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RSSFilm screening and Anishinaabe speaker focus on freshwater at Northland College
February 21, 2012
Northland College is hosting several events the week of Feb. 26 to examine issues facing freshwater as part of its William P. Van Evera Endowed Lectureship series. The events will begin on Tuesday, Feb. 28, with a film screening of the award-winning documentary "Flow: For the Love of Water" and continue with a lecture on Thursday and forum discussion on Friday featuring Anishinaabe water walker Sharon Day, who participated in the nationwide Mother Earth Water Walk last summer. All events, further offerings in the Northland College Community Connections series, are free and open to the public.
A film screening of "Flow: For the Love of Water" will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 28, in the Sentry Room of the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute. The documentary delves into corporate practices to buy up public waters and what that means for the availability of water worldwide. The film is cosponsored by students and faculty of the Superior Connections program, which is a series of nine courses that focus on different dimensions of the Lake Superior watershed.
"The film doesn't focus on the Lake Superior region, but it does focus on freshwater issues on a global scale and raises awareness of the potential impact to our area," says Chantal Norrgard, Superior Connections faculty member and Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at Northland. "The film gets people to think about ourselves as stewards of the water and people who think about its worth not in just monetary terms but in terms of culture, place and identity."
On Thursday, March 1, Sharon Day will lecture on "Healing Waters" at 7 p.m. in the Alvord Theatre at Northland. Day will talk about her role in the 2011 Mother Earth Water Walk and discuss why the waterkeeping role is important in Native American culture.
"Women, elders, and young people carried buckets of water collected from Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and walked the buckets across North America to the Bad River reservation," says Lissa Radke, coordinator of the William P. Van Evera Endowed Lectureship series at Northland. "Ms. Day organized all walkers coming from the south who started at the Gulf of Mexico in Gulfport, Mississippi, in April and ended in Odanah in June at a pow wow and ceremonial event."
Day will also sit on a panel of three regional water walkers and discuss the protection of freshwater on Friday, March 2, at 6 p.m. in the Alvord Theatre at Northland. Red Cliff tribal members Penny Charette and Carolyn Gouge, as well as Bad River Band member Esie Leoso-Corbine, will participate in the panel. A reception will follow the event.
Sharon Day is a member of the Minnesota Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. She holds a second degree designation as a M'dewiwin water keeper for her tribe. Day is also one of the founders of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis and has served as its executive director since 1990. The group's mission is to improve the health and well-being of indigenous groups.
The William P. Van Evera Endowed Lectureship Fund was created so that every year Northland College could host eminent speakers to give a public lecture and lead seminars to engage students, Chequamegon Bay area citizens, and faculty. Designed to bring these groups together around a particular environmental issue, the Van Evera Lecture and Seminar was established to bridge teaching and research with application and action.
The Van Evera lecture, community panel and film screening are also part of a series of events coordinated to recognize Indigenous Cultures Awareness Month during the month of March at Northland College.
