Vancouver, British Columbia

Prudish. Flirty. Whore. Proper. Cheeky. Slut. These are just a few of the words that could be used to describe a woman’s sexual behavior based on her appearance alone, and 18-year-old college freshman Rosea Lake chose to display them starkly—on a young woman’s legs in a photo that has since gone viral. (Read the full Huffpost story here).

“Working on this project really made me examine my own opinions, preconceptions and prejudices about “slutty” women and women who choose to cover all of their skin alike. I used to assume that all women who wore Hijabs were being oppressed, slut-shame, and look down on and judge any woman who didn’t express her sexuality in a way that I found appropriate… I’d like to think I’m more open now.”

Rosea Lake is studying graphic design and illustration at Capilano University in Vancouver, BC. She likes dancing, salty things and watercolour.

Winnipeg, Canada

This will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me — I am a keen supporter of the Idle No More movement that has recently sprung up in Western Canada, spread across North America, and is now being embraced by both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous peoples around the globe.

With her permission, I republish here writer Linda Goyette’s beautifully-written explanation (she writes much better than I do and she posted this on Facebook four days ago) —“I think this is a defining moment in Canadian history, a time when each citizen is asked to make a choice. Where do you stand? Where will your children and grandchildren want you to stand?”

Why I Support Idle No More

I am no longer a journalist, and I do not seek a bully pulpit on any topic, but tonight I want to explain to my family and friends why I give my unqualified support to the Idle No More movement as a Canadian citizen.

I am becoming more and more concerned about the harsh backlash among non-aboriginal Canadians against this peaceful protest movement. I’m not talking exclusively about virulent racial bigotry and hate speech, although it exists in dark places, but more about the willful denial of reality, the blindness to injustice, among many decent people.

These are the people I address tonight. I respect their right to a different opinion, but I hope they will hear me out.

Four Saskatchewan women—Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean and Jessica Gordon—and Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario found the courage to say that a change is going to come. Thousands of indigenous people across Canada are demonstrating in peaceful ways to tell the country that they will wait no longer for that change. When I see round dances in shopping malls, peaceful road blockades, or a chief on a hunger strike, I see an opportunity to learn more about the deep frustration of my neighbours. I see no threat at all.

The protesters are asking for the country I want for myself, and for my family…

Read the rest here (86K PDF).

The Canadian Tar Sands (Northern Alberta)

There are currently many wealthy and powerful sources providing misleading information about the Alberta Tar Sands — these include The Harper Government (as our Canadian prime minister insists the media now refer to the elected Canadian Government), “Big Oil” along with those who profit from oil production, and the well-funded lobby in the USA promoting the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

To learn important truths about the Tar Sands, please watch this objective two-hour documentary by David Suzuki:

The Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands

(image source unknown)

—Ansel Adams (1902-1984)

—Chief Seattle, 1854

How long have I known you, Oh Canada? A hundred years? Yes, a hundred years. And many many seelanum [lunar months] more. And today, when you celebrate your hundred years, Oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land.

For I have known you when your forests were mine; when they gave me my meat and my clothing. I have known you in your streams and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun, where the waters said come, come and eat of my abundance. I have known you in the freedom of your winds. And my spirit, like the winds, once roamed your good lands.

But in the long hundred years since the white man came, I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. The white man’s strange customs which I could not understand pressed down upon me until I could no longer breathe.

When I fought to protect my land and my home, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed this way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people, I was stripped of my authority.

My nation was ignored in your history textbooks — they were little more important in the history of Canada than the buffalo that ranged the plains. I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, and when I drank your fire-water, I got drunk — very, very drunk. And I forgot.

Oh Canada, how can I celebrate with you this Centenary, this hundred years? Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left to me of my beautiful forests? For the canned fish of my rivers? For the loss of my pride and authority, even among my own people? For the lack of my will to fight back? No! I must forget what’s past and gone.

Oh God in Heaven! Give me back the courage of the olden Chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on.

Oh God! Like the Thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s success — his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.

Before I follow the great Chiefs who have gone before us, Oh Canada, I shall see these things come to pass. I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land.

So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest in the proud history of our tribes and nations.

—Chief Dan George (1899-1981)
1 July 1967, Empire Stadium, Vancouver BC
(on the occasion of Canada’s 100th Anniversary)

Rural Manitoba, Canada

Happy New Year!

Many thanks to the 104,000 unique visitors (from 184 countries) who dropped by this blog during 2012 (84% were first-time visitors). Thanks also to each of you who has contributed ideas, inspiration, suggestions, and comments…

Late dawn. Early sunset… for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, today’s winter solstice marks the longest night and shortest day of the year — here’s a Yuletide cheer to the longer and brighter days to come!

Ottawa, Canada

Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat First Nation is in the 9th day of her hunger strike on Victoria Island, about 1.3 km from Canada’s Parliament Buildings on Capital Hill. She has called for a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and representatives of the Queen regarding First Nations treaty issues.

There is a groundswell of support for the bold stance she is taking, not just among Canada’s 1.2 million Aboriginal descendents, but also across non-Aboriginal “mainstream” Canada and beyond.