Sometimes, it's not getting what we want that offers us the most important Lessons

America seems to celebrate its more violent past, but Canada doesn't like to recognize those things. The willingness to accept the existence of violence separates our two countries.

Sometimes, it's not getting what we want that offers us the most important Lessons

There were incredibly complex societies already existing in North America long before Europeans arrived. So many people think that before European contact it was just Natives huddling around a fire, waiting for civilization to come save them. But that was not the case.

The beliefs of Native people are no less powerful or important just because they focus on a different "form of magic."

People will say that Canada, unlike America, was not birthed from violence. But I want to say, "What are you talking about?" It's just not true.

The world is a different place in this new century, [...]. And we are a different people. My visions still come but no one listens any longer to what they tell us, what they warn us. I knew even as a young woman that destruction bred on the horizon. [...] War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.