08/18/2025
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nîtisânak, listen closely, for these are strange and heavy days across the lands we now call Canada.
In the east, in places like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the governments have placed strong hands over the forest gates. They say the air is too dry, the earth too thirsty, the fire too quick to wake. From August until mid-October — and perhaps beyond — they have closed the trails, the camps, even the quiet fishing spots. They warn of fines as high as $25,000 for those who step where the trees still stand.
I will tell you, I know fire. I have seen it run like a wild horse, devouring the hills. We, the First Peoples, have always respected the danger and the medicine of fire. We knew how to tend it, to clear the dry brush, to burn small so that the land might live long. But this — this blanket ban without distinction between those who wander for fun and those who go to gather medicine, to pray, or to visit the graves of our ancestors — this feels like another wall between us and the land that has always been our relative.
Tourism people speak of their losses — the empty lodges, the cancelled tours. Their pain is real, for they too depend on the land. But our pain is older. When the forest is closed, it is not only an economy that suffers — it is a way of life. The medicines go unharvested. The sacred sites sit alone. Our youth, already hungry for connection, lose another path back to their teachings.
And yet, I understand the fear. This summer has been hotter, drier, more brittle than many remember. The winds carry the scent of smoke more often now. The seasons are changing in ways that our grandparents warned us about when they spoke of a warming world. In their language, they did not say “climate change” — they spoke of the land shifting because the people had shifted away from respect.
What is missing here, my relatives, is balance. These governments reach for the biggest tool — a ban — instead of walking with us to find the wiser path. What if we brought back Indigenous firekeepers? What if we used controlled burns, firebreaks, and community watch over the land? What if, instead of locking the forest, we tended it together, as was done for thousands of years?
These are not just laws about recreation. They are about the relationship between people and the land. If we treat the land only as a danger to be closed off, we forget that it is also our teacher, our healer, and our ancestor.
So I say this: protect the land, yes. Protect life, yes. But do not forget that our freedom to walk the earth is also sacred. If we are to face the fires of this new age, we must do it with the old wisdom — together, not apart.
Tapwe,
—Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
