Dorothy Christian is a visual storyteller from the Secwepemc and Syilx Nations of British Columbia. She is a Ph. D. candidate at UBC's Department of Educational Studies and currently writing her dissertation "Gathering Knowledge: Visual Storytellers & Indigenous Storywork." Publications include chapters in Thinking with Water (Chen et al., eds., 2013) and Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation Through the Lens of Cultural Diversity (Mathur et al., eds., 2011).Rita Wong is a writer, teacher, and waterkeeper. She is the author of three books of poetry and the co-author of several collaborative works, most recently, beholden: a poem as long as the river (2018), with the poet Fred Wah. With Dorothy Christian (Secwepemc and Syilx Nations), Wong edited downstream: reimagining water (WLU Press, 2017). She is an associate professor of Critical + Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she teaches classes in the humanities and creative writing.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Re-storying Waters, Re-storying Relations / Rita Wong and Dorothy Christian

Part I: Contexts for Knowing and Unknowing Water

1. Planetary Distress Signals / Alanna Mitchell

2. Water / Lee Maracle

3. Interweaving Water: The Incremental Transformation of Sovereign Knowledge into Collaborative Knowledge / Michael D. Blackstock

4. Water and Knowledge / Astrida Neimanis

5. Excerpts from "a child's fable" / Baco Ohama

Part II: Water Testimonies: Witness, Worry, and Work

6. Water: The First Foundation of Life / Mona Polacca

7. From Our Homelands to the Tar Sands / Melina Laboucan Massimo

8. Keepers of the Water: Nishnaabe-kwewag Speaking for the Water / Renee Elizabeth Mzinegiizhigo-kwe Bedard

9. Water Walk Pedagogy / Violet Caibaiosai

10. A Response to Pascua Lama / Cecilia Vicuna

Part III: Shared Ethical and Embodied Practices

11. Moving with Water: Relationship and Responsibilities / Alannah Young Leon and Denise Marie Nadeau

12. Bodies of Water: Meaning in Movement / Seonagh Odhiambo Horne

13. Upstream: A Conversation with Water / Cathy Stubington

14. Ice Receding, Books Reseeding / Basia Irland

15. Tsunami Chant / Wang Ping

Part IV: A Respectful Co-existence in Common: Water Perspectives

16. Listening to the Elders at the Keepers of the Water Gathering /Radha D'Souza

17. Coastal Waters in Distress from Excessive Nutrients / Paul J. Harrison

18. Bodies of Water: Asian Canadians In/Action with Water /Janey Lew

19. Permeable Toronto: A Hydro-Eutopia / Janine MacLeod

20. Saturate/Dissolve: Water for Itself, Un-Settler Responsibilities, and Radical Humility / Larissa Lai

21. Bring Me Back / Janet Rogers