Legacy of former Anishinabek Nation Chief Water Commissioner Josephine Mandamin honoured in Pickering

By Rick Garrick

PICKERING — The late Water Walker Josephine Mandamin’s family is honoured about the upcoming renaming of a Durham District School Board (DDSB) school in Pickering as the Biidassige Mandamin Public School. The currently named Sir John A. Macdonald Public School will be renamed at the start of the 2022-23 school year.

“It’s been an overwhelming honour and just really makes us proud and grateful that my late mother’s message and her legacy will still live on and inspire young children who walk through schools and be able to see themselves and also to be part of that learning that she’s brought to many people and her belief in the younger generations and preserving and protecting the fresh water,” says Regina Mandamin, Josephine’s daughter. “Pickering being near Lake Ontario, my mother walked along that Great Lake as well and really connected with a lot of people in that area, so it’s been a real overwhelming sense of pride and just seeing the love that still continues today for my mom.”

Regina recalls seeing her mother’s dedication, leadership skills, determination, and hard work during her Water Walks around the Great Lakes and along the St. Lawrence River and other waterways.

“It was also really inspiring for me to see how much she welcomed people and took time to meet people who wanted to speak with her and learn,” Regina says. “It was just really heartwarming to see how many people, strangers I’ve never met, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who were just very excited to meet her and the walkers and to learn how they can connect with water and inspiring people along the way to hold their own Water Walks in their communities.”

Josephine Mandamin’s leadership roles included holding the role of Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation, executive director at Ontario Native Women’s Association (ONWA), executive director at Beendigen Inc., and a Grandmother Council role in the Midewiwin Lodge.

“She provided a lot of guidance especially for the women in the Jingle Dress Society,” Regina says. “She was very integral part and a leader of the Three Fires Midewiwin Healing Society as well as a fourth degree Midewiwin.”

Josephine Mandamin, originally from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, and affectionately called Grandmother Water Walker or Grandmother Josephine, dedicated her life to protecting the water and giving it a voice. She made it her life’s mission to raise consciousness about the fragility of water and emphasize that water is precious, sacred, and one of the basic elements required for all life to exist — Water is life.

Cora McGuire-Cyrette, executive director at ONWA, says Josephine was a “very strong leader” within the Indigenous women’s movement.

“She really role-modeled what Indigenous women’s leadership looks like,” McGuire-Cyrette says. “Congratulations to the Durham District School Board for making that systemic change and especially the renaming of a school and recognizing a leader in our community.”

McGuire-Cyrette says Josephine never made excuses, she just did the work that needed to be done whether it was leading an organization or walking to bring awareness around water and all of the lakes.

“In honouring her memory and her legacy and bringing awareness to the global crisis of environmental damage and how we need collective movement today, and especially as Indigenous people, we need to take the work she was doing and we need to continue it and further bring awareness to the crisis that we’re facing,” McGuire-Cyrette says. “This has always been Indigenous people’s responsibilities, and particularly Indigenous women’s responsibilities, in looking at how we care for Mother Earth. We, as leaders today, need to honour her legacy and continue this work and look at what are we doing today.”

The DDSB Board of Trustees voted to rename the school in Pickering as the Biidassige (Josephine) Mandamin Public School on Jan. 17 based on a recommendation from the School Naming Committee, which was comprised of local trustees, staff, students, a member of the Indigenous Advisory circle and community members.