Water advocate Autumn Peltier delivers keynote speech at youth gathering
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY—The late Water Walker Josephine Mandamin’s great niece, Autumn Peltier, recently stressed the importance of leadership and water at the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Oshkaatisak Youth Council gathering in Thunder Bay.
“Water is a concern to me because my auntie Josephine has been teaching me about the water since I was a little girl,” says Peltier, a 14-year-old Wiikwemkoong youth who has addressed her concerns about protecting water at the United Nations and to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “My auntie Josephine has been doing water work, but…I’ve decided to take on her role and the job for her.”
Mandamin has walked around all five Great Lakes and the entire length of the St. Lawrence River since beginning with a walk around Lake Superior in 2003.
Peltier began speaking in public about the importance of water when she was eight-years-old after attending a water ceremony in Serpent River First Nation.
“I noticed there were signs on the walls that said: ‘Don’t drink this water, not for consumption, it’s toxic’,” Peltier says. “I asked my mom, ‘what does that mean?’ and she told me they were on a boil water advisory — they can’t drink their water. So after hearing that it became one of my biggest concerns, so I started public speaking about it.”
Peltier says the highlights of her water work include her United Nations speech during the launch of the International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development in 2018 and her meetings with Trudeau and the Assembly of First Nations in 2016.
“I think it is important that everyone does this because we don’t have much longer,” Peltier says. “I’ve noticed a lot of things are getting worse, like animals are going extinct and endangered.”
Stephanie Peltier, Autumn’s mother, was proud to see her daughter speaking about leadership and water during the youth gathering, which was held Feb. 15-17 at the Best Western Plus NorWester Hotel and Conference Centre.
“I was really proud of her because she does speak about the water issues, that the NAN territory does have,” Stephanie says. “She advocates for this territory, because after she found out about Serpent River, she was really shocked that it was most of northern Ontario communities that couldn’t drink their water. So that is what kind of sparked her inspiration to do the water work.”
Autumn was first invited to speak about water in Sweden in 2015, when she was 10-years-old.
“After I got back from Sweden, I was invited to share a message about climate change and our sacred water at the Assembly of First Nations Chiefs Assembly,” Autumn says. “There were 500 chiefs there and it was my second time public speaking.”
Autumn also noted a protest she held in 2016 in support of the Standing Rock pipeline protest in the United States.
“I shut down a major section of the Trans-Canada Highway to create awareness to stand with Standing Rock,” Autumn says. “I was standing in the middle of the road and I almost got arrested.”
The youth gathering also featured keynote presentations by Earl Lambert, Erickson Owen, Stan Wesley, Adrian Sutherland and Mary Spencer.
“We were talking about leadership and I wanted to talk about not being afraid to do something first to make it easier for people that come after you,” says Spencer, a Neyaashiinigmiing citizen who was the first woman to represent Canada in boxing at the Olympic Games. “For example, being able to control things that are in your control is something that was really meaningful for me in my life and in my career.”