Raven Courtney’s walk across Canada

Raven Courtney hopes she can help unify people across the country to support environmental protection.
To do it, the Aroland First Nation member is letting her feet do the talking.
Courtney is walking across Canada, bringing her message of eradicating ecocide to communities and gatherings in every region of the country.
“The walk itself is not a campaign, but the direction of the walk is a campaign,” Courtney said during a break from walking in Thunder Bay. “Too much damage has been done from dangerous industrial activity.
“I’m not saying no mining, no forestry,” she added. “We do need those resources. But we cannot continue to hurt the land and animals in the process.”
Courtney is completing her walk region by region, in short spurts of two to three weeks at a time. Part of the strategy is to give her body time to recover after walking each section of the country. But it also allows her to do the walk throughout all four seasons, something she said is important for any Mother Earth walk.
She has completed the British Columbia mountain section of the walk and the Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba prairie walks over the spring and summer. Now Courtney is on a three-week walk through northern Ontario, before heading to Quebec and the east coast during the snows of November and December.
At each stop during the walk, Courtney is talking to communities, political leaders and school groups about ending ecocide – a term for environmental destruction and damage.
She looks at the education aspect of her walk – the talks to school children and First Nation chiefs alike – as the key components of the journey.
“It’s not the miles,” she explained. “Each mile is my own battle. But when I’m going to educate I cannot slip up.”
Her message revolves around a proposal to the United Nations that ecocide be made an international law. In Courtney’s view, once this law passes the health of people and the planet will become the top priority when governments and leaders determine whether or not to pursue industrial and other activities.
As for the walking, Courtney said it is just her way of doing her part to help bring this new way of thinking about the environment to the country.
“I’ve always been a walker,” she said. “What better way to show my support for where we live and to encourage that we have to go to extremes to lend our support?”