By Mary Drew at Pasty Central (Mdrew) on Wednesday, July 27, 2022 - 10:45 pm:
Nancy Haun said that every year before the Powwow the Water Walkers walk from Pequaming to the Ojibwa Campground, to bring awareness for clean water. Nancy said she was lucky to catch them and get permission to photograph and video them, along with putting it on her YouTube channel.
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community had this information about the walk this year…
The water walk begins with ceremony at 7 am ET Wednesday, July 20 at First Sand Beach in Pequaming. The 17-mile walk continues around the Bay to Sand Point in Baraga. All ages, genders, and ethnicities are welcome to walk for the water with KBIC. You are not required to walk the entire 17 miles. Vehicles will accompany walkers for reprieve. Please bring a light backpack for snacks and water. Sandwiches are provided. It is customary for women to wear long skirts. We typically finish the walk by 1 pm. This walk is inspired by Josephine Mandamin’s (February 21, 1942 – February 22, 2019) first water walk across Turtle Island. Josephine was an Anishinaabe First Nations grandmother who began the movement, walking more than 10,000 miles in total for the healing of the water.
This was the first time I have seen or heard of this event. What a beautiful tradition to carry on, that we can all be part of, coming together to raise awareness that we should all be working to keep our waters clean.
Nancy’s video starts out with an unexpected arrival in L’Anse of the Canadian National. She heard the horn while she was in L’Anse and hurried to watch them uncoupling some of the cars from the engines before they could finish switching, as the train was so long (35 cars), otherwise they would have blocked the road. The Water Walkers part of the video starts at around 2:16.
