Canadian First Nations artist Norval Morriseau, the inspiration for the vivid and animated Eastern Woodland School of Art, often talked about his dream-state travels to what he called the House of Invention, the spiritual and visionary source for his paintings.
His later work (he died in 2007) such as the beautiful and peaceful Nature’s Balance/Unity (1997) conveys an abundant feeling of peace, a great sense of harmony and the existence of a life force flowing through all things. These later paintings, writes Donald Robinson, “portray a quiet and peaceful kinship among all the creatures of the earth.”
Morrisseau comments he came into existence “to beautify the world, the environment” based on his belief “we are all children of the earth, and all one in spirit.”
Known for his brilliant striking colours, Morrisseau frequently encircles the images in his work with interconnecting power lines. Akin to electric currents they communicate bonds of spiritual energy; the power lines articulate Morrisseau’s deep concern for the environment as they visually connect birds, animals, plants and people together in intermingling and transforming relationships.
The title of one of his paintings, Spiritual Dialogue with Animals, Birds & Plants, That We Are All Keepers of Our Environment captures the central theme woven through all his art.
Respect for indigenous values and the environment was given a promising lift in March 1974 when the Canadian Parliament established the Berger Inquiry to extensively review plans to build an oil and gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories.
Justice Thomas Berger was given wide latitude to investigate the social, environmental and economic impacts of building the pipeline. As well as the two principal pipeline consortiums – Canadian Arctic Gas, and Foothills Pipe Lines – a number of indigenous groups became full participants in Berger’s Inquiry: The Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, Metis Association of the Northwest Territories, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, Committee for Original Peoples Entitlement, and the Yukon Native Brotherhood.
When the first volume of Berger’s report was released in June 1977 it was cause for celebration among indigenous groups in Canada and elsewhere.
The chief recommendation was no pipeline should be built through the northern Yukon, that a pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley be delayed for at least 10 years and that no energy corridor ever be built in the brittle natural environment of the Mackenzie Delta region.
Overall, indigenous groups throughout the inquiry voiced vociferous opposition to a pipeline being built, presenting their case over and over that such construction would be devastating to the environment and their social and economic existence.
Unfortunately, since the promise held out by the Berger inquiry for indigenous environmental concerns to be henceforth respected and valued other priorities have put paid to the spirit of optimism engendered by Berger’s 1977 report. The following three current examples show that once again development imperatives triumph over indigenous ways of life and the environment.
In Simcoe County in Ontario a major controversy, accompanied with forms of resistance, surrounded the proposal to build a waste and garbage dump at what is known as Site 41 near Elmvale. Dump and waste site 41 lies on top of the Alliston aquifer containing some of the world’s purist groundwater.
Although the dumpsite is on indigenous land not one of the five First Nations communities affected was consulted on the proposed project when it was first put forward in 1990. By the summer of 2009 opposition to the waste dump had solidified and united First Nations people, the local agricultural community and Maude Barlow (senior adviser on water at the UN and chairperson of the Council of Canadians).
Construction was finally halted on July 6, 2009 when the Anishinabe Kweag (women) from the Beausoleil First Nations community blocked the gates to the construction site.
Necessary for the extraction of oil from the Alberta Tar Sands is the use of enormous amounts of fresh water. The process of separating oil from segments of the earth involves pumping out water from natural reserves and returning it in a tainted and toxic state. The negative health effects on downstream indigenous communities are now beginning to be documented showing alarming and rising levels of mercury and arsenic as well as the presence of other cancer causing chemicals.
Once again the affected indigenous populations have not been consulted and mostly left without explanations for the unusual types of cancer appearing in indigenous villages and areas.
Inuit environmental activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier works tirelessly to protect the Arctic ecosystem and the life sustaining connection of a sustainable environment for Inuit ways of life.
For vibrant Inuit communities to survive several environmental factors are a sine qua non: stable, thick sea ice, an abundance of well-packed snow, and constant temperatures that are well below zero. Her international lectures highlight that for the Inuit, snow and ice function as the highway, hunting platform and larder for a culture made increasingly vulnerable by global warming.
There is a sorrowful Kwakwaka’wakw (one of the Pacific Northwest First Nations Groups) verb wibalism meaning ‘to perish without reaching the end.’ If we choose to continue to ignore indigenous voices ablaze with dismay, anguish and dread over our imperiled fragile environment we may well perish before reaching the end.
Allan Irving teaches in the School of Social Work at King’s University College and Erynne Gilpin is a student in the college’s Social Justice and Peace Program with a special interest in indigenous issues and the environment.