 Hello and thank you everyone for joining us today to celebrate our climate writer in residence Katlia Lafferty. My name is Kendra Sakamoto and I am a librarian here at West Vancouver Memorial Library. I would like to acknowledge that I am on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Squamish, Slewa Tooth and Muscleum Nation. I personally am extremely grateful to live in this beautiful place that the Coast Salish peoples have been the careful caretakers of since I'm the memorial. It has been an honor to spend these past three months working with Katlia and learning from those people who have always lived in harmony with the land. May we all remember to walk respectfully in the footsteps of those who came before us. Today we are delighted to celebrate the residency that Katlia Lafferty is completing. As we speak this is the final event in this inaugural climate writer in residence position and it's been so exciting to work with Katlia and to have her engage with the community of West Vancouver over these past three months. Katlia is a Northern Dene novelist from the Yellow Nines Dene First Nation. Her memoir Northern Wildflower was the top selling book in the Northwest Territories on release and is used as a teaching tool in Indigenous literary studies across the world. Her recently released novel Land, Water, Sky was placed on the Scotiabank-Gillar Prize, Craving Can Lit List, was nominated for an Indigenous Voices Award and is the 2022 recipient of the North Words Book Award. She is currently in her third year of the Juris Doctorate in Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders with the University of Victoria. Her forthcoming novel, This House is Not a Home, will be released this fall. And welcome Katlia. Hello, thank you so much for that warm introduction Kendra. So yes, my name is Katlia, that is my Dene name. I am from Sambacay Northwest Territories, Yellow Nines. I was raised primarily by my grandmother, Alice Lafferty, who is Chippewan Dene and Clichot. And she was raised on an island called Nishi Island in the North Arm of the Great Slade Lake, where she lived predominantly off the land until she was in her early 20s. She lived completely off grid with no running water, no electricity. She stored her food in the ground to keep it cold in the permafrost and washed her clothes in the lake. And it was at the time of the Hudson Bay, where she lived, it was the first Hudson Bay trading post area in the Northwest Territories and her father was a trapper. So thank you so much for to the library for inviting me to do this presentation. So I'll be doing a run through of the different programs and projects that we have put on throughout the lifespan of the residency, starting with book clubs. We did a tell your story program. We did the an indigenous climate panel and elders workshop in Squamish community. I've completed several blogs. I've been in conversation with Monique Grace Smith, among other authors. I've done school visits. And there's been quite a number of bonuses or what I call extras throughout this residency that I'll discuss. And last but not least, I have been able to focus on some of my own writing, which includes my upcoming novel, This House is Not a House. So for the Breeding Sweetgrass Book Club, which I don't have a book of right now because I've lent it out is such a beloved book. Robin Wall Kimmer really takes us on a journey of her personal experience as a botanist, but also as someone who grew up on the land and had a connection to the land from her indigenous perspective and background. And so we really discussed several themes throughout the book that related to climate change, including the honorable harvest and the importance of that. And then we invited local Duke elder Jeff Welsh to attend the circle and talk to us about cedar as he is a harvester in his area. And he knows all about cedar and and how to harvest it and how to weave and create beautiful roses and all kinds of things out of cedar. So he really gave us a treat by participating and being our future elder. And also Kendra, one of the librarians, she was able to collect seashells with her children and also bring in some sweet grass for the participants and we created bundles that included seashells from the territory that we are living on and the sweet grass and the cedar that was provided by Jeff and we were able to give those away as gifts. Then next we did the indigenous book club and I do have a copy here in front of me. And as you can see I've got it all posted up on the important pages that really talk about climate change from an indigenous lens again. Caroline Hilton is a local author to the island here. And we had a great discussion. It was a smaller group but we had a great discussion about the intersection between climate change and the economy. And what is really going to take to make a big shift from where we are now to an economy that really devotes and protect to the protection of the environment. And what it would look like for indigenous peoples to take a true authentic seat at the economic table in order to address climate initiatives. Then we did probably one of my favorite projects, which was the tell your story program. Nature is character. So from saving the trees in the Amazon to chameleons gorillas wheat fields glaciers fish bears wolves and significant temperature changes. A group of children came together to create an anthology that is going to cover many aspects of climate change in the eyes of the small group of aspiring young authors. And they've crafted clever, beautiful masterpieces all on their own, albeit with a little bit of help from myself and reanon from the library. We gave them some helpful suggestions and prompts along the way. There were 13 participants in total ranging from ages eight to 13 and they worked so hard on their stories in such a short amount of time we only have four days over the spring break. For them to really start off their stories from idea through the development process and all along the way they were very engaged and excited about how their stories were progressing. Some students opted to hand draw illustrations such as this one here. And they've also submitted graphic designs which have really informed the cover and the pages within. So it was a joy to be a part of this experience and really help guide young learners and young authors to the tell your story program in their journey of exploring what nature as character really means for them, and giving voice to nature through writing. They were able to really capture and portray the scope of the project successfully. And they were also able to learn some helpful tips on how to take care of themselves if they are experiencing climate anxiety, and what they can do in playing their part in protecting the environment. So, all that to say, the book will be coming out shortly reanon is working on it now as we speak, and the children have collectively decided to name it nature rules, which I think is a great title. So one of the last programs that we did with the residency was the indigenous climate change panel where we asked a group of local knowledge experts from across the nation to come together and talk about some in depth conversation around the issues that we're seeing in community in terms of climate change and what we can do about it some of the solutions. So indigenous climate activists like brandy more and panic pack leticia pocky act and Dr. Nicole Redburns, who is also from the Northwest Territories. And we really listen to how their, their perspectives on the fight against the climate crisis from an indigenous perspective. Brandy more in is a trained journalists, who actually just recently returned from Europe where she was a part of the congregation that went to seek an apology from the pope for the residential school systems. And she told us quite a lot of great information, including giving us a glimpse into her latest book. And we had Buddy Joseph, who is husband to Chief Janice George from the Squamish nation, which we were great to have him he is a local knowledge expert with plenty of knowledge from community. And then we had Dr. Nicole Redburns, who is the author of the science of the sacred connecting the health of the land to the health of oneself and our communities. And panic pack leticia pocky act who is from tech toy up tech Northwest Territories. And she is an Inuit anthropologist who recently won a very prestigious award for her meaningful research on consultation when it comes to industrial development. And the questions that we asked were what compelled them to contribute their knowledge in a wider capacity to the protection of the land and water plants and animals. And what ways are they able to share their teachings that can help others join the fight of climate justice and awareness of global warming. And lastly, how in their view does the economy and the impacts of colonization contribute to climate change. Okay, so next together with the Squamish nation climate action strategy team, we were able to host a climate theme sharing circle where we invited elders to share their knowledge of the land and their thoughts on how we can protect the land for generations to come. And the questions like how have the land and waters changed in your lifetime. What did you learn from elders about caring for the land. How is climate change impacting your community. And what do you want your grandchildren to know so that they may do it land for the next seven generations. What we heard was the importance of the Capilano River, and how they were once able to drink directly from the river where they can't now. And in Squamish, we heard that they need support in their fight against encroachment on their lands. So for the blogs. I do have to admit that I had a bit of a hard time condensing the importance of the climate emergency into just a few short paragraphs. And so I think I really tasked the cashel to really have to edit out quite a bit and prioritize what what needed to go out into the world. So, I've done bi weekly blogs, one called a time of great change, another one called women in the climate crisis, one about the need for water, and one about protecting the public interest and there are two more to come. One that will be wrapping up my residency. I had a conversation with Monique Grace Smith, local author here in Laquungen territory on her adaptation of breeding sweetgrass she is going to be. She is in the process right now of adapting breeding sweetgrass into a young adult read. It was a really engaging conversation to really get behind the scenes of what it's like to have to do that type of work. And she's given us a sneak peek into the book, which should be out in the fall of this year. And then I did some school visits, all online of course, but nonetheless, they were very engaging. I met with capital and all university students who were in their first year of journalism school and talk to them about some tips and tricks to good reporting. I helped them to get excited about pitching on climate issues to bring education and awareness to the subject and how to make it a priority in their work and in the news. I met with grade six West Cloud elementary students who had really great questions and sometimes put me on the spot with their very specific science oriented questions so good to them, good on them. Next, for the bonuses and extras, there were so many to list but a few that I've decided to place here are the fact that Surrey Catholic high school art students had requested to draw my portrait, which was very flattering. The Federation of Teachers of BC have asked me to contribute to their next magazine for climate change article that centers around the importance of place based teachings. And I will be extending my visit with elder Jeff Welsh out in soup in the next few weeks where I will be accompanying him when he gathers his cedar and I will be filming the process so that we can share it with the library on Truth and Reconciliation Day. So you can look out for that as well. I was invited to an enymo elders literary circle where I got to sit with a group of women who told me about the changes that they have seen on the land similar to the workshops with the elders and Squamish Nation, and that was really great to be a part of that as they are a group of willing women who do not know how to read or write but really are actively attending classes, literacy classes to do that work and to learn. Then I was asked by the United Church to do a talk on the intersection between climate change and religion which I found very fruitful conversation. And lastly, very exciting news from Cook McDermott Agency, Stephanie Sinclair a literary agent reached out to me after having heard that I was a climate writer in residence here, and asked me to put together proposal for a nonfiction book that will pretty much gather a lot of the work that I've done throughout this residency, talking about climate change from an indigenous perspective, because I don't think that there's that much literature out there on that subject and it's a very important factor to make sure to include when talking about climate change. And lastly for the extras, I got to meet with a woman named Linda France in London, who is the only other climate writer in residence that we know of in the world. We got to sit down over zoom and discuss our emotions about being tasked with this responsibility of being climate writer and what that's like for us. We decided to go forth and write poetry to each other in the form of letters, where we will do this over time and share with the library and share with other outlets that are willing to publish our poetry. And I actually wanted to read a little snippet of the first letter that she wrote to me. Settle down to start the first letter to you in Canada. The wind follows me indoors. The empty hearth gushes with down drop our chimney pot a mouthpiece of the sky flute, blowing my ears full of it, rinsed of any thought. Tell me how it is where you are, how you are touched by the changes in the weather, and the work you do this intractable task we share of ninting sentences for what can't be said, spinning a new language out of the old, closer to the land under our feet. Here in my hand, I look it up 4500 miles apart. And last but not least, I am sharing with you a sneak peek of my next novel, This House is Not a Home. And the cover is actually not available for public viewing yet. So this is the first that any of the public has seen the cover. And I am going to read a little bit of this book for you. Leading up to that, I guess I could. So this house is not a home is centered around the housing system, particularly in the Northwest Territories and the issues with the housing system. And the main character co for the setup of what I'm about to read, he is very conflicted having to live in housing. All he wants to do is to be able to live back out on the land. But he has to work to pay the bills to live in a unit that he does not want to live in, that he was dispossessed from the land and forced to assimilate and have to live in housing. So this is his rendition of what he's going through and having to work in a mind that he that goes against everything that he believes in. The pressure of having to find a way to pay bills was too much for co and he gave in. No longer could he tinker around and help in the community for free. He had to bring money into the household with sea working to make ends meet it was only right that he contribute to. But each minute he spent down in those cramped dark tunnels surrounded by the oldest rocks in the world named after his only son was unsettling the cold damp hollow mine shaft only served as a reflection of how he felt inside. And it didn't take long for the conflict to show up in his body. He was sore all the time, every joint ligament and bone ached, even when he was a home he couldn't get away from work. And his partially thought living room window steamed in condensation from the heat of the wood stove that he illegally installed to lower the cost of heat bill after their power was shut off. Co had a miserable view of the old wooden mineshaft. It's rickety and decrepit looking frames stood like a curse across the lake, destroying what was once an uninterrupted view. He could never understand how such an entity such a force could do so much damage by human hands. The land had been turned into a money making machine, driven by greed. In his mind, the mine was a murderer, the manpower behind it gave it its strength, but it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Co knew that the constant taking could never allow for nature to coexist. The mine was disruptive in every way imaginable, and it could only lead to a place there was no coming back from. The passage of time proved that Co was right about one thing. The mine was a force so powerful that it set out on a rampage of murders that no one could stop. Mine production was not carefully maintained and the pollution coming out of the smokestacks landing on the banks of creeks began to kill off the animals first. Workers reported seeing entire schools of fish floating in the creeks, mallards turned up dead, their eggs not able to hatch. Even a family of beavers were found rigor mortis near a dam. All had the markings of poisoning. Even the scavengers left them alone, sniffing at a sickness that humans couldn't. With all these findings still the mine didn't stop production. Mine management turned a blind eye to what was happening to the animals whose habitats happened to be in the vicinity. It was only when the ravens started dropping from the sky in town that people started to question why falling from the sky the front page of the newspaper read with a picture of a dead bird on the ground. It was common to see the odd dead raven on the ground next to a power pole zapped by the electrical current and causing the power all over the town to go out but this was different. Mine workers knew that the ravens were eating the leftover lunch they had tossed down to the ground behind the cafeteria left to rot into the soil. The ravens had set up their nests under the ledges of some of the higher buildings like the mine shaft itself for easy access to food scraps. When the ravens started coming into town though they were sending a message that something wasn't right. Abandoning their nest they came by the thousands darkening the sky in the middle of the day with their black wings. They perched on the main government building making a mess of the siding. It got to be so bad that the government workers could no longer work with Constance walking and janitors were tasked with cleaning up ladders, climbing up ladders to install spikes so that the ravens wouldn't land on the windowsills before falling mysteriously to their death on the sidewalk below. Next it was the fish. When co-checked his traps he was turning up bug-eyed looking fish in the bay near the mine, some with only one eye or three gills, some filled with a bright green slime and an overwhelming odor seeping from their stomachs when cut open. Co brought one home to show sea after turning up more than one. I think we should report this. I've tried, they won't listen, Co said. People are going to get sick if they eat this, she said as she held her nose closed from the stench of the deformed fish laid out on the table in front of her on a black garbage bag. I'm throwing it back, one of the critique from Townsbound to report it. From now on we don't eat fish until we figure out what's going on. Do you think? Sea didn't want to say it but she looked out at the mine in accusation. I don't know what to think anymore. I sure as hell hope not, but what else could it be? Co took in a deep breath. If it is, do you think they'll shut it down? Not a chance. So stay tuned for This House is Not a Home will be published with Fernwood-Roseway in print in, I believe, August of this year. And that's it for this presentation. There's a few photos of the actual giant mine that is actually a very contaminated mine. Probably the most contaminated mine in the world, sitting on 325 tons of inorganic arsenic that many people do not know what to do with. Otherwise, I mean, I don't want to end it on a doom and gloom note, but I want to say thank you so much to the library for putting this important, important residency on. I hope it continues on. I hope this is just the start. I hope that libraries all over Turtle Island tune in and realize how important libraries are in bridging connection to community and to addressing the climate initiative and climate change far and wide. I mean, it doesn't it's not only left to government officials to make the changes that need to be made. Libraries and schools and all sorts of organizations can also be helping to do this work and just kudos to the library for doing such an amazing job in getting this going. And I just want to say thank a special thank you to Kendra Sakamoto, Rhiannon Wallace, and everyone else that's helped make this such a great residency for me. And I just I'm so thankful, Masicho. Thank you, Katlia, so much for that incredible presentation. It's been wonderful to relive all of the amazing work that you've done over the past three months. I have especially appreciated this residency because you've spent so much time focusing on the solutions. So rather than focusing on the very overwhelming and oftentimes scary problems, you've really brought out solutions and given so much advice on what we can be doing, especially hearing from the youth and the school classes that you've worked with. It's been really inspiring to hear what the youth are thinking on this topic. So I'm just wondering, as we move forward, what recommendation do you have to the community of West Vancouver? Well, I think you really just said it. I think we really need to listen to our youth at this point. Our youth are engaged and they know they understand what is happening when it comes to climate change. They're innovative thinkers. They're not afraid to think outside of the box. And right now that's what we really need. And we need to educate our parents on how important it is to recycle and to compost and to reduce our usage of energy and look to solutions that we can do on our own, such as walking or biking to work, small things like that, or making sure to turn the light out when you leave the room. So it's not out of our hands completely. We definitely can do our part in every way we live our daily life. But we can also hold our leaders to task as well. And in one way to do that is to really get on the side of Indigenous Nations because they are doing that work right now. Thank you. And because we are a library, of course, our final question, what are three books that everyone should be reading right now? Well, I in fact have them right here in front of me. The first one that is up for some awards I just heard recently is Luciam's Plants. A Traditional Indigenous Foods, Materials, and Medicines, written by Dr. Luciam Arvid Charlie and Nancy J. Turner. So you can get this at the library. It's a beautiful book with just great, vibrant, vivid photos throughout. It's beautiful. Then we have Fresh Banana Leaves that I'm currently reading right now. I love it so much. I've been dog-earing the pages, which I know is some people would not like that. This is written by Jessica Hernandez, Dr. Jessica Hernandez, and it's a great read. It really talks about the Indigenous science and the healing Indigenous landscapes all across not only Turtle Island but internationally as well. And then we have Ground Swell. It's an Indigenous Knowledge and Call to Action for Climate Change, edited by Joe Neidhart and Nicole Neidhart. And this is really, I think, similar to what I'm going to be trying to achieve with Stephanie Sinclair at McDermott Agency, something that is very interactive for readers to really engage themselves on this paradigm shift that we're really trying to achieve here through climate change initiatives. So those are my three top picks. Excellent. And we do, of course, have all three of those books at the library. Again, thank you, Katlia, so much for this incredible residency. It's been truly an honor to work with you and it's been so much fun to watch you engage with the community. And of course, because of the virtual world, we've been able to reach people outside of West Vancouver as well, which has been really special. And I'm just very grateful to you for your time and for these past three months that we've gotten to spend together. To everyone watching, if you're watching this video, you are eligible to win a prize. We have some book prizes available. So check out our website or our social media networks or social media platforms to see how to enter the contest. And you can win a climate themed book as well as a medicine bundle that Katlia and I put together. So be sure to check that out so you can enter the contest. Katlia has a couple more blogs and all of her blogs are still available on our website and some of the programs she has done throughout her residency are available on our YouTube channel. So make sure you check out our website to find all of those things and we look forward to seeing you in the library. And again, Katlia, thank you so much. It's truly been an honor. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone.