating risk, being prepared when emergencies do occur, and making decisions that are safest for the entire group and considerate of others needs.
After an emotional day, we spent our last evening camping at Carleen Fosseneuve and Michael G. Constant’s cabin. While we all craved sleep, we still made time to decompress as a group and complete our class assignment, which were article performances our canoe groups self-assigned.
While we probably would have saved our performances for a different night (like we did the prior night when it rained), it was our last evening and thus opportunity to share what we had been working on in our different groups, before returning to our respective communities. This was a fun assignment we also did our first term, where small groups take an assigned academic article and plan an impromptu performance highlighting its message, theme, and/or thesis. After an emotional day, I think we all benefitted from lots of laughter.
Our last day together was another emotional one, this time from start to finish. We started our morning paddling into one of the nearby tributaries, and spending some intentional time sitting and observing the effects of one of the countless human structures used to manipulate the Water/Land, throughout the Saskatchewan River Delta. Our hosts and community members, throughout the duration of the trip, stressed the harm that Western conversationalist organizations like Ducks Unlimited, government agencies, and private industries have had on the health of the Delta. The effects of manipulating the Delta through human infrastructures were clear, whether it was through the numerous dried-up tributaries, loss of muskrat (and other water/shoreline relatives), or the unseen levels of mud along the shorelines by our local guides.
After taking some time to sit, reflect, and even recite poetry to the Delta, we made our way to a place called Moose Park, which was a short paddle from our final destination. Here we were reunited with our injured classmate, had our final closing ceremony, and were each gifted with our own paddle that a classmate had hand-carved throughout the course of our program and gifted us. It’s safe to say there were no dry eyes!
In the early afternoon, with the sounds of paddles slicing through water, drumming, singing, our families and community members cheering us on, we completed our 240km canoe paddle arriving in OCN. In addition, was the new MILBE cohort waiting to greet us with a feast! It was such a beautiful full circle moment, as we also did this for the prior graduates our first term.
I would like to thank our incredible professor, mentor, and calm fearless leader Dr. Alex Wilson for guiding us so gently throughout this journey, both during our canoe trip but also throughout the entirety of this program. There are no words to express the gratitude I feel to have had this opportunity. I hope to take forward the teachings and experiences from this program, to help better support my own communities and give back to others — like the many communities that so graciously supported our own learning journeys.
I don’t know if I’ll ever not be at least a little emotional about this program coming to a close for our ’23-’25 MILBE cohort. Still, there will be many opportunities for reunions and gatherings, meeting each other’s families (we’ve all heard so much about), and travelling to each other’s communities. I love you forever MILBE fam!
