Water For Generations - Ojibwe Traditions and Resisting Drought

Dave Scott's managed beaver colony wetland at Indian Springs Valley - home to a diverse range of plants and animals.

Traditional Ojibwe knowledge is extremely old. Transferred through the generations and based on various landscapes and locations, it contains incredibly unique information and insights into the land many peoples call home now. More often than not, this knowledge is contained in stories and experiences of various traditional community members who heard it from older generations, who heard it from older generations, and so on.

I'm lucky enough to be included in that community, with many different adopted family members of mine teaching me about the environment, the history of the Ojibwe, and much more. With each year that passes, I learn something new when it comes to environmental phenomenon - in the sense of something that once existed but has disappeared or an environmental occurrence that the old people once talked about happening in the future. These stories that tell of the functions of the by-in-large disappeared prairie environments - an area of extreme ecological diversity in the past - complete parts of the picture of the environment we live in today that many people often don't see. Without the deep understanding of our local environment that still exist in the traditional Ojibwe peoples' stories, we will be lost in our efforts in restoring the degraded landscapes we live on today.

This is a part of one such story, just a piece of what will be included in our in-progress Youtube channel.

The Ojibwe and Water

It is extremely difficult to fully describe how Ojibwe culture views the environment in English. As the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words. Words in the old Ojibwe language are like that - one word can describe a broad environmental occurrence. People in a traditional Ojibwe community would quickly understand the meaning of words that describe water and its importance as well as words that describe the broader function of water and its impact on the landscape - simply from using the unique cultural perspective this language and knowledge facilitates. In a nutshell, this basically means that, in my case, due to the values and perspective that I have been taught by my teacher Dave Scott, its far easier to understand the chain reaction that stems from, for example, reducing water on the landscape. These things follow a logical pattern that anyone can understand from simply observing the landscape as Ojibwe people have learned to do. That said, let's get into it.

Understanding everything about water is central to Ojibwe culture. This goes far beyond "water is life" or other sayings, instead referring to observing factors such as how certain plants react to water, the changing of soils when under periods of moisture, seasonal functions such as when southern or western storms arrive, the role of trees and forests in producing rain, movement of winds over hills and prairies , how air carries moisture, and much more. All of these are key indicators for the ecological processes of the environment, and are just some of the factors that we use to understand what is happening out on the land today from the Ojibwe perspective.

Ojibwe people long maintained the landscape using this processes to make it flourish. Trees planting and facilitating beaver dams were a key part of creating healthy ecosystems to them. Oak trees, for example, will release a massive amount of water into the air through evaporation. A mature oak will use its far-reaching roots to pull water from the ground, eventually releasing it through transpiration in its leaves into the air. A quick google search of the western research on this says that a mature oak tree can produce around 18,000 liters per year.

Likewise, beaver dams capture water directly, holding back vast amounts of runoff from spring melts and summer storms from disappearing into larger waterways and eventually the ocean. A healthy beaver community in a valley, along creeks, or slow-flowing wetlands can dramatically increase water storage on the landscape. In my experience, the difference between a beaver-inhabited area versus a straight-flowing stream is drastic - one will flow for a couple weeks while the other flows all-year-round. Likewise, the amount of biodiversity in a beaver dam area never ceases to be impressive.

Marsh Lake in Spruce Woods, an example of a healthy managed ecosystem.

Water In Oral History

Ojibwe people have understood these things, as they once maintained vast landscapes of old forests and expansive wetlands. It is a fact that many of these areas have since disappeared. One day, as Dave and I drove through the countryside, we began discussing how the landscape has changed since the 1960s when he was young as well as the oral histories of the area. Much of the areas we drove through were once healthy forests or wide wetlands in areas you would not expect simply because they are so different today.

Coming from the perspective I have lived in for the past 6 years or so, its easier to tell which locations were once covered in water or vegetation. Naturally, many hills in our area were once heavily forested with giant oaks, poplars, ashes, elms, and even massive willow trees. Because of these areas of larger vegetation, water would absorb into the landscape starting from the highest elevations in the area such as the small hilltops of the Tiger Hills. The trees, providing organic matter such as deadfall and fallen leaves, would protect moisture from evaporation and allow it to soak into the soil, surface ponds, and ground water. Beavers also played a large role in holding back this water, as, in traditional history, they once had dams on many of the hilltops of the area, capturing every bit of water they could using their instincts on contour and drainage. Due to this process of water drainage being slowed, massive marshlands spanning miles once covered the bottom of even shallow valleys.

The simple act of holding this water back in areas that are known as quickly-draining even now broadly affected the ecology around it. Back then, creeks would run year-round, the water table was higher and fed springs and ponds, marshlands were full, and clean water was in abundance. As mentioned before, trees play a key role in pushing water into the air and turning it into rain. That function, along with the water beavers held back, creating open water in marshes, ponds, creeks, etc., led to far more evaporation and moisture in the air.

Areas such as these were often the focus of the Ojibwe and the Cree before them, being maintained through maintaining beaver colonies, managing various species' populations, and many other practices to create a healthy and flourishing ecosystem. As long as these areas were healthy, there would be healthy food and clean water sources for everyone, as well as consistent weather, balanced ecological cycles, and, ultimately, food for future generations. With areas like this across the prairies and forests of North America, its not hard to see why, within traditional oral history, the landscape and weather was so drastically different.

Weather and Wet Landscapes

Even within Dave and his siblings' lifetime, the predictable weather patterns of their traditional knowledge have changed drastically. Old Ojibwe words for weather often pertain to the direction it comes from and its characteristics. For example, the word for southern storms talks about them often being during the spring and early summer, bringing gentle and consistent rainfall that nourished the landscape and reminding the people of the prairies to prepare for the coming weather of the later summer. Storms coming from the west and north, in contrast, were characterized by being blustering, windy, and heavy, arriving throughout the summer as rain and hail and in the winter as blizzards. Eastern storms were rarer than today, but, when they did arrive, often brought heavier hail and strong winds.

As people during these times lived in teepees and other structures, being able to understand the weather patterns was key to surviving and thriving on the prairies. Every aspect of the weather had to be understood - everything from wind patterns and paths, cloud types, storm sanctuaries, and broader ecological cycles were central to the traditional teachings of the Ojibwe and Indigenous peoples everywhere. The weather and cycles were consistent and predictable enough in the past that they knew the very short and specific windows for gathering certain plants. While the climate naturally changes in a broader sense, the Ojibwe had learned how to read the weather closely enough to know when and where plant picking had to happen. In situations like this, when the environmental signs were perfect and the knowledgeable community members gave the go ahead, everything would be dropped to gather that single plant.

Traditional life was centered around these cycles. The southern storms were relied on to come when they always did to feed the landscape, plants, and animals with gentle rains. People prepared for the stronger storms, with community members specializing in reading the weather signaling when it was time to move to safer areas such as valleys, sheltered hills, or forests. When the signs were right or the time of year arrived for each plant or animal that needed to be gathered, the various communities would take their share. Populations of plants and animals were closely monitored as to not be over-used, with groups leaving signals for other groups in various areas that had already been picked over. Efforts were made to allow plants and animals to flourish. In oral history, these times were characterized by not only surviving, but thriving. These were times of health, strong culture and community, and traditions and knowledge that allowed the Ojibwe people that lived off the land to flourish.

It's not hard to see, with this "chain reaction" beginning at increased water on the landscape resulting in the flourishing of people who lived off the landscape, why water is held in such high regard for traditional peoples. In Ojibwe culture, everything is equal - you are no better than the beaver that holds back water, the insects that maintain forests, the squirrel who plants trees, the birds that spread seeds and manage the insects, the trees that create rain, and so on. With each single living thing taken out of the picture, the water cycle that produces a healthy landscape for everything falls out of balance and risks being toppled. Without each player in the landscape, right down to the birds and ants, we lose our ability to provide for ourselves and future generations from the land around us.

Within My Lifetime

As Dave has taught me, the old people of the past predicted what would happen when this cycle would begin to change. Today, we sum it up as "climate change". However, this phrase misses the nuance and often dismisses the stories of traditional peoples in favor of Western science and perspectives. Looking at climate solutions as technology or economics alone misses the traditional side of the story, along with all its extremely detailed and unique information about our own landscape.

I have already written about one such prediction on this blog that the old people spoke about. The disappearance of birds and the boom in insect populations signals the decay of the water cycles. Every spring, the ants begin planting their fungi on trees and roots unchecked by bird species that have disappeared. So much healthy areas have been either removed or taken over by invasive species that birds no longer have the habitat to sustain themselves, so they move elsewhere or die off. With that, we have observed forests overtaken by ants and scarred by overabundant fungi growth, decaying already minimal amounts of healthy forested areas. With the trees in smaller and smaller numbers each year, the already strong winds of the prairies become extreme, bringing with them dangerous western storms and more frequent eastern storms. This process damages one key piece of the water cycle.

Along with the disappearing healthy and regenerating forests, water is no longer held back as it once was. Now, the hills are bare and water evaporates almost as soon as it hits the ground. Wetlands, pothole lakes, and creeks that once ran year-round have largely dried up or been drained. The places Dave showed me that were once vast wetlands are now not much more than a moist grassland for a handful of weeks in the summer. Beaver that once held water on hilltops are few and far between even in remote valleys in our southern Manitoba area. Instead, water that is still on the landscape in the form of snow or heavy rain washes away rapidly, rushing down the larger river systems, disappearing into lakes and oceans, taking large amounts of topsoil with it.

Reduced water storage, reduced vegetation, and reduced beaver activity all impact the water cycle, changing the where and how much water evaporates to create rain. With that, the weather has changed drastically even within my lifetime in southern Manitoba. Compared to traditional oral history, now the northern and western storms either bring tornados and hail or are concentrated into separated thunderheads that come and go within minutes. Eastern storms are far more frequent and serious. The gentle southern rains are not nearly as frequent or long, spanning a week or two if we're lucky before drying up under the extreme summer heat. Compared to my almost 12 years in the prairies, the rain just doesn't seem as significant or long lasting. Where I once used to play outside during storms, I have to shelter in a basement in case of tornados or extreme winds.

As I learn the factors behind this weather and the old stories traditional people tell more and more, I am beginning to understand the changes our landscape is experiencing. When teaching in schools, I often use the example of "terraforming", meaning the deliberate modifying of an area so that it is more suitable for life. In sci-fi type books, this often refers to making a way for plants to thrive in harsh conditions such as the moon or the planet Mars so that life can thrive and create a habitable planet. Much of what we observe happening on our landscape is the opposite of that, particularly regarding the removal of water ecosystems and vegetation. The landscape feels closer and closer to that of climates in dry areas, with extreme fires, dust storms, and lack of rain becoming the norm. Climate change and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surely plays a large role in these changes, but what we do with water and vegetation on the landscape plays a key role that cannot be ignored in how an area experiences hotter conditions.

This isn't the first time our area has experience events like this. Words in Ojibwe, such as the ones that describe the deterioration of ecological cycles we see today, don't appear out of nowhere. These words exist because the events have happened before. Likewise, they tell us how to fix them, simply through understanding what the landscape once was and the processes that describe the road our area is on now.

These events are also spoken of in Western history such as the "Dirty Thirties". This time period was characterized by prolonged drought. Vegetation such as deep-rooted grasses and forests were cleared, leading to yet more extreme winds. With the dry conditions, population booms in grasshoppers became common that left behind little vegetation, leading to powdery soil and widespread wind erosion and dust storms. Along with that, an uptick in forest fires was also reported, particularly in southwestern Manitoba. This created a situation where soil no longer held nutrients or water, lakes and creeks dried up such as Fife Lake in Saskatchewan, and agriculture in the "Palisser's Triangle" region collapsed. While our conditions are not nearly as dramatic as those in the 1930's at the moment, the ecological processes behind what is happening then and now remains the same.

Closing

With the way these water cycles work, it is obvious why traditional peoples worldwide have put so much effort in hold back water; from the deserts of Africa, Australia, and Asia, to the mountains of South America, to the grasslands of the Prairies, to the forests of the Canadian Shield - the list is long of peoples who have made it central to their culture to protect water and the cycles of nature. While many of these peoples that held this knowledge close may have decreased in number, the ecological processes remain the same and their stories are undeniably valuable in this modern era. If we are to help our environment and fight back the impacts of climate change, then we must see the stories and culture of traditional peoples for what it is and respect it fully. This knowledge spans thousand upon thousands of years of human experience on the landscape we call home today, being highly nuanced, and incredibly valuable to our area and to a broad range across Canada.

Always remember Obehmaatizee, the first law of the Ojibwe: treat people as human beings above everything else, live within and sustain the environment, and do everything you can to create a healthy and flourishing future for the coming generations.