Where the waters begin – a traditional view of water

Provided by IKANAWTIKET

We all begin and end with water. Illustration by Sydney Smith.

It is on a hot dry day like today, watching the satellite image of a Caribbean hurricane slowly approach Nova Scotia, I am again reminded that water is not so much a thing, but an ever evolving, ever living and life-giving process. 

We often depict water as “H₂O”, but it is not merely a collection of discrete molecules.  Water is actually a network of billions of hydrogen and oxygen atoms all tied together - all dependent upon connections to each other.  Water makes and breaks billions of connections every nano-second, giving it the ability to stay together and at the same time flow through the tiniest cellular pores.  These properties also make water the universal solvent and the thermal regulator of our planet. 

Water is integral to our very existence. However, many Canadians take water for granted.
What waters do we need to ‘protect’ and which can be safely ‘consumed’?  What levels of protection and consumption today will ensure a better future for the next generation? If you follow the western viewpoint in scientific literature, one thing is clear: it is difficult to draw those lines.  When we train our minds to filter through the myriad of relationships and focus on discrete objects or single cause-and-effect relationships, we miss vital information about the whole.

Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge or Indigenous Knowledge, allows us to study water from a different point of view.  Instead of thinking of a glass of water, take some time to think about how that water will move through your body.  Consider the movement of water in the ocean, the rivers, the fish, the trees, the birds, the clouds, the insects, etc.  Think about the movements through water of whales, algae, light, nutrients and human activities. 

The more you ponder, the more you realize that water is actually a mechanism by how all things relate.  Your glass does not contain water.  It contains one aspect of water.  Your body will use it to carry nutrients and then it will be released as ‘waste water’ which in turn will be used by some other life-form.  You now have a connection to that other life-form, because you shared your water with it, just as the fish and trees shared their water with you. 

Just as much as you depend on the glass of water in your hand, you also depend on all of Creation, which provides you with that water.  This is one of the most universal aspects of Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge:  we are all interconnected and all interdependent on our natural environment. To survive, we must understand our place and show respect.  How we treat the natural world will ultimately come back to us.

Now consider that water connects us to remote locations of the world.  One billion people do not have adequate drinking water and an additional two billion people do not have access to proper sanitation.  Is this only a problem for underdeveloped countries?  Do our individual actions, consumer desires, government regulations here in Nova Scotia affect other people’s access to safe, clean water half way around the world?

Our view of water cannot be limited to how dry it is today or how much hurricane waters we’ll be pumping out of our basements next week.  We should first seek to understand all the relationship aspects of water, understand our place in that relationship, and learn to respect that. In the end, all waters begin and end with us and we all begin and end with water.

IKANAWTIKET is the environmental respect initiative of the Aboriginal Peoples who continue on Traditional Ancestral Homelands throughout the Maritimes Region.  Coastlines is coordinated by the Coastal Issues Committee at Ecology Action Centre and supported by the Nova Scotia Habitat Conservation Fund with contributions from hunters and trappers.