Snye River, ON

My Watermark is Snye River, Ontario.

I grew different from most people in my generation. We didn’t have hydro or running water. We lived about a kilometer away from the Snye River, which is one of the rivers that surrounds the delta of islands that I come from, at the heart of Lake St. Clair. There was a lot of living off the land- hunting, fishing. This also meant that we went to the river all the time. Obviously, because we had no indoor plumbing, so we bathed and did everything in the river.

The river was an integral part of my life.

Growing up very close to the environment, in particular the water, has led me into the field of work that I am in today. As I grew older, I learned that the place that I come from is very important to the Anishinaabe people. It dates back to thousands of thousands of years; it was the third stopping place in the historic Anishinaabe migration.