By reconnecting with the land, a proud Métis woman also reconnects with herself and her cultural identity.
WORDS AND IMAGES Alana Cook
I step outside my grandparents’ home and see the quiet beauty of an Okanagan summer, a view that still gives me goosebumps.
Tansi kiyawow. I am Alana Cook, a proud Métis woman from the Desjarlais family with Saulteaux roots and a member of Métis Nation British Columbia. Before I begin this story, I want to honor my relations by taking the time to self-locate. This means more than merely pointing at a map and saying that I live in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. I live on q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie) territory, which translates to “land of the moss” in the Halkomelem language. I live on the northern banks of the Stó:lō, colonially known as the Fraser River, and south of T’laqunna, the Golden Ears Mountains. Stó:lō land is east of the Pacific Ocean, where the Nuu-chah-nulth paddle their ocean canoes, and west of the golden mountains of the Syilx people. I acknowledge these nations in whose traditional territory I live, work, and play, as well as my relations across Turtle Island [North America].
Would this land hold as much meaning to me if I did not know its stories? If I merely told you the name of my town, would you understand the deep connection I feel for this place? My connection has not been made lightly; it is formed through years of footsteps through muddy earth, smelling rain-soaked pine trees and watching the fog slowly roll across early morning waters. My connection was made by seeing the trees grow as surely as I do and knowing the names of the mountains and birds as well as I know the names of my own family members.
The feelings of attachment we have for the outdoors are real, visceral connections woven into our DNA.
As a Métis woman, my way of knowing the world was never taught to me explicitly. It was passed down to me as a child, told in stories and songs, bedtime prayers, and teasing around the dinner table. In the tearful speeches at church weddings, quiet mornings cooking with my grandmother, and afternoons chasing my cousins through the neighbor’s fields as we laughed until breathless. This is how I learned who I was: by embracing the traditional values of strength, kindness, courage, respect, love, patience, and above all, a connection to our land and the spirits that surround us.
The knowledge of my people teaches that the feelings of attachment we have for the outdoors are not figments of our imagination; they are real, visceral connections woven into our DNA. Cree and Saulteaux scholar Dr. Margaret Kovach wrote in her book Indigenous Methodologies about the connection that we, as Indigenous people, have to land and how separating ourselves from the land is as impossible as severing our spirit from our physical self.
Chief Drygeese (Dene) land in the Northwest Territories. In the summer, the sun is in the sky for almost twenty hours: a never-ending day spent in northern paradise.
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But I must admit, my relationship with the land has not been without friction; as I entered womanhood, these kinship ties did fray. School, work, romance, travel . . . I became an adult, or so I thought, and late nights at a desk replaced moonlit walks through the grass. Screens replaced relationships. Ambition replaced reciprocity. But through my journey as a graduate student, I slowly remembered the deep kinship I hold with the earth. I reconnected with the child within me who grew up in the land of the moss.
From the summer of 2018 to 2020, I pursued a master’s degree in Indigenous Land-Based Education at the University of Saskatchewan. This was a unique program as far as grad school goes: while I spent many hours reading and learning, my feet rarely graced the floor of a classroom. Rather, we spent our days physically, mentally, and emotionally connecting to the world around us: we learned on the land, beside the water, within community.
The land was our textbook.
From the swampy muskegs of rural Manitoba to the tropical beaches of Oahu, from the remote woodlands of the Northwest Territories to the lakes and deserts of the Okanagan Valley, I was blessed to spend the majority of my schooling beneath the open sky. The land was our textbook, our professors were the interpreters, and members of the local Indigenous communities were our trusted sources of information. The blending of Western scholarship with traditional Indigenous Knowledge has historically not been an easy path to navigate, and I was gentle with myself as the lessons were slowly unveiled to me. My learning was not linear, and the true lessons came to me in precious, unplanned moments.
The University of Saskatchewan’s Master of Indigenous Land-Based Education cohort, 2018, on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation Territory. We learned on the land, beside the water, and within community.
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One such moment was on a warm June afternoon when I had the pleasure of visiting the Stó:lō Health Fair and found myself speaking with Herb Joe, the former Chief of the Tzeachten First Nation. Joe carries the name T’xwelatse, which was given to him in honor of a medicine man who settled on the shores of the Chilliwack River. According to Stó:lō legend, the medicine man was transformed into stone, and his statue was left as a permanent reminder to live our life in a good way. Joe takes those teachings to heart, and as we shared coffee and conversation, the history of that same river and its people was unveiled to me. “The word Stó:lō translates to ‘people of the river,’” Joe explained to me. “We are the people of the river, and anything that affects the river negatively will affect us directly.”
Connections formed in my mind and grew clear as winter air. From an Indigenous worldview, the Stó:lō are not merely connected to the river: they are the river, and to lose connection to the land, water, and sky is to lose connection to themselves. I heard a quiet murmur as the child within me stirred in her sleep. She remembered this story.
It was spring in the Okanagan Valley. On a break between semesters, I sat on the water’s edge with my Mémère [Grandmother]. We held hands and she pointed at the bay where I had learned how to swim. The memories flooded back, and this simple moment stretched back thirty years. The most vivid memories of my childhood are not of being in a house watching television or in a classroom staring at a chalkboard. I closed my eyes and remembered running through tall fields as my skin drank in the Okanagan sunshine. The child within me opened sleepy eyes and dipped her toes into the water. She started to wake up.
‘We are the people of the river, and anything that affects the river negatively will affect us directly.’
My classmates and I were guests of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, and we shared a misty morning conversation with Dr. Alex Wilson, creator of the Indigenous Land-Based Education program. Huddled on felled logs around a smokey campfire, she pointed at a white flower growing unabashedly across the woods: yarrow. We whispered the words to ourselves, scribbling in damp notebooks. I have traveled many times since that summer, and to this day when I spy yarrow growing wildly between trees, I feel like I am greeting an old friend. If I had not learned the name, history, and uses of yarrow, I would not have felt a kinship with it; it would have remained an anonymous wildflower to me all my life. The child within me whispers that this knowledge has always been there, I just needed to listen.
I suddenly remembered picking raspberries with my grandmother as she told me the uses for rosehips, winking at me as she popped a plump berry between her lips. These plants that grow at our fingertips are our beloved relatives; how could I not know their names, their stories?
My grandmother Jeanette and I picking berries. She’s almost 82 years old and still collects more than me!
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Another moment we spent among Dene Elders, as my classmates and I fished for lake trout in the frigid waters of Blachford Lake in the Northwest Territories. Hungry brown bears eyed us from the distant shore as Elder Paul McKenzie shared stories with us that his father had taught him. “When the loons are seen dancing, it means that rain is coming, and when the raven calls, someone will die soon. We have always looked to animals for our signs.” I was unaware that the Northwest Territories had experienced an unseasonably hot summer and that the lack of nibbles we were getting on our hooks was a direct result of that.
‘If we rely on animals for signs of weather and change, what will happen when the animals unexpectedly migrate or leave, or climate change confuses them?’
Paul spoke of reciprocity, the mutual respect we must hold toward our wild relatives with whom we share this land. “If we rely on animals for signs of weather and change, what will happen when the animals unexpectedly migrate or leave, or climate change confuses them?” His words were quiet, but they rippled across the water. “We must take care of them, or they will not take care of us.” My inner child bowed her head and listened quietly, eyes growing wide as her stomach grumbled for fish.
Traveling with Dene Elders across Blachford Lake in the Northwest Territories felt like a journey back through time, as we were the only people for miles and miles.
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I returned to my grandparents’ house on the Okanagan Lake, my graduation date fast approaching. I reflected on the moments of the past two years and marveled at how they connected like a spider’s web, stretching time and distance, the center constantly shifting but always bringing me back to this place. As Métis people, our relationship with the land has been politicized and regimented by the Canadian government. The traditional territory of my ancestors was given away with the stroke of a pen. And yet, despite displacement, forced assimilation, and the bitter legacy of colonialism, my family found that connection again. On this land, we found home. We found love. The child in me remembers it all.
Despite displacement, forced assimilation, and the bitter legacy of colonialism, my family found that connection again.
The kitchen was always crowded with visiting aunties, uncles, and cousins, and we danced and swam and ate and played and prayed and laughed together in true Métis fashion. Colts ran wild across the fields by day as surely as the coyotes yipped mischievously in the evening, and no matter the season I could always count on falling asleep to a sky painted with stars and my Mémère’s rich singing. This place holds the best memories of my childhood, the purest memories of my family, and where I will always feel most connected to the land. “Okanagan” translates to “the place where you can see the top” in the Nsyilxcən language because it is seen as a place where you could be closest to the mountaintops, to the sky, to Creator. I may not be Syilx, but my roots there are deep. I am grateful to the Syilx people for allowing my family to live there and for a childhood that allowed me to form a connection to the land. My inner child smiles as she points at the dirt road where she first learned to walk, and she gleefully dances under the moonlight.
A handful of moss: a feast for the eyes and a reminder of my childhood on Katzie territory. Green has more shades than any other color on Earth, and in this land I see them all.
In November 2020, my classmates and I joined online for one last class. COVID-19 had stolen our graduation ceremony from us, and instead of holding each other tightly and celebrating our hard work, we smiled wistfully at one another behind a Zoom screen. It was a slightly bitter moment, and yet we found the sweetness as we reminisced on two magical years spent on the land, near the water, in community. My throat caught as my beloved cohort “tossed” our virtual hats, and we shared cheers and words of congratulations on our hard work. My hand fell to my heart, the heart of that same child beating strong. The work continues.
As I enter my thirties, I am thinking more about the impact I can make on the next generation, our people, and our collective future. I am grateful to our Elders and Knowledge Carriers who shared so much with my classmates and me: Herb Joe, Paul McKenzie, Alex Wilson, and my Mémère Jeanette. I think of their gifts of story, song, laughter, and history — and I understand the true gifts I have received from my master’s degree:
Two years of higher learning within an Indigenous Knowledge paradigm (an opportunity that was unheard of even twenty years ago).
Lifelong friendships with incredible Indigenous folks from across Turtle Island.
And finally . . . my favorite gift, one I wish for everyone: the chance to rediscover an intimate relationship with the land, a bond just as sacred and meaningful as the one we share with the people we love.
We are the land. We are the water. We are the river.
All my relations.
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Alana Cook is a proud Métis woman from the Desjarlais family of St. Francois-Xavier with Saulteaux, Scottish, and French ancestry. She is a former adjunct professor and a current PhD student at the University of British Columbia and moonlights as a professional MMA fighter. She is also a self-defense instructor, beadwork artist, and corgi enthusiast.
