Report from the 2014 Tar Sands Healing Walk

摘要

Indigenous communities and allies from across Turtle Island and beyond came to Treaty 8 territory near Fort McMurray, Alberta for the fifth Healing Walk and camp, held June 27-29, 2014. The Walk was a 16-kilometre journey around the Syncrude tar sands extraction site. Framed not as a protest but rather as a gathering for learning and healing, the Walk was led by local indigenous people and centred on ceremony and prayer. While the local landscape may look to outsiders like a write-off, the quote above shows that the exploited land is still the territory of the First Nation and Metis communities who continue to live there and have an important connection to that place.