Tar Sands Healing Walk country Canada
Background
The inaugural gatherings was organized by local communities and supported by allies. The following years, Keepers of the Athabasca, a collective of First Nations, Metis, Inuit, environmental groups and watershed citizens, became a core supporter. Jesse Cardinal of the Kikino Metis Settlement was hired to support the main founders and organizer to coordinate the annual event, which ultimately expanded to include an educational and spiritual camp before and after, including conference and ceremony. Over five consecutive years, the Tar Sands Healing Walk brought together hundreds of people to walk in a spiritual gathering to protect culture, environment and climate from the expansion of the tar sands.
The prayer walk aimed to bring awareness to the impact of the tar sands development. "Protests, rallies, marches are all good and necessary, but we felt like people needed something more spiritual, something to strengthen a connection to the land", said organizer Jesse Cardinal (Keepers of the Athabasca). It was a reaction to the alleged legislative abuses of indigenous treaty rights.
Hundreds of people traveled from all over North America and beyond to participate in this annual healing ceremony. The walk took place on the territories of the Cree, Dene and Métis peoples of northern Alberta, where the impacts of tar sands extraction on the land and its inhabitants were significant.
Nation State Land Territory