 Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today for the official launch of our climate writer in residence, Katlia Lafferty. My name is Kendra Sakamoto. I'm a librarian here at West Vancouver Memorial Library. Before we get started, I just have a few Zoom items to share. Today we will be using closed captions for the hearing impaired. You can enable or disable this feature using the live transcript option on your menu. Please understand that these captions are done automatically by Zoom, so it may not be a perfectly accurate transcription. We will have an opportunity for questions throughout the program today, so please use the Q&A feature on your menu to type in any questions that you may have for Katlia. You may also use the Q&A feature if you need any technical support. We will not be using the chat or the raise hand features. While I recognize that we are all in different places this afternoon, I would like to acknowledge that for those of us on the North Shore, we are on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Squamish, Slewa Tooth, and Musqueam Nations. If you are uncertain as to which ancestral territory you live on, I encourage you to visit whose.land to learn more about the traditional lands on which you reside. The threat of a climate crisis has been looming for quite some time. Its effects have been felt around the world, particularly in places that rely on colder temperatures, such as Canada's North. Recently, the crisis has moved closer to home. This past year BC has been devastated by numerous extreme weather events, the effects of which we are seeing right here in West Vancouver. Now is the time for action and we must come together to create meaningful solutions and look to the indigenous communities who know how to live sustainably. I personally am extremely grateful to live in this beautiful place that the Coast Salish peoples have been the careful caretakers of since time immemorial. I am honored for this opportunity to learn from those people who have always lived in harmony with the land. Today we are honored to be joined by Chief Janice George, who will offer a traditional welcome to this place. Chief Janice is a hereditary chief of the Squamish Nation. She is a trained museum curator, educator, and a master weaver. Chief Janice co-founded the Lehen-Aut weaving house to share the teachings and practice of traditional Coast Salish wool weaving. And she co-authored the book, Salish Flankets, Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth. Chief Janice's weaving exhibition, Weaving the Future, will be on display at the Bill Reed Gallery in Vancouver through the end of January. And you can also watch her incredibly moving TED Talk, The Spirit Moves Like a Storm, on YouTube. Welcome Chief Janice. Thank you so much Kendra. I'm really honored to be here today to welcome you. This is an important, important event, important subject, and I'm so grateful for this artist and residents that you have this writer in residence. I just want to welcome you to where I am now. I'm in the Epilano Reserve and I want you to, I want to welcome you from my perspective to Squamish territory and talk about how important it is when we talk about the environment and taking care of where we live. Our ancestors have done this from the beginning of time. As I have told the story before about the repatriation of the Squamish Nation ancestors from Stanley Park. And to me what it said they were minimum 4,000 years old, so 4 to 8,000 years old is what they were dated at. And I was able to view these ancestors with my grandmother, who at the time was 95, and had given me many teachings in my life, who I looked up to and who gave me unconditional love like our grandmothers do. And passed along a lot of teachings from her ancestors, her mother, her grandmother, and her grandmother's mother. And, you know, right back to, you know, we know we have this information from the beginning of time, how we took care of the land and how we thought of the future generations. And Poet and Squalowyn, my sister-in-law taught me, Poet and Squalowyn, it means blow my mind, which I think is so cool that they're making these new phrases from the language we speak today. But, you know, talking about those elders and ancestors that loved us, you know, those 4,000 to 8,000 years ago, and how we remember people, and we might not know those ancestors' names, but we live in honor of them. Those of us who know this story, and I think we can all do this, we can all radiate that energy, gather that energy, and hold it, and it will give us strength. How they took care of this beautiful place for us, all of us that live here, and how, you know, it's our responsibility to carry on that, live in honor of that. And we all want to live here because it's so beautiful. And I'm really proud of that. I'm so proud of that. I'm amazed every day that I get to live here, that I get to be here and walk where my ancestors walked, and the only reason is because they did that work. So we can all think of doing that work for, you know, the next people who come and live here. So they carry it on as well. I think it's the best, one of the best teachings I have from the ancestors is to take care of this place, our food, where we draw our strength from, the energy from the prayers that are left here by our ancestors. So I just want to thank you for being here at this important, important event. Thank you, Janice, for that. And thank you so much for being here with us today, Janice. I'm so grateful, and I'm so grateful to host this event on your beautiful land. And I'm so grateful to collaborate with you and with the Squamish Nation on some of the events that Katlia will be working on during this residency. It's truly an honor. Thank you. All right. So, today, we have a very special guest and attendance that I would just like to welcome. Karen Kirk-Patrick is the member of the Legislative Assembly for West Vancouver Capilano. And I'm so grateful, Karen, that you were able to be here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us. This afternoon, we are absolutely delighted to introduce you to our first ever climate writer-in-residence, Katlia Lafferty. And Katlia will be in residence with us through mid-April. She will strive to give voice to the climate emergency with an Indigenous perspective, both through her writing and through events and workshops for library patrons of all ages. Katlia is a Northern Dene novelist from the Yellow Nives Dene First Nation. Her memoir, Northern Wildflower, was the top-selling book in the Northwest Territories upon release and is used as a teaching tool in Indigenous literary studies across Turtle Island. Her recently released novel, Land, Water, Sky, was placed on the Scotia Bank Giller Prize Craving Can Lit List and was nominated for an Indigenous Voices Award. Katlia is currently in her third year of the Juris Doctor in Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders with the University of Victoria. Today, Katlia will be joined by Sheila Rogers. Sheila is a veteran broadcast journalist at the CBC, currently the host and a producer of the next chapter, a radio program devoted to writing in Canada. In 2011, she was inducted as an honorary witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Also that year, she was inducted into the Order of Canada as an officer for promoting Canadian culture, adult literacy, mental health, and truth and reconciliation. In 2016, she received the first ever Margaret Trudeau Award for Mental Health Advocacy. She holds eight honorary doctorates. Sheila is a Chancellor Emerita of the University of Victoria. 100 years ago, her great-grandmother, Edith Rogers, was the first woman and the first Métis woman elected to the Manitoba Legislature. Sheila is a member of the Métis nation of Great Victoria, of Greater Victoria. Welcome, Sheila and Katlia. It's so wonderful to have you both here today. Thank you. Hi, thank you very much, Kendra. And also, Heishka Siam to Chief Janice George for such a beautiful welcome. It felt like a blanketing itself and a really beautiful reminder to be thinking about the ancestors and she called them into the room, which was lovely. Katlia, it's so nice to meet you. How are you? I'm great. I'm excited. Yeah, me too. What does it mean to be a climate writer in residence? Well, it's a very big responsibility and I'm taking it very seriously. We have an emergency on our hands that we need to bring people together and connect and talk about. And that's basically what this role is. And I'm just thankful that I have the opportunity to do this work. I wonder before we go further, would you like to introduce yourself more about who you are and, well, really, as they would say in Newfoundland, who knit you together? Sure, yeah. So I was primarily raised by my grandparents. My grandmother Alice Lafferty was born and raised in Denendee on an island called Nishi in the north arm of the Great Slave Lake and she grew up there on the land until she was in her 20s and moved into Yellowknife, which we call Sonbacay, Northwest Territories. And there she met my papa, who was from the Lacklabish area. He was Métis, his mother was Faucry, and his father was American. And my grandmother's parents, my grandmother's name is Alice Lafferty, and her grandmother was named Catherine, whom I'm named after. Catherine Bouvier, and she's a very big name in the north. She's a matriarch and she was one of the first women to, well, she was the first woman to be a male carrier to all the different communities by dog teams. So she was very strong. And she was the granddaughter of Francois Beaulieu, who led Alexander Mackenzie down the Mackenzie River. So there's a lot of history there, but I'm still exploring, but those are my roots. And my grandmother was Clichot Chippewan, and her father was French. Thank you, Masicho, for filling it out a little bit more. And what a fascinating history. Do you feel the presence of your ancestors as you're doing this work? I do. Yes, I have their pictures beside me, and I feel like they're smiling at me, and they're just helping me along. And I think I just feel like I'm on the right track, and I always have their strength. One of the questions that has already come up is what is a writer-in-residence, and what does a writer-in-residence do, Katlia? Well, I've been wondering that myself, and I'm working really closely with Kendra, the coordinator on this project, and together we're developing some programs that will help us to really just figure out what's going to work the best for getting the message across. This is my first residency, so we'll see how it goes, but I know that there is one other climate writer in the world who's still active right now. She's in the UK, and I reached out to her actually. She's a poet, so hopefully we can have her join us as well at some point throughout the residency. It's kind of a different time to have a residency, because you can't be actually literally in residence. How are you going to compensate for the fact that you can't be there in the flesh quite yet? Yeah, I mean, I guess we do have some great technology that can still bring us together. We can still do sharing circles. I'll be doing a lot of blogging, so I'm hoping to get some feedback from my blogs. And just generating that discussion, we'll be having different writing workshops online where we'll meet and then we'll go and write and then we'll come back into the circle and talk about what we've written. I think it will work just fine, and it will also be able to bring people in from all over, so not just the West Vancouver area, which is great, like it's so great that we're going to have that participation from the patrons there, but we'll also be able to have my fellow Northerners be invited. And I think that's just great because we have a lot of, we're seeing a lot of climate change in the North, particularly with extreme weather and just there's so many things happening in the North that I think the rest of the country really needs to pay attention to. What can the North tell the South? Well, I mean, there are, when I was working for the Trans-Battery Water Agreement, trying to get an agreement with Alberta to help protect our water from downstream pollution from the oil sands. We met with indigenous groups, indigenous nations all across the Northwest Territories, asking about how they feel about the impacts of the oil sands. And what we heard was, we heard so much from land, like people that go out on the land and other changes that they were seeing and how dangerous it is now to travel on the land in different times. It's hard to rely on the weather patterns now. It could be really dangerous crossing the lake. It's not certain that the lake is frozen. There's melting permafrost, which are affecting homes. There's severe drought. There's severe flooding. We've seen a big flood last year, last summer in Jean-Marie. There's still trying to deal with the impacts of that. And then there's rampant forest fires that are only getting worse every year. So there's a lot that's happening. And then in the far Arctic, we are seeing the glacial melt. And I think that that just needs to be the topic of discussion. When you give the list of what's going on, the litany of insults to the land, essentially, what is it that keeps you going and that gives you hope? Well, for me, I really feel that because Indigenous peoples have Section 35 rights, we have our Aboriginal rights. We are and have always been the gatekeepers and the stewards of the land. We've always taken care of the land since time immemorial, as Chief Jonas had mentioned. It is really unfortunate that the fate of the planet is actually landing in Indigenous peoples' hands. But we're the best ones to be able to stop what's happening, stop development and industry from continuing to further devastate the land. We're seeing it all over the world, not just here on Turtle Island. We're seeing Indigenous peoples in Ecuador and Bolivia setting out declarations on the rights of Mother Earth and doing really great work there. So I think we're all kind of coming together and through globalization, we can really do that. Before in the past, when industry was taking over, we had no idea what was happening in another corner of the world, but now we do. I think that an agent that kind of brings people together is a library. So I'd like to ask you what plans are starting to gel in your mind for what you would like to do in your residency? Yeah, for sure. So libraries are a great place to start and some people might think that climate discussion should be in an institution like a university, but the library is a great place. And so we're doing quite a few, we're going to be rolling out quite a few programs. We're going to be doing book clubs. We're going to be looking at braiding sweetgrass as one of the book clubs, and we are lucky to have Monique Grace Smith come and join us to do a talk on her process of turning that into a piece of work that's not a fictional piece of work. So that's super exciting. And then we're also going to be doing a book club for indigenomics, Caroline Hilton's indigenomics. And I often say that some people might not make the connection between the economy and climate change, but it definitely is connected. So we're going to look at how how that is connected to global warming and climate change. So we're going to be working with some youth on nature as character. So we're going to be going through choosing a place we're going to really ground ourselves and talk about how important place based learning is and knowing where you are in the world, and acknowledging the land that you're on, and putting down the phones and putting down the social media and going outside and actually just taking in the fresh air or going near the ocean and just being one with nature. And then we're going to write about it. So we're going to choose an element that we want to base our writing around the perspective of so whether that be a flower or tree or the ocean we can be that we can immerse ourselves in that and be that and then we're going to walk through what a conflict would look like and then what the solution would look like. So we're also going to be having some conversations around climate anxiety, which is something that is a huge thing right now for youth especially. And then yeah there's a few other programs we're going to be working with some elders I believe in some of the nations the surrounding nations Squamish Fisher on building a program around the seven generations which is based on the journey principles of taking care of the land for the next seven generations generations ahead of us and what that looks like so that's a lot of work in action. And yeah I'll be doing my own writing projects and also some media training with Capilano University Media training, I mean I'm very interested I guess as a member of the media but what does the media, what does the media, what do the media need to know. Well I think I personally don't feel that the media is not really talking about it as much like when I hear about tornadoes or I hear about earthquakes and things I don't often hear that paired with climate change or global warming. And I think that that really needs to be amped up a bit more so we're going to talk about how we can pitch to the media as freelancers on different issues that we see in our communities. And I've been doing a lot of freelance work so I feel like I'm in the position to be able to do some of that work. Mostly I think media can really do a lot in terms of educating the public on things that we might not necessarily know about especially things that are taking place in the government regulations and things like that that aren't moving fast enough. And it kind of lights a fire under them to be able to do that work once it gets out into the public and the public is like well why isn't this already happening when we have all these targets that we need to meet so I think media is huge it's very crucial to incorporate into this residency. I think one of the things that media have to get over is the idea that oh yeah well we did climate change last night so we don't have to do it again tonight right but the impacts are daily and they're varied. How do you think you can convince media to change with is a very set way of operating. Yeah the media tends to move along very quickly we see that all the time. And I think the more they're open to hearing pitches from angles that might not suit their agendas, then the better and if we are going to smaller media outlets as well in community. I think it will reach out to the majority that wants to know about these things and wants to hear about the importance of climate change and how that factors into making sure that policies are changed. Good luck. But I think that kind of training is really really important and thank you for stirring it up I think it's so necessary. The other thing I just wanted to ask you from the wonderful list of hopes for what you're going to do during your residency. I just want to ask you about nature as a character in writing and and how that will change people's approach to the environment. Well I just feel that we need to first have that connection. I mean especially people living in cities are not quite connected to nature as they'd like to think they are. It's just important to get out once a day at least and get into nature and hug a tree or wherever that whatever that may be I know myself personally if I don't get out for a walk once a day. I feel like I can't get a deep breath like a really good deep breath and it's just so important we've forgotten it along the way somewhere. We've forgotten how important and how connected we are to the environment around us and how it feeds our soul and nourishes us and we've we've just gone way too. We've hit this imbalance and so grounding ourselves and bringing us ourselves back into whatever wherever space we are in is super important and to do that we need to immerse ourselves in it and recognize how important nature is and then with this nature as character program will be doing that will be kind of giving the children homework to do that and hopefully they'll bring their parents with them and and do that work but also I think it's important to understand that yes we'll come up against the conflict but we're also going to come up against some solutions and so the solutions are really where we need to focus right now we all know what the problem is we just need to now start figuring out what the solution is and some people. You know there are new series still about global warming and climate change of course, but the fact of the matter is is that we all just need to go back to caring for the planet and eating locally and just being very careful about our purchases and our consumerism and where we get our water from it and all these things and you know, walking or biking instead of driving. So we all can make these small incremental changes to make a big difference and sometimes just like voting like people don't really think one vote counts but it sure does right like at the end of the day if we all do your part, we can make sure to change it so I know that this residency might not reach as much people as I want but I think it's it's going to probably start happening in other libraries as well after this. It's super exciting and I mean this is a first and it's such an honor to be speaking with you about the residency. We've got questions coming in and I'm going to turn to some of them now. This one is from Douglas and Douglas writes, Canada is one of roughly 20 countries whose per capita ecological footprint is mostly responsible for the overshoot that is causing biodiversity and climate stability collapse. And I think that the planetary simplicity exemplified by these lands first nations be enough to nurture a future for all of our children. That is such a good question. Yeah, I mean, we're seeing the protests right now. As people are leading the way in those protests, stopping the pipeline. I mean, by the time that pipeline is built, it will no longer be necessary. It's just, we are on the front lines and we need allies to make these huge changes and we're being arrested because we're doing the work of protecting mother nature and that is so wrong on so many levels it's so unnecessary. For instance, where their protesters are being surveillance now as potential, you know, not terrorist but very closely to that they're being monitored on every level of their life now because they're protesting for something that is so important to them and something that is on their own land. So, I think it just has to keep on going and we need really brave brave people to be on those front lines and to continue. And then we also need the policymakers to listen we need. There's so many fires that we need to fight every single day and it's so hard to know where to go or which fight to fight some day to day and some of these fights are going to take a lifetime unfortunately and I don't think we really have that much time. Our leadership in like the political leaders of Canada really need to step up and make these changes and if that is going to damage the reputation they need to take that risk because right now that's that's what it's going to take to change regulations and to change corporations that they're partnered with, especially the power corporations who aren't wanting to let go of or make the switch to green energy as fast as they should be. We only have, I think till 2030 until we see a drop in temperature at 1.5 degrees and that is going to change the world significantly and we're heading towards to change and that's going to be catastrophic. So, we need to get the ball rolling and that's going to take all hands on deck and everyone to put their, put their necks out and if that means that they're going to be putting their livelihood on the line well that that might be what it's going to have to take. Just related to, to all hands on deck and ally ship this is a question from Will. Sorry, it's it's a question from, I just lost it. Yeah, from Chrissy, thank you pardon and I'll get to you will I promise. How can a regular citizen like myself be an ally to indigenous people and make real positive change for the planet. Thanks Chrissy. I think I would start by researching and looking into the place where you live and acknowledging the territories that that you're on all across Canada. Every single person is living on a First Nations territory or indigenous area. So I would start by that and then looking at the battles that they're up against we are all up against battles where there's so much environmental racism and communities and on reserves. There's always something to be doing and I think picking up the phone or going well maybe not walking into the band office or something right now with COVID but picking up the phone and calling and just finding out what's going on in that community is helpful and I think right now. We need all the help we can get everywhere. I mean there's so much happening all over the place so it's it would be welcome. Okay, thanks very much Chrissy. This is now I've lost will there's will as a community engaged theater artist I would welcome hearing what insights or perspectives about climate change activism. You feel are most important to amplify through the arts, and that's from will through the arts. Yeah, that's a great question. I think sharing circles are really wonderful brainstorming and collaborating with other people is super helpful. If you want to get your message across. It's just, there's so many ways you can do that it doesn't have to be just one type of writing you can do nonfiction you can you can do metaphorics, you can do poetry. The sky is the limit and I think it's just all about bringing people together to start that discussion and talking about how important our planet Earth is and how we need to save it and we don't want to leave it we want to stay here and take care of it so. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a question from Susan, and, and the question is how can we learn about indigenous foods that grew on, well in this case the North Shore. And how can we incorporate those foods into our diet and decrease food waste that comes from Susan. Yeah, I mean, again, you would have to go to your local nation and talk to them and find out what they're doing. There's a lot of work being done in fisheries there's a lot of work being done in community gardens. And there's medicine walks and you can just engage yourself with those first nations and talk to them about what it is they're doing. And as you know throughout the years throughout efforts of assimilation indigenous peoples and teachings of medicines and plants, and that local knowledge has remained intact, despite what we might think that it might have been vanished or disappeared it's not it's very much strong and it's resilient and it's as strong as ever and only getting stronger so I would recommend that you go and speak to your first nations first and foremost and do some research online. There's a lot of research out there there is a group. I don't have the name on the top of my head right now but they're working with philanthropists right now on how to ensure that there's local food sovereignty in in BC. So I can, I can try to find that for you I've did a story on it with indigenous and if you need to do a search with indigenous you might find it. Thank you. And here's a question from Charlotte. How can we get a climate emergency message out to West Vancouver residents. How can this message be shared from Charlotte. Well, I think the message has been shared and, but maybe not as much and continually as it should be. So, that's part of my job I think is to try to get the word out there. There will be my blogs will be in the newsletter. If you have any feedback on the blogs or on what you would like me to put into the blogs. I can definitely speak to you about that if you want to email me. And then, if there's a certain concern that you have, we can we can talk about it and, but that that's my job is to really open up the conversation about the climate emergency and inspire West Vancouver residents, particularly to take action. And we'll talk about what that action will be. Once we get down to the issues that are in the community itself that the community is facing and I think it all comes down to where you are so in certain places there might not be there might be a really great community garden, but then there's an issue over here, like an abandoned mill or something that wants to be cleaned up so it just really depends on where you are and then once you figure out what the concerns are in that community then only then can you fix it you first need to know what the problem is right. Thank you for your answer. This is from Lois Little. Do you know Lois? I do. Yeah, hi Lois. She says congratulations on this residency Katlia. You're breaking trail for others. It would be wonderful if the Northwest Territories Territorial Library Services also did this. What advice would you have to get them thinking and doing this Massey from Lois here in Samba K. Well, I'll be going back home in the spring and one of my first stops is going to be the public library. And I think, you know, I have really great connections at the library now, but I think we'd have to go a little bit further and talk to the MLA's and see what they can do if they can put aside some funding to spread that out across the north so that we can have elders and knowledge keepers come in and talk about the impacts that they're seeing in the environment throughout the last couple of decades and the changes that they're seeing so that we can just talk about what what needs to be done and look at our once again look at in our community and say well does our community have any solar power set up do we have wind set up do we have any of these technologies that are generating energy for our community and also bringing in commission to our community for our health and wellness programs. For instance, like the first thing that comes to mind is the Vantat Gwichan and in the UConn territory they're doing amazing amazing work. I did a interview with the chief there. And he they're they're retrofitting the their green energy their solar power back to the power company and they're generating about $400,000 a year. That's going directly back to the community to help the community with whatever it is that they need and I think that we need to start talking about how that would look in in the Northwest Territories were neighbors to the UConn and we need to start. Sometimes I feel that the Northwest Territories is almost still a developing territory because we are a little bit behind when it comes to thinking innovatively. And I think that just there's there's so much more that that could be done and we just need those voices at the table to talk about how that can happen in a library is a perfect place to do that a library is welcoming and we have spaces available for that to happen so it should be happening and I definitely I can talk to some people I did a column last week to News North which is which reaches all across the Northwest Territories talking about how important it would be to have a climate writer and residents in all the libraries so I hope that happens. Thank you and I know there are people tuning in from all across Turtle Island and that's really, really exciting. I want to say welcome to everybody who's not here in the place known as British Columbia and welcome and Katlia it's a it's so great to hear your your thinking and your answers and you know you're having to be very spontaneous but through everything comes your passion and this yearning and you write about this yearning in your book Northern Wildflower. Where does it come from. Where does this yearning to make to seek justice come from. Well for me I mean I lived in poverty when I was young and I lived in housing and I lived in I had a lot of addiction in my family and I know it all stem now in my older years I know that it all came from colonization and the impact that that had on my family. And I think I just always really didn't put a lot of emphasis on money and I think that that's where I start to look to the way we live our lives right now it's really all centered around money and the importance of money and how much money you can get and capitalizing on this and that and that is a lot of where global warming is coming from and that is the reason why it's not stopping is because there's too much money invested into corporations that are polluting. And there's not there's nothing in it for the corporations that are going to turn the switch off and until there's something in it for them they're going to keep going as business as usual. And so I write about money in northern wildflower and how it was first introduced to the north. Not that long ago like people think money's been around for a long time I mean it has but in the north it really hasn't and there's a book called we remember the coming of the white man it's written. It's a compilation of stories by elders in the north talking about how they remember money coming into the communities and how it was useless to them. They're like we don't what's this going to do for us when while we're living out on the land. It looks like buttons like it's not going to help us at all and I think we have to remember that you know like at the end of the day. I've heard this said before it's going to be is it going to be money or is it going to be water is it going to be in water is and a clean earth. And that's really what it's coming down to and I think the if we simplify it like that and think of it like that it's not really that big of a problem when we really break it down to the very nitty gritty and it's money or nature. And that's why indigenous I think that book is really important. We'll look forward to your conversation that that sounds like it's going to be great as a book club as well. I've lost the person but I think it was Audrey who mentioned just thinking about foods and indigenous to the land here. She mentioned Dr. Nancy Turner and Nancy has worked up and down the coast with First Nations deeply deeply respectful of their practices compiling books about plants that are our indigenous to to this land and also taking great care to not include in her volumes plants that are sacred that have sacred uses that are very very special. So I would invite people to look up Nancy Turner. Most of what Nancy does. I don't know if you've ever seen her at UVic Katlia but when she gets up to give a lecture essentially what she does is she thanks all the elders that she's worked with and she shows pictures of the elders and always always humbly thanks them. And I know her book people places and plants I hope I've got that in the right order maybe her most recent one but they are absolutely worth investigating and Audrey thank you very much for that for that mention. Let's see okay Matthew. Since Matthew Rhodes writes since we don't have time since time is running out should we be spending our energy on art and writing and fiction instead of the entirely unsystemic changes to reduce warming is his question in a nutshell do we have time for art and writing. That's Matthew. Okay. Thank you Matthew for that question. I think throughout history writing has always given us a glimpse into the past like net right now we can look back on writing and see how what was happening before our time. And so in a way it's almost a time capsule where what we're documenting now we can use in the future. But also it's it's important because writing is healing and right now we're all going through climate anxiety in some way or another and in order and for us to come together and talk about something that's affecting all of us. I think it's just really important. And if a solution can come out of that, then that's great. But if not even just the act of doing that itself is healing for us and I think we can we can pair that again with you know going out in nature and really just immersing ourselves in in the world and being thankful for what we have now and hope that we can do our part to make sure that it stays that way for the future. So yeah I mean I hear you I hear you because I questioned that too. But I think also media will the media portion of the residency will really take off and it will be a really good way for participants to feel like that they could do more and doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be writing their own articles but they can. They can talk to their local reporter and be like hey there's an issue in my community and here's here's the here's what it here's what it is and can you please like make this known so that the public can know about it because once the public knows about it and public outrage happens. The government has to change they have to change based on public opinion so the more the public demand something to change the better but we can't demand any changes if we don't know what's happening behind the scenes and yes. This is supposed to be transparent but oftentimes it's very bureaucratic and we don't really know what's going on behind closed doors even though we have all these reports. Sometimes these reports can be manipulated in misconstrued so and especially when we're reading something that's all about numbers and percentages and this is this is how much we're using for our. You know. What is it energy levels and things like that like even as a researcher myself I have trouble sometimes trying to filter through all of the. The information that's being thrown at us so I think it's important yeah we need to be able to delineate between. Look at these reports and be able to break them down and so that's that's all part of writing and writing writing does play a huge role I think an art like writing for the arts and then logical writing and illegal writing which I'm going to try to also incorporate a little bit I guess but I'm still a legal law student so I don't have all of my knowledge yet there but yeah. I just like to say to that. There have been studies done about how novels builds empathy reading novels builds empathy and novels and fiction appeal to the emotions and I think about about Michelle good and her book five little in the end switches. I don't know how many weeks it's been on the bestseller list but I think people are coming to understand the impacts of colonialism and how the residential school era isn't over yet and Michelle is a lawyer. She went to study creative writing at UBC in 2014, because she felt there would be another way in to people's hearts and minds through fiction, and it was a way of building understanding, but Matthew I take your point there's there's such an urgency right now. But I think, if we don't have our hearts placed on the table, we're going to it's not going to move things won't be moving as quickly. Okay, zip. Back to you Katlia, and somebody has just asked it's anonymous you mentioned climate anxiety. How can we alleviate that anxiety and young people so that the youth, the energy of youth is directed to action, rather than feeling overwhelmed and having to deal with that. Yeah, I think pointing to great leaders that are already doing amazing work is would be empowering for the youth to know that they can do that too. That regular everyday people are taking a stand and making change by having their voices heard and speaking loudly and getting up on to the podium and it doesn't have to be somebody that's just like this, you know, person that seems so far removed it's just your person so I think knowing that that is possible, it would is really important and just pointing to all those people that are trailblazing the way and doing really good work. We'll give them hope. And there's more and more people every day that are standing up for the causes and all over and yeah I mean, and just in having me sharing circles to talk is super important. Like I can't stress enough how how effective sharing circles can be I was just in one the other day and you don't realize, even over zoom like you might think that that human connection with all of people in the room might not be the same over zoom and I mean it is kind of missing a certain element but at the same time it's still is effective and so we're going to do some of that work and don't want to like make anybody cry or anything like that but I think that if we just talk about our anxieties it helps us to get through it helps us to not focus so much on our fears. Okay, we have we still have the questions coming fast and furious which is great. And Charlotte Taylor writes I second Lois is congratulations to you. So glad to have you in this role. My question is, how can we channel individual eco anxiety into creative expression, such as writing. Yeah, I mean, I think if you, if you look at eco anxiety. It just it depends I guess on what your, what your anxiety is so what you're afraid of and focusing on our fears as, I guess, if we put it down then we're not going to be so focused on it if we put it into writing. And then we can move to the how what we want the world to look like and I think there's that's where you find the hope. So we can, we can look to the future. I mean anxiety is about when you're looking into the future you're looking too much into what's oh my God what's going to happen. Okay, so I think if we stay in the present we ground ourselves. Okay what's happening right now today in our world. What can we do to fix it. Then we can look to the future and be like well, if we're taking these actions now. What can the future look like and maybe the trajectory of global warming will change and maybe people will get on board and we won't have. Maybe reach the 1.5 degree change in the earth. But we might also develop new technologies that will help us to alleviate some of the things that are coming. And we can, we can just take these steps to prevent things and be more preventative and intervention where it's we're just dealing with a crisis at the very moment instead of actually preventing that crisis from happening and taking steps to prevent that so yeah I think making sure that we're not just stuck in our anxieties and worrying about the future is important to just Yeah, I hope that helps I don't know if that actually helps but I myself think that writing definitely helps me to have hope and it helps me not to focus too much on my fears as much. This is a question from Jane, who says I wonder if Katli is familiar with this research we're hearing that Cuba is the most sustainable sustainable economy on the earth. And if we all lived as the Cubans do, we would not have a climate emergency and and Jane just notes this is something an inspiring aspect I would love to see expanded upon so I think she's giving that to you to put in your, in your basket. You want to comment. Is that something that you've heard. No, I will look into that I didn't realize that but I feel that that's that's great news that they're doing that work so I'll definitely check it out. This is Jatinder Sidhu and welcome huge welcome to Katia from me as a member of the West Vancouver Memorial Libraries Board of Trustees. I'm very excited about your residency and look forward to joining in on your program. So much to discuss and do not the least of which is educating our kids and also reevaluating the way we live, but there's still so much resistance. The question is, should we stop trying to persuade the unpersuadable. That's from Jatinder. Yeah, I mean, we can only do so much right. But the problem is, if the unsuadable are the ones that are can make the change. So that's the only thing I would say I mean, we can educate as much as possible and still some people might not believe that things are changing, even though it's changing right in front of our eyes. But some people are just going to be stuck in their ways and they're not going to want to change their lifestyles. When it comes down to the decision makers, I think we really do need to push for that change as much as possible, and the louder our voices, the better. And again, with the indigenous peoples having section 35 rights, I think that that really helps to propel that those changes forward because anything that's taking place right now in the world that is destructive is contributing to global warming and most of those things that are taking place are happening on indigenous lands. And so indigenous peoples have the first and foremost, they have to be consulted with genuinely and their lands cannot be infringed unless there's a good reason. So joining that fight to make sure that no more devastation and destruction happens and that any kind of development, industrial development that is going to take place, it needs to take place very, very to make sure that it's not going to do any more damage that's already been done. I mean, we're already moving so much further away from the industrial revolution now. We're into the machine intelligence revolution. And we just need to get on board with that and try to figure out how to be more innovative instead of living in a way that's not conducive to taking care of our Mother Earth and finding new technologies. And there are so many great thinkers out there. So we need to find the great thinkers to help move this forward. I'd like you to put a different hat on now. And that is, as a novelist and maybe give a reading from your novel, Landsky Water. Yeah. Okay, do you want to tell us what the novel is about and maybe set up your reading a little bit. Okay, so yeah, Land Water Sight is. I'm sorry. So it's a fictional novel and it takes place in Denonday, my home territory. And this is the cover photo of where my grandmother was born. And it is in six parts. There are different characters that come against each other. They're interconnected throughout the book, but they all come against the powers that be and Land Water Sky, the elements help them to fight the antagonist in the novel. And so I'm going to actually read from the very end, which is the perspective of from the perspective of the antagonist. And basically, the message is that he throughout the book he tried to seek power and control over the lands and the north and he even went as far as shape shifting into a human because he's an animal. He's like a kind of like a werewolf, I guess. He even went so far as shape shifting into a human to like a businessman to get control over a piece of land he wanted to buy the land but realize that he wasn't able to buy the land. And so basically the message is that, you know, even though throughout he tried to seek power and control, really at the very end, all he wanted was to live in nature. He wanted to go back to he was wild and he wanted to go back to nature. So even the bad guy is going to need nature in the very end. We're all going to need nature. We're not separate from it. We're all connected to it. We're one with nature. And until we realize that we just will continue going down this the wrong path. So here we go. Northwest Territories 2030. I don't think of my life as a curse, but those who have known me will tell you that I'm nothing more than the purest form of evil. I may be immoral, but all I ever wanted was to live free in the wild to not have to hide. Those days are gone now. The satisfaction I once knew has long disappeared. I wasn't always dispossessed. I had a home. My home was free reign over the north and every season under every setting sun beneath every full moon. I laid my head to rest in the darkest of caves. It was in those places that I lived like a king. I watched as the time passed, basking in solace, knowing that the north was mine for the taking, but those days are gone now. When they first arrived from another land, I watched them from far. In many ways they were like me, wanting power and control, but there could be only one ruler. I, the hunter, was not born to become the hunted. I saw what they did to the others that resembled me. If they discovered who I was, they would not stop until they had me mounted on their walls. And so I left the comforts of my home and walked with them in human form, morphing into one of them for my own salvation. I blended into the enemy's regime easily, quickly rising to the top. As cunning and witty as they were, I knew how to play their game. I, too, had similar intentions. Their decadent rule came naturally to me. I fit in undetected, but my soul, if you will, was compromised. I despised them. I only walked amongst them as one of them until the day I could live free again in the wild without having to look over my shoulder. I craved to rule over the vast wilderness once again to intimidate my prey, to hunt with vigor instead of dining in etiquette, but my return would have to wait. I walked bitterly among them as a human for far too long, briefcase in hand, black suit and tie, a different kind of powerful. I was untouchable, but I was not where I belonged. My remote northern home had long been ravished. I became desperate to claim the last of the unclaimed land that would allow me to free myself, but land in nearly all directions was rapidly being taken up. Property lines drawn, land barricaded, shovels in the ground. I had to find a way to get back to what was mine. In the blood and sweat of a mere mortal, I planned to buy back the land. It was only then that I learned that no amount of money could ever buy true freedom. All that time, I played their game for nothing, building up riches only to lose a battle that I could never win. My life of corruption spiraled me downward until I was in shackles. My desperation for freedom led me to my own imprisonment. Behind bars, I was nothing more than a caged animal. I would have chosen death over the sentence. I was forced to live with, but even death evaded me. For far too long, humans confined me in a concrete prison cell. Seconds turned into days, days into years. Was it the revenge I deserved for all the pain and devastation I caused? Every moment spent in prison made me weaker. Every moment spent in human form brought me further and further from my true self. But knowing I would one day be free from the cage that trapped me gave me something to hold on to. Released into the streets, I turned towards my northern home, but I hadn't strength to return to my old self. It was there that I lived on the outskirts distancing myself from the chaos of civilization. Even a beast like me needs tranquility. I scavenged in back alleys and slept under bridges at the edge of the city. I had to regain my strength so that I could return to my northern home and be free again in the last of the unclaimed lands. I eventually returned to my old form, but I was reduced to a weak and pitiful version of myself, a wanderer. In the city, there is no game to feast on, no freshwater lakes to drink from, no rock faces to howl at the moon on, no caves to rest my troubled soul in. At my weakest point, I found myself lost in a land more unforgiving than the coldest of winters. I take some of the blame for the madness, the chaos of this world, but it was not I who set in motion society's collapse. It was not I who altered the natural order of things. I have no power over the unpredictable weather or the sweltering heat of the sun. Nature fought back, but it wasn't enough to stop the rulers of the new world from making money. Humans destroy nature. I destroy humans. Humans are foolish to believe they have improved their way of life by creating comfort. Their fragile advancements are fleeting. They have bound themselves to materialism and greed for their own survival. Now they can never go back to the way things were. Try as they might. They can never escape from the prison of their own greed. Somehow I knew this day would come. I recognized him immediately. Turning away from his stare, I didn't care anymore if I were killed, put out of misery. I must have looked pathetic as I put my head down continuing to rummage through the garbage on the edge of a resting point on the highway just a few miles outside of the city. He walked towards me quickly thinking I might try to run, but I briefly buried my teeth too weak to put up a fight. My leg shook and gave out from underneath me. I watched him move through the weeds coming closer and closer. How he found me I will never know for I could not even find myself. He grabbed me by the scruff as I helplessly kicked and jerked trying to slip through his grip, but he was too strong and I soon gave up. I had long lost the will to live. There was no more fight left in me. He did not have to tranquilize cage or muzzle me. I surrendered just the same. I lay under a canopy of stars in the back of a pickup. I didn't question where he was taking me. Far from the city would have been my last guest. Then before I close my eyes to rest I saw her. Lafie, I whispered weakly, but her name came out in the muffled growl. Her lips touched my forehead and she kissed me in the same way I once kissed her to keep her under my control. Her mercy chilled me to my core. I have had many children, but I never knew love. Those who thought they loved me never had a chance. They could never truly love a beast like me. When I woke, I woke to the strong scent of wild roses. The fragile flowers were in full bloom, waving in the wind so close that they were only a soft pink blur inviting me to wake up. The boy, now a man, had left me lying on a dense blanket of rusty brown evergreen leaves, their narcotic scent leaving me in a heightened state. I could hear the sound of his footsteps walking away. The sound of a motor roaring off in the distance was replaced by the light buzzing of a hornet circling my head. First one, then two, three, four, until it became too much to ignore. I lifted my paw and trapped one of the pesky insects, tantalizing. I raised my ears and could pinpoint exactly where the nest was, a few yards to my right. My senses had returned, but it was the sound of lapping water that made me open my eyes. Beyond the wild rosebush, I could see water crashing onto the rocks colliding with the shore. I held my head high and sniffed the air to find no trace of pollution, only crisp northern air. I was briefly blinded by the brightness of the sun, released from the flurry of a man-made skyscraper. I couldn't remember the last time I looked up towards the sun. It only served to remind me of the darkness. Soon enough, the heat of it caused me to move into the shadows. The rays beat heavily onto my black coat. My coat, it gleaned, no longer was it dull and sparse. I spent the day living under an old pine tree, taking it all in. He had the power to end me. So why didn't he? I killed his father. Why would he have a mercy on a soul like mine? Fool, I laughed. I stretched my neck and howled into the evening sun, taking in the world all around me, wild with exhilaration. My dignity had been restored. No longer able to ignore my thirst, I made my way to the water and took a deep drink from the fresh glacial pool before me. Just then, a large scale reached out from the surface, making itself known. My age-old nemesis. It was then that I realized I was surrounded by water. I was on an island, but not just any island, Niger Island. If the boy thought this was punishment, he was sadly mistaken. That evening, I reveled in my good fortune, delighted to be back in nature's bounty, immersed in my own private paradise. It wasn't until the scent of sweet grass rose into the air, choking my lungs and filling my muscles and bones with sickness that I knew I wasn't alone. Her presence slowly drifted towards me. Her three ancient scars shone a bright silver. Around her neck, she wore my claw. She floated through me, around me, and underneath me, tormenting me with the sound of her tragedies. She had never forgotten, nor had she forgiven. She was the first of my victims. I remember her face well. We once made a trade. I took something from her. She took something from me, and now as she is the greatest affliction I will ever know. He did not set me free after all. He did this in retribution. A man seeking justice for the death of his loved ones gone before him. Her goals haunts me night and day. I cannot rest. I will never know peace, and I will never be free as long as she is here with me. Thank you. Thank you for that reading. And I feel as though your reading was an answer to an earlier question about the value of fiction and of art at a time like this, because it calls on imagination, and our solutions are going to call on imagination as well. And just hearing your reading put us all in a very different space. So on behalf of everybody, and boy, 76 participants are still with us. Spell-binding reading. Thank you. Thank you, Masi Cho Katlia. That was wonderful. And just while we're on books for a second, Kendra, who welcomed us at the very beginning, Kendra Sakamoto writes, Nancy Turner's latest book just came out this summer, last summer, and it was written with a Couch and Elder Lushi Im, Arvid Charlie, and it's an amazing field guide to local plants and their traditional uses. It's called Lushi Im's Plants, and I think it is L-U-S-C-H-I-I-M, Lushi Im's Plants, Traditional Indigenous Foods, Materials, and Medicine. So just Google Nancy Turner, you'll find treasure, I promise, just wonderful. And you're working on other books too, aren't you? Yes, I am. I'm just finishing up the edits on This House is Not a Home. It's a fictional novel about a family that has been dispossessed by the government and had to or forced to live in housing. So that is basically it's the story of a man who's seeking how to get back onto the land and how he used to live before. And that's just about done. It will be published in the fall with Fernwood. And I have another book that I'll be working on during this residency. It's about a young girl that has an affinity to fire, and she gets into quite some trouble with fire. But it's basically a teaching about the power of fire, of that as a force, and we could use it as a positive or a negative. And fire is within us, but it's also outside of us. So I'm going to talk about some teachings there and throughout the book, her journey, she gets healed through with water. So a big part of that also is about water and the importance of water as a healing power. And so I'm really excited to work on that while I'm at the residency. Can you hold your book up again just so that everybody can see it? There we go. Lovely. And this is Katlia's memoir, Northern Wildflower, which is also just amazing. And there's an introduction by Leanne Badassamy Simpson, who says that you know that you're a voice that we've been waiting to hear. And she puts you in very good company like the late Lee Maracle and Joanne Arnott, the poet, and Maria Campbell. And so, you know, it's like we're just doubly honored to have you as the first climate writer in residence. Still some more questions. Are you still game? For sure. Yeah, I mentioned I first met Leanne through Dishinta. Dishinta is a land based university in the north where we invite students to come out onto the land and learn on the land completely off grid. And it's a way of decolonizing really, right? So Leanne does a lot of that work with Glenn Coltert out of UBC. And I just wanted to give a shout out because they're doing amazing things there. Nice. Okay, here is a question from Ernie. What do you think this is going to pull on your law knowledge and your future gaze into the crystal ball? What do you think are the prospects for constitutional changes to environmental protection in Canada like we're seeing in Peru and Chile? We're in such dire times of climate change slash disasters. How do we get that paradigm shift reload of how the economy works under ecological sustainability? And you have three minutes. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, you pretty well do. Yeah, I think we can start by looking at the Environmental Act. It's very outdated and it should be re-amended. Yeah, it was 1999, wasn't it? Yeah, so yeah, it definitely needs to be looked at and it needs to be completely rehauled and it needs to have every single indigenous nation on board to do that work and to feed into that. So I think that that's a start and then we could look at countries like as I mentioned before, Bolivia and Ecuador who are doing stepping up to make sure that there's a declaration on the rights of Mother Earth. So we do have the declaration. We have UNDRIP, but we could also go one step further and actually have our planet be an entity that has it deserves protection. So that I don't know if any of that work has been started by any organizations that I can know of, but I think that that would be really something that could be adopted into legislation. So hopefully. I just wanted to mention Kerry Newman, who's a walk-a-walk artist at the University of Victoria and he's a professor. And he's got a project called the seedling and I'm not going to explain it in the most eloquent way that he could, but what he's going to do, instead of taking an old growth tree and carving a new pole for the university, he's going to take a seedling and he will have a projection, a digital projection of what the pole could look like, but allow the seedling to grow into its fullness with this projection on it. And growing into its maturity might take hundreds and hundreds of years. So he wants everybody to be thinking about the seedling as they go about their daily lives at the university. And also, and I'm really hoping this is going to happen, the seedling might be given a seat at the University of Victoria Board of Governors. So just so that we think about the seedling, think about sustainability as we're making all our decisions. So I know I'm a little bit of a UVic homie, but some good things are happening there. That's for sure, including having you study there. That's really fabulous. And how can historic Indigenous respect for the environment be incorporated into our current environmental practices? An anonymous question. Well, I just wanted to go back to that with Cary Newman, because Cary, yeah, he had actually told us that he visited our class not too long ago. And I think that that's just so intentional, the work that he's doing with the seedling. It makes us have to care for that, right? And once an elder once told me that we can learn all we need to know about life itself by watching a tree. Just watching a tree grow, we will learn everything because everything comes to it to be nurtured. And yeah, it's just amazing. So I just wanted to mention that. Thanks. The question was how can historic Indigenous respect for the environment be folded into our current ways of addressing the environment? Well, I mean, Indigenous stories, there are many different stories across Turtle Island and most of them have an element of the importance of animals and the importance of nature and our stories are very, their teachings and their lessons. So we need to go back to those teachings and only from there will we understand how to live in a good way where we're taking care of nature. And so I think, you know, since time immemorial, I don't want to pan indigenize, but I mean, just speaking from my own like community. I think we've always been caretakers of the land and we've always been the guardians of the land and we we've never left a footprint really. However, we've lived especially before colonization, we always moved around, we followed the migratory herds. We didn't stay in one place, we were seasonal, we had camps where we would go back to but we would always make sure that we left the land in a pristine as pristine as we found it and didn't leave that footprint. And so I think we need to start living like that. Like, we have addresses now, we have permanent addresses, we're not allowed to move around, we're not allowed to be nomadic. And that's part of this mission and we're very, you know, we see these tiny house movements now where people want to start getting back to living off the grid. And that's great because that's actually a very full circle, that's exactly what we're trying to talk about when we're talking about living in that way. So I think getting back to that living off grid is where we're trying to get to the point of and the more we can fall in line with the principles of the laws of indigenous nations, the better. So wherever we are living, if we can learn from those stories and we can learn from those nations whose territories that we're living on, it will help us to eat local and will help to answer all of those questions that we have. And not purchase things from, you know, I mean, international trade is huge right now and it's really important for developing countries and things like that. But we also have to really start thinking about eating local and taking care of the environment that way. So I think we just have a lot to learn and the indigenous peoples are the ones that have that knowledge. We've always had that knowledge and it's never been something that's never been taken from us. We've actually had to take it underground and protect it. And now we're now we're teaching it and we're sharing it because we know that everyone in the world needs it now more than ever. They need to learn these lessons in order to protect. So before we were more, it was a sacred, a lot of our teachings are very sacred, but I think we're realizing that now we need to put it on paper. And that's that's a little bit still of a conflict in some communities where it's like, well, our stories, a lot of our stories are very sacred and shouldn't be put on paper. So we need to make sure to work to ensure that our stories are kept alive and figure out how to do that in the best way possible and not not be cultural like cultural appropriation or anything like that. And there are certain nations where you cannot tell a story in the daytime, you have to tell it a certain time of year or things like that. So it all really depends. And but I think at the end of the day, indigenous peoples like I said are are the ones that are going to carry this responsibility because we have our rights ingrained. And we always have been caretakers and we need to remain steadfast and have that integrity and not be tricked by corporation to sell our land or to be bought out. Times are really, really scary right now where that is happening. And we see that with the hereditary chiefs versus the Indian Act ban chiefs being pegged against each other by the government and things like that. So I think we just have to be we have to tread very, very carefully in every decision we make and it needs to have that integrity behind it of our elders and making sure that we're consulting with our communities and our elders first before we make any major decisions. I've got two more questions left and one is from Alex who writes about the devastating climate events that we've seen in the last few years and really if you're just to take 2021 is one example. So, so much climate response to what's been going on to the devastation. He mentions, Lytton and Abbotsford. And the question is, do you think we'll need to rethink our relationship to the land in our lifetime that acknowledges some areas as unlivable for the foreseeable future. Or do you think they can be rebuilt with indigenous leadership in a way that's more resilient. Yeah, I that's a great question. I think, you know, there's so many things I want to say about that question. Well, first of all, we're going to continue to see people coming over from developing countries more and more for refuge because their homes are being destroyed from catastrophes mother nature is angry and mad and all of these things are happening all over the world and especially along coastal communities with tsunamis and earthquakes and things like that that are impacting wiping out entire communities. And so I think, yeah, we need to start living in a way that's more sustainable and more forward thinking, knowing that most likely a lot of our coastal cities are going to be underwater soon. If things don't change that should prompt us to start making those changes now so that we're not devastated. But it doesn't seem like there's any budging on that. And unfortunately, people aren't really a lot of people are, they just deal with the problem when it happens like they're like, okay, well, I mean that's not happening to me so I don't care like why should I care doesn't doesn't happen to me but now we're actually seeing it happening to us like in Abbotsford right like it's so close to home and until it happens to us then we're like okay well geez maybe we maybe this is real and so I think yeah seeking the input of indigenous peoples and living in alignment with the way that things used to be it's going to take a lot of change like I said like with addresses permanent addresses letting go of something like that and letting go of our homes and or living differently like it's it's a total switch it's a total. It's it I think it's full circle really because that's how indigenous peoples used to live and then they they people tried to take that away from the indigenous peoples for many many centuries but they were right in the very first place and so now we're getting back to that we're going back to full circle and we need the voice of the indigenous peoples to lead us the way and show us how to live that way as before. And that will help to prevent so many catastrophes. Because we know how to, you know, back home we know how to read the stars we know how to live on the land and we're very much in tune with it so we know. What to do and we know when they're a caribou is sick or when a fish is sick, you know, we know well ahead of any other person because we are so. We're always out on the land right so I mean not myself I feel like being out on the land is a privilege nowadays, you have to have a boat you have to have a skidoo you have to have all of the toys to get out not like before where you could have a dog team or you can have a birch bark canoe. Like that like you would actually learn how to make it I admit I don't even know how to chop wood I probably wouldn't even be able to survive on the land alone and that's colonization right there right so we need to rely on our knowledge keepers and our elders who know how to live on the land and and listen to the prophecies of our, like there's a prophecy back home where, you know, if we don't change our ways, we're no longer going to have freshwater lakes anywhere in the world. And those are real issues I mean, there's an elder that had said that one day water will be more expensive than gas and we're seeing that right now a bottle of water is more expensive than a liter of gas. And then there's other issues where we see different animals on the same plate from different parts of the world. When two animals from completely different parts of the world meet on the same plate. That is a time of great changes. And we're seeing that because we have international trade. So do we really need to be eating kangaroo from Australia when we live in Canada. I don't think so right so we have to really think about all of these issues and just think it get right down to it and really like what am I like how am I living my life. And how can I change. Not only is that a perfect ending. It's where we have to end because we only have a few minutes left. But Katalia, I want to say Masi Cho to you and Marcy thank you so much for for entertaining all of these wonderful questions and I also want to say thank you to everyone who wrote in a question and my apologies I see there are even more questions now that we can't get to but what a brilliant audience as well and I think this residency is is just going to be amazing and you're going to pull people's imaginations in all kinds of directions. And I wish you all the best on behalf of everybody watching. Thank you and congratulations. Thank you. And here's Kendra Sakamoto the wonderful Kendra Sakamoto. Thank you so much Sheila and Katalia that was absolutely amazing and thank you everyone for submitting incredible questions. The ones that we didn't have time for I will pass on to Katalia and she'll get back to anyone that she can. So, so don't despair. Her Katalia's blogs will be going up on our website I'm going to put the link into the chat for everyone so you can catch that her blogs will go up every week the first one should be posted next week so stay tuned for that. We have Katalia you know until the middle of April and we're just so excited we have so much programming. Coming up Katalia and I are working on lots of amazing things so check our website for all of the events coming up westfanlibrary.ca. You can also subscribe to our newsletter which you can find the link for on our website, and the newsletter will let you know everything that's coming up for the following month. So there's going to be a lot of really amazing programming as part of this residency so do stay tuned. And of course Katalia's books are available at our library West Vancouver Memorial Library. So be sure to check those out there. They're both fantastic and I'm really looking forward to the next books that are coming out. Again thank you so much everyone for being with us today. Thank you Katalia thank you Sheila amazing as always we love having you here at the library. Thank you everyone have a wonderful day and we'll see you in the months to come at some more of our great climate writer and residents programming. Thank you everyone.