Mi'kmaki Water Walk underway around the Bay of Fundy

The Mi'kmaki Water Walk is underway around the Bay of Fundy.

The 40-day, 994-kilometre ceremonial walk began May 24. It's in honour of water as a sacred life force.

Walkers started in Overton, N.S., near Yarmouth, and it will end in Blacks Harbour, N.B.

Ducie Howe is a Mi'kmaw grandmother from the Sipekne'katik First Nation and she's leading the walk.

CBC's Information Morning Halifax spoke with her on Thursday when she was in Brooklyn, N.S. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How many people are walking with you?

We have eight core walkers. We started out with over a dozen for the first week. But some people, you know, they got jobs and lives they have to go back to. And we have more drop-in visitors on the weekends that want to participate and be with the water. Eight core walkers is a big change for us. We've usually only had four over the years, so. So we're really happy and we have male staff carriers this year.

Tell us a bit about the inspiration for this walk, the woman who started this walking ceremony in 2003.

The late grandmother, Josephine Mandamin. In 2003, she began walking the Great Lakes, all of them throughout Turtle Island. And she did a migration walk, the last one that touched down up here in Quebec and the eastern doorway. It was her inspiration. And she came to visit us at the Stop Alton Gas site where we were protecting the water, the Shubenacadie River in Nova Scotia. She came a couple of times and then we joined one of her last walks with her, and we went to Ontario to the ceremony.… We speak to the water and the water spirits, we pray for healthy rivers and lakes and oceans for our ancestors and for the next seven generations and even further ahead. People need to realize that when we say water is life, it's in all life, including humans. You know, we're the ones that are polluting it and we're the ones that are not taking care of it and we're the ones that are destroying it. 

You're carrying water in vials. Where did it come from?

The water was put into the vessel at the beginning of the walk and we had a ceremony to do that and the pipe was smoked for the vessel and we were all present. But there's been water that's been mailed out that we've been using over the years, some from New Zealand for their first river that was recognized to have rights in New Zealand. And we need to do that here in Canada and in Nova Scotia with our Shubenacadie River. We need to give it rights and have somebody speak in these government platforms for it because we need to speak for the water and that's what we're doing.

This isn't a marathon type of event — this is a sacred walk. How does that work?

We start as a ceremony every morning when we pick up that vessel. We're in ceremony from the time that's picked up till the end of the day, we're in full ceremony. Actually, the whole walk is a 40-day ceremony. So we stay together and we're praying. We sing and pray to that water every step and every kilometre on this route every day. There's different locations the water has come from. Some even came from the tap at home. It's all moving and we keep it moving forward during this walk. It's always moving forward, not backward.

How can people join or support you?

If you want to join, then contact us. It's a ceremony. So we have to prepare people. They can't just drop in in the middle of the highway and come in and leave for a couple of weeks. They have to be smudged and start with us when we pick that vessel up in the morning.