Voodoo Hypothesis  

Voodoo Hypothesis, the first collection of poetry by Canisia Lubrin, is a stunning debut that acts as a “rejection of the contemporary and historical systems that paint Black people as inferior.” Each of Lubrin’s finely crafted poems is timely, as she infuses them with pop culture, science, pseudo-science, and contemporary news stories about race. Lubrin’s crisp, pointed poems and keen sense of observation are breathtaking, quickly making it obvious why this collection is garnering attention across the country.

Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming – In Alberta, and in Ottawa

The disturbingly incestuous movement of fossil fuel executives between government, academia, and industry is a rotted and oil-slicked family tree. In Oil’s Deep State, former Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft explores the seedy ways that Canada’s fossil fuel industry has captured democratic institutions in Ottawa and across the Prairies. The result, he writes, is the seamless ability of climate-altering industries to parasitize one pillar of our democracy after another, all in a never-ending drive to push pipelines and tar sands expansion. But this democratic stranglehold isn’t preordained. Deep states cement their power in darkness, Taft writes; shine a light and they recoil. Exposing how the sector undermines the environment to further corporate greed, he notes, can restore public faith that energy regulators and governments work for us—not big oil.

Tale of a Boon’s Wife

Facing tribalism, sexism, and love in the years prior to and during the 1991 civil war in Somalia, a member of the Bliss tribe, Idil, elopes with Sidow of the Boon tribe. Knowingly marrying beneath her, Idil is adamant that her love for Sidow is right, despite the chaos that the union brings. Fartumo Kusow’s debut English novel understands the consequences of thinking freely in a space where doing so could result in death. The sorrow, anger, and shame experienced by Kusow’s characters creates a haunting narrative of what it means to be selfish and selfless in a society that heavily condemns the unravelling of convention.

was odd, as she just turned sixty recently.
I had not seen

her pregnant. But there it was in the room,
all formed. A

baby boy. I didn’t know what his name
was, only that she told

me I could have him, if I wanted, she didn’t
really care. And

I told her I didn’t want him. And when I
did, she picked him

up, and as she did this, I noticed at the
back of his head, a third

grey eye. It had opened and blinked and
then closed. She took

him to another room down the hall and I
followed. Then, she

stumbled and fell, collapsed. I ran to her,
to pick her up. Her whole

face was gone, peeled back, and her eyes
weren’t even there. I

picked her up like she was my own child
and held her. I was sorry

I wasn’t there sooner. And all this time, I
did not think of that child.

The one with the third grey eye. I only
thought of her now,

who she had been to me then, and if she
would be that again.

In August 2015, Ala Buzreba, then the Liberal candidate for Calgary Nose Hill, was giving up her candidacy. Just 21 years old, Buzreba was trying to unseat Conservative Michelle Rempel. But that dream crumbled when a few less-than-savoury comments posted to her Twitter account during her high-school year surfaced—four years before she entered the political spotlight. “Just got my hair cut, I look like a flipping lesbian!!:’(” she wrote in June 2011. In another instance, she told someone on Twitter to “Go blow your brains out.” “I apologize without reservation for the comments I made a long time ago, as a teenager, but that is no excuse,” she publicly announced. She continued, asserting that the tweets “do not reflect my views, who I am as a person, or my deep respect for all communities in our country.” Despite the apology, she stepped down, the sting of a few sordid tweets leaving her deflated and unable to continue the race.

Welcome to the Generation of Too Much Information. We’ve all seen a child who can barely walk or use a spoon master an iPad. One consequence of this increasing ease with technology over the past decade is the presence of young adults who have only ever known a world in which personal information and images are circulated online— a world in which an online presence is deemed a necessity.

It’s easy to use social media platforms with reckless abandon to talk about relationships, work stresses, and our political views. In the last 10 years, social interaction has become even more publicly uncensored. Unconcerned and seemingly invincible, teens and young adults post without much thought. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? Who could possibly care? Poor judgment in what we post may very well lead to a digital legacy that’s less than admirable.

We are entering a new age of transparency with new rules about privacy and identity.

There are myriad other behaviours that are captured about how we drive (Tesla), what we buy (Amazon), who we communicate with (Google); we tacitly agree to give up privacy in exchange for convenience. Thomas Koulopoulos, author of The Gen Z Effect, says it’s not at all clear where this data may be stored, how it may be used, or who may ultimately have access to some derivative of it. “To those who say, ‘I don’t care because I have nothing to hide!’ I’d say think carefully before you give away a right you may never regain,” Koulopoulos says.

Offensive tweets and photos are bound to be part of our new political reality as Generation Z—those born in 1996 and onward—reaches adulthood. The effects of this hyper-connected and digital-first cohort therefore demand further scrutiny. We have yet to agree upon social, legal, and technical standards by which to navigate this new era of transparency.

Once seen as promising spaces for deliberation, Twitter’s hostile climate has provided a new arena for the enactment of power inequities by political parties. But Buzreba’s case is symptomatic of a larger problem on social media platforms. Is there really any room for apology online? Or is a remark made in 140 characters enough to typecast you as a foolish, inconsiderate imbecile?

In the wake of data protection and privacy laws, we can be fooled to think that what we say and do online can be fully erased. But our collective digital futures rests solely in our hands. We are unequivocally responsible for the online trail we leave behind.

***

In June 2017, a remarkable collision of free speech and toxic internet culture unfolded at Harvard University. The school rescinded the acceptance offers of at least 10 students after they reportedly shared offensive and obscene memes in a private Facebook group chat. Some of the memes shared in the private chat were sexually explicit, made light of sexual assault, and contained racist jokes aimed at specific ethnic groups. One thing is overwhelmingly clear: Social media platforms allow speech to persist, endure, and travel further.

“On one hand there definitely is the concern that everything we do is archived and things that you did before you knew better may come back to haunt you,” says Ramona Pringle, a professor in the faculty of communication and design at Ryerson University. But racist and sexist beliefs fostered in online forums that are spread on social media need to be acknowledged and addressed as a serious concern that cannot be cast away in the name of free speech. Pringle worries that it’s too easy to use the excuse that, “they’re just kids.”

“People who might want to engage thoughtfully feel like they can’t,” says Pringle. “The true value of online platforms is collaboration and cooperation, but we see less of it when there’s bullying, hostility, or toxicity of any kind.” It’s no secret that Twitter is notorious for its strong shaming culture. “There’s a difference between saying something damaging and saying something stupid,” she says.

We are mistaken to believe that most social media platforms—especially Twitter—were designed to be archives of the individual. Rather, their interfaces are designed to be a snapshot of a certain point in time in our lives, reflecting what we’re doing or saying, thinking, and sharing. Posting status updates is a sort of ritualized documentary practice that allows us to freely share what’s on our mind.

Pringle believes apologies don’t work on Twitter because our audience has already moved on. It’s a sentiment echoed by Greg Elmer, a media scholar also at Ryerson University and the Bell Media Research Chair. He says the way information is presented on Twitter is a relatively new format. Before the newsfeed, information was presented horizontally. If you watch a business news channel, for example, the bottom text always moves horizontally. With Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, information travels vertically and then “disappears.” Elmer calls this a “vertical ticker.” Vertical looped tickers highlight the fleeting nature of our networked and socially mediated communication, since they provide an intensely compressed time and space to have posts viewed by friends and followers. Whether we’re aware of it or not, he suggests there is a psychological effect to this vertical ticker. We are compelled to post something provocative enough that it will garner a reaction, ultimately revealing a more whole portrait of ourselves—but at what expense?

“The notion of privacy is completely meaningless,” says Elmer. In certain circumstances—increasingly on social media platforms—Elmer suggests that the privacy of users stands in direct opposition to the stated goals and logic of the technology in question. Companies like Facebook and Google are entirely predicated upon the act of going public. Elmer’s theory argues that uploading, sharing personal information, opinions, and habits is all part of “going public” in our social media age. Privacy is therefore only a hindrance to these processes. Let’s not forget that these online platforms profit from publicity and suffer from stringent privacy protocols—their goal is to learn as much as possible about users in order to aggregate and sell this targeted information to advertisers. While mass media has enjoyed a near monopoly on public attention, Elmer says today’s economy of attention is dictated by how we consume information through social media platforms.

When it comes to politics, though, the problem with sharing snippets of our lives on social media becomes twofold: Politicians can’t overshare, but their hesitation to share takes them out of the public eye when they need it most. In the case of Buzreba, the former Liberal candidate, there was a deep tension at the heart of party lines. Canada has an intensely risk-averse political climate. If a few tweets can falsely frame you as unfit to run for public office, this establishes a political culture that promotes bland people with little to no lived experiences to shape the direction of our country. Leaving no room for growth and forgiveness sends a clear message to young minds: In order to be in the public eye, you must be squeaky clean and continue to be squeaky clean from here to eternity.

Still, “I hope there will be more acceptance and forgiveness because the voting public will also have grown up posting online, so I hope they’ll be as fussy or sensitive to ‘embarrassing’ posts,” says Pringle. While she acknowledges that teens may have a proclivity for performative behaviour online, Pringle also points out that there’s a clear difference between a drunk selfie and a racial slur. In September 2017, YouTube megastar Felix Kjellberg, commonly known as PewDiePie, used the N-word during a live video stream. Games developers quickly condemned his behaviour—one even filed a copyright claim to order YouTube to remove some of Kjellberg’s videos. Despite the public outcry, many people came to Kjellberg’s defence, dismissing the event as a crime of gaming passion. In the political ring, we can only hope that constituents will be able to recognize the varying degrees of severity of online behaviour. As it’s becoming harder to separate our “real” selves from what we put online, what we do and how we express it affects these platforms just as much as they affect us. Harsh words, inebriated photos, and controversial opinions might be the status quo in cyberspace. But there would surely be less venom if people considered the words they write to each other online as having the same impact as those said face to face.

***

One thing’s for certain: We do not yet know all the consequences of growing up in a world where so much personal data has been circulated. In this culture of self-surveillance, privacy has been forfeited. But legal changes are attempting to claw some of it back. Laws surrounding the “right to be forgotten” illustrate the new challenges facing transatlantic lawmakers following the digital availability of personal data on the internet. The right famously came about by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its May 2014 landmark decision on Google Spain SL v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, when it authorized that an individual’s (in this case, a man named Mario Costeja González) personal information pertaining to past debts be removed from accessibility through a search engine. The ruling states that Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant” data from its results when a member of the public requests it. González succeeded after spending five years fighting to have his home’s foreclosure news articles taken down from Google’s search engine. The ruling led to a record number of requests from Europeans to remove personal data—involving close to 700,000 URL addresses.

Other countries, such as the U.K., have also taken steps to protect its citizens online. In August, updates to a data protection bill gave Britons the right to force companies that dominate the internet, like Facebook and Google, to delete personal data, or information posted when users were children. While social media is all about making a mark, the right to be forgotten is about handing over a different kind of power. It is asserting ownership of our identity by refusing to pass it over to corporations. There is a freedom in being able to delete some of our digital past—or in growing up without one.

In Canada, there are no laws in existence on the right to be forgotten or erased. If someone discovers a website that displays their personal information without their consent, they must contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Meanwhile, critics say the ability to remove personal info from the web is an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of information.

But Canadian lawmakers have already passed laws that aim to supplement preexisting legal matters on defamation, the breach of privacy, and to solve specific online problems. This includes the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, which amended the Criminal Code to sanction the non-consensual publication of intimate images and harassing communication. In Nova Scotia, for example, the Cyber-safety Act allows for the prosecution of those who use electronic communication to cause harm or damage to the health, self-esteem or reputation of another person, to cause fear, intimidation, humiliation, or distress—in the wake of Rehtaeh Parsons’ untimely death.

***

Recognizing that we all make mistakes, especially when we’re young—and that a trivial photo or comment should not leave an indelible stain—is a characteristic of contemporary modern life. Online commentary can inform, improve, and shape people for the better, and it can alienate, manipulate, and shape people for the worse.

Can we encourage policies and technologies that are supportive of healthy discourse? Or should we be fostering a culture of moderation that will, in time, curtail online hostility and encourage forgiveness? These questions and more persist in academic circles.

There is no straightforward solution other than self-awareness. Drawing the appropriate line on the internet is tricky, but it must never be an excuse not to set parameters or to allow all manner of ongoing harassment, insults, and abuse. To abdicate moral responsibility in the face of bullies is to hand society over to the most vicious among us. We can be both understanding about the human propensity to outbursts, while at the same time insisting on norms requiring apology and a generally good behavioural track record over time by the organizations and the individuals representing them. Pushing young adults to withdraw from online activity partially or entirely has devastating consequences. At stake is their equality and participation in the increasingly significant public sphere that is the internet.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s unique culture has endured in part because its people are, in many ways, remarkably similar. But the Atlantic province faces a paradox: As its population shrinks, its shared ancestry will have to change significantly in order to survive. Now, a small group of scientists and entrepreneurs on the island are jumping on the chance to study this rare population before it has to change.

The province is full of people whose ancestors arrived from the British Isles, settled, and stayed put for centuries. As a result, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a lack of genetic variation.

Researchers marvel at this homogeneity and what it can tell them about the island’s high rates of inherited conditions.

One local biotech, Sequence Bio, plans to gather the genomic information of 100,000 people in the province. The company is partnering with the provincial government and Cambridge-based researchers Genospace on the project, which they describe as “a large-scale precision medicine initiative…to collect and analyze genetic data for drug discovery and improved patient outcomes.”

Any health-related discoveries could be important to the province, which has a population older than the national average. That trend is expected to continue, says Keith Storey, director of the Harris Centre’s Population Project. “Overall the population will decline by about 10 percent” over the next 20 years, he says. During that same period, he adds, the province’s average age is expected to increase by five to eight years.

This is part of a snowball effect, Storey says, fuelled by a decreasing birth rate, out-migration of younger people, and a weak economy. The provincial government aims to counter it by doubling its immigration. If that is successful, the result will be a provincial shift towards decreased homogeneity.

That’s good news for health care providers grappling with diseases like diabetes and heart disease. But it might also bring up thorny questions about provincial cultural identity. The Sequence Bio project, expected to launch later this year, will likely find much that is the same about the people who currently inhabit Canada’s youngest province. But if all goes as planned, 20 years from now those results will be quite different.

all poems are about hope
but out of money

I took this poem’s hope
and pawned it

I spent the money on a rhyming dictionary
went home and looked out the window

from my apartment you can see Hamilton mountain
which is really just an escarpment

like a mountain without hope
it has no peak

then I found a compartment in my body
I’d never found before

I twirled my nipple
L32-R47-L19

and opened it
WTF inside me was hope

no bigger than
a grain of sand

hope is the perfect thing
if you have no money and

want 2000 of something
but there was only

a single grain and I held it
like a baby, a single tiny baby

I ran into the street
or I first ran down the hall

and into the elevator
pressed the appropriate button

waited, descended, exited
then ran across the lobby

across the parking lot
and then into the street where

there were
one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine

other people
each holding a tiny grain

between their fingers
and we just looked at each other

In March 2012, Shannon Hardy came across dozens of headlines about Prince Edward Island’s abortion policy. The Island hadn’t offered in-province abortion services for 30 years, and those seeking terminations at private clinics had to travel to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick on their own dime. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe that happens,’” says Hardy, a 44-year-old social worker in Halifax.

Overwhelmed by the restrictions, Hardy decided to join forces with Island-based activists, set up a Facebook page, and take action. Within the month, the Maritime Abortion Support Services (MASS) was born, offering emotional and practical support to Maritimers seeking abortions. Among the volunteers are “doulas,” who help patients navigate the health care system, drive them to the hospital, make them cups of tea, and provide a non-judgmental ear.

While most associate doulas with birth, abortion doulas remind us of the emotional labour necessary to support those terminating pregnancies. By listening to their clients and simply advertising their services, these doulas help destigmatize abortion.

Across Canada, and especially on the east coast, conversations about abortion in the public and political sphere have long been fraught. Though a 1988 Supreme Court ruling found the ban of abortions in the country unlawful, the law deeming the practice illegal remains in the Criminal Code, and few politicians are interested in rewriting it. And on the east coast, where access to abortion has been difficult even in the last five years, many are faced with a great deal of shame when seeking medical assistance to terminate pregnancies.

As a result, abortion doulas provide a way for women to remain empowered during the process. The supports are largely practical: Doulas can help their patients find a clinic that allows their support person to be present during the procedure. They also prepare clients for the experience, including a conversation on how to deal with protesters, should they be there. But most of all, it’s a doula’s duty to offer comfort and companionship. “You follow their emotions,” Hardy says. “I’m simply here to be with you.”

There is no accreditation for abortion doulas in Canada, though informal weekend workshops are available in some cities—opening up the practice to those who want to make a difference to those struggling in their communities. In Halifax, Hardy hosts her own workshop, focused on communication. It’s important, for example, to use gender-neutral terminology, and avoid terms of endearment like “sweetie” or “honey,” which can come across as condescending.

Meanwhile in Calgary, Jessica Shaw, a volunteer full-spectrum doula, begins her workshops with a brief history of abortion in Canada, including legality, accessibility, and acceptability. Following that, she delves into how abortion medications work and what kind of care is needed throughout the process.

Those who sign up for the training include both paid and volunteer abortion doulas. And the workshops are popular—this summer in Halifax, Hardy’s filled up in a matter of days, and she’s been invited to run sessions in Newfoundland, Ontario, and Manitoba. While Shaw and Hardy are both volunteers, Brittany-Lyne Carriere in Toronto offers full-spectrum doula work—birth, miscarriage, abortion and fertility—full-time. She charges around $30 an hour, but also offers reduced rates for those with financial difficulties, and accepts barters too. Her work is often grassroots, focused less on profit and more on empowerment. “I recently traded a Thai massage for abortion doula care,” she says. “That kind of energy exchange is really important to this kind of work.”

Doulas’ often voluntary labour can play a significant part in changing attitudes about and improving access to abortion. It can often be difficult for patients to ask questions about accessing the procedure because of the sense of shame that is attached to abortion. “There are hotlines you can call for this information, but even that feels stigmatized,” Carriere says. Abortion doulas’ presence can help people get accurate information and reassure them that their bodies are their own to make choices about.

“The way we can destigmatize abortion is to talk about it—sharing stories so it becomes less scary and more normal,” Shaw says, noting that one in three Canadian women will have an abortion at some point in her life.

In January, abortions became available in P.E.I. But that doesn’t mean Hardy’s work in the Maritimes is done. For one, the only P.E.I. hospital offering the service is limited to first-trimester abortions, so Islanders in their fourth month of pregnancy and beyond would still have to leave the province. And even though it’s possible to get an abortion in Nova Scotia, it’s difficult. Patients have to wait until they’re at least eight weeks pregnant, may have to travel hundreds of kilometres to the province’s only pregnancy termination unit in Halifax, and until recently, required a doctor’s referral.

Still, it’s encouraging to see slow but steady policy changes. And like P.E.I. offering abortion services after 30 years and many provinces paying for the abortion pill Mifegymiso, doulas’ work plays a significant role in reducing barriers to abortion care. After all, as Shaw says, “women have been helping other women as long as abortion has been happening, which is as long as people have existed.”

You know I love you, but you really need to stop making me nostalgic for the technology of days gone by. Please, I beg of you, stop reminding me of the good old days like I am Lindsay Lohan and you are 2004.

In Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, Adam Driver’s character Paterson refuses to get a cellphone, comparing it “to a leash.” You, pop culture, are guilty of reminding me of a time when technology, like the iPhone Paterson rejects, wasn’t a shackle, keeping us constantly connected—and not in a good way—to others, our work, and our obligations (not to mention Donald Trump’s tweets).

I love your television marathons, despite what they do to my productivity, but they also make me miss simpler times. I wish it was 2008 and life was like that episode of The Wire where Jimmy McNulty leaves his business card on the windshield of Omar Little’s van when he needs to track him down. Fast forward to 2017, and McNulty would be sending texts, 12 emails, a Twitter DM, pleas on Facebook Messenger, and maybe an eggplant emoji if he was feeling frisky. If stealing from drug dealers wasn’t stressing Little out, McNulty’s constant attempts to reach him would.

I know you have never met a milestone you didn’t love reminding us of (you’re such a show off!). Your 20th anniversary love letters to Radiohead’s OK Computer make me long for a time when we thought of technology in terms of social alienation, not social media. You reminded me that this December, Wall Street turns 30 years old, which brought back fond memories of Michael Douglas’s big-ass cellphone in the movie—you know, the one that looks like he had a giant Chevy strapped to his ear. The reception probably sucks, but at least I would be able to find my phone in my purse without a 30-person search party and a Black & Decker flashlight.

Your love/hate relationship with Sex and the City makes me long for a Carrie Bradshaw-sized laptop, one bigger than Kim Cattrall’s ego when it comes to filming a third movie of the series. I need a computer that I can’t carry everywhere, so I don’t feel guilty for not working on the subway or while eating at Subway.

Speaking of old school technology, Vice recently informed me that flip phones are making a comeback. This announcement brought me back to 2006, which I truly consider your golden age, a time before I was required to keep up with the Kardashians and Britney Spears used umbrellas strictly for rain coverage.

I love when you remind me of movies where the internet is called “the Net,” and cellphones can kill Shia LaBeouf with a single dial. I want to stay in that place in time, when we were scared of technology, hesitant to let it into our everyday lives.

I miss how sites like Gawker (RIP) covered you in the celeb gossip glory days, before everyone with an internet connection thought they could report on you. When people disrespect you by only giving you 140 characters, I want to cry on top of my stack of old school US Weekly’s, burying myself in endless coverage of who wore it best.

I long for the innocent ways your celebrity deaths were covered. Remember when I waited for the six o’clock news and the weekly issue of People to hear the details of River Phoenix’s death? Coverage used to be respectful—it checked facts and avoided rumour. The internet has made you insensitive and impatient, posting every morbid detail whether it is true or not.

Your recent reboots have been especially hard on me. I know Will & Grace characters using Grindr or Twin Peaks characters on Skype is supposed to make you feel current. It just makes me feel sad, confused, and nostalgic. Agent Cooper and his dictaphone forever.

Illustration by Nicole Stishenko

Slated to open in the fall of 2018, the Indigenous art park named ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞, pronounced (EE-NU) River Lot 11, is a partnership between the City of Edmonton, Confederacy of Treaty No. 6 First Nations, Métis Nation of Alberta, Edmonton Arts Council, and six Indigenous artists whose works will be permanently exhibited there.

Located within Queen Elizabeth Park in Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River Valley, the park will display six unique pieces of art created by Canadian Indigenous artists. Carrying the theme “the stories of This Place,” each piece will showcase different ways Indigenous people connect to the land. For the city, the park is an “opportunity to restore, reimagine, and reclaim a part of Edmonton’s history that is often under-recognized.”

While the original owner of the park’s lot was Métis landowner Joseph McDonald, the park is actually located on ancestral lands of the Indigenous peoples whose descendants entered into treaty with the British Crown, resulting in the territory opening for settlement. And the banks of the river where it’s situated were used by First Nations for travel, trade, ceremony, and sustenance for thousands of years.

“The profound legacy left by our Kôhkominawak (our grandmothers) and Kimosôminawak (our grandfathers) is one of the sacred areas used to cross Kisiskâcêwansîpî (Saskatchewan River), where many ceremonies and rituals took place before crossing this majestic sanctuary,” steering committee member Elder Jerry Saddleback told media.

“Our original peoples of this area held sacred knowledge that gave them a close spiritual relationship with our Mother Earth deity. She is called the sacred river, as with all water of the Earth, Her own breast milk, nurturing all of humanity.”

ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) is a Cree word meaning “I am of the Earth.”

“Indigenous Peoples, since time immemorial, have had a close relationship to the river valley,” said City of Edmonton Indigenous relations director Mike Chow. He says this is why ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ is the convergence of many narratives, and brings together the love of natural park spaces and public art with an opportunity to celebrate and amplify Indigenous cultures.

The chief of the Papaschase band whose traditional territory was once located in south Edmonton before it was pushed out via way of multiple annexations, says the park is a good way for locals to learn about Indigenous history.

“I’ve been saying for years that we need more Aboriginal art in this town,” said Papaschase Chief Calvin Bruneau. “It helps to beautify the local area. And in the process of collaboration, metro Edmonton can learn to work with Indigenous people better to create understanding and acceptance.”

Photos by Ryan Parker. From top to bottom: Untitled by Tiffany Shaw-Collinge; Mikikwan by Duane Linklater; Turtle by Jerry Whitehead; Iskotew by Amy Malbeuf; Preparing to Cross the Sacred River by Marianne Nicholson; and Reign by MaryAnne Barkhouse.