Josephine Mandamin begins new Water Walk

Josephine Mandamin has started off two legs of Water Walk 2011 and is currently walking north with a pail of water from the Gulf of Mexico.
The Wikwemikong Elder who lives in Thunder Bay started off the western water walk April 10 in Aberdeen, Wash. She then flew to Mississippi to start off the southern water walk April 20 in Gulfport, Miss.
“It’s going really well,” said Joanne Robertson, central communications post coordinator for Water Walk 2011. “They went through the mountains and she (Mandamin) said it wasn’t cold. They sent photos which are on the website. It was snowing and there was an inch of snow on the eagle staff, on the eagle’s head.”
Mandamin and the other walkers were cheered on by a group of skiers at the top of White Pass in the Cascade Range in Washington.
“Just a bit further than that the Yakima Nation greeted them into their territory, pulled up in a limousine and took them off to a youth dinner,” Robertson said.
Mandamin took a break from walking April 16 to write an online exam for a university course before continuing on with the water walk.
“It is a wonderful feeling to see healing take place,” Mandamin said in an April 19 e-mail message. “Once the pail and staff is carried, it leaves something: an incredible impression on people.”
Mandamin said one of the western walkers had joint problems and didn’t think she could continue walking but ended up walking every day until she had to leave April 17.
Mandamin plans to walk the southern water walk for nine days before flying to Maine to start off the eastern water walk May 7 in Machias, Maine.
“In the South they are going to need help,” Robertson said. “Through the west we are depending a lot on First Nation communities, but through the South there aren’t any reservations.
“They have all their camping equipment with them and they are prepared to sleep where they can but it’s going to be a little tougher in the South.”
The northern water walk begins May 21 in Churchill, Man. and includes a train trip to Winnipeg.
“One of the grandmothers up there told me they had to dig through five feet of ice to get the water out,” Robertson said. “They would have liked to have started from the Arctic Ocean, but Josephine didn’t want to fly the water. It had to stay on the land and it was too dangerous for dog sleds. One of the Elders told her the water in Hudson Bay is water from the Arctic Ocean.”
All four water walks are scheduled to end June 10-12 in Bad River, Wisc., where Mandamin originally started off her first water walk around Lake Superior in 2003.
“That’s where the idea was born,” Robertson said.
Mandamin plans to finish up the eastern water walk from Sudbury to Bad River after walking for a few days on the northern water walk.
More info is online at www.motherearthwaterwalk.com.