My son's name is Walter Ronald Cook,
and he is named after my grandpa, Walter, and my dad, Ronald.
His other name is [SPEAKING CREE] which is Little Howling Wolf.
I want to teach him to be a good person.
To be kind and respectful.
I hope that he has clean water.
I hope that he has clean air.
My name is Heidi Cook.
I'm from Grand Rapids, or Misipawistik Cree Nation.
We're at the mouth of the Saskatchewan River, where it ends at Lake Winnipeg.
How we introduce ourselves like traditionally
[SPEAKING CREE] So I say my name, [SPEAKING CREE] This is where I'm from.
I'm elected councilor for the Misipawistik Cree Nation, and a mother to young Walter
among other things.
Misipawistik, it translates to grand rapids, roughly.
I grew up here, and I spent a lot of time out on the lake with my family
just playing outside in the bush and seeing and learning different things.
My dad is just a really hard-working guy.
He's very humble,
He didn't have any boys, so I was the oldest.
I went out with him sometimes, fishing.
You know, help steer the boat while he lifted his nets.
His office was nicer than anyone in the city, I think.
My grandpa he raised all his kids off the land. He was a fisherman. He hunted and he trapped.
He would smoke meat and we'd go and steal little pieces off his rack and
he never got mad at us.
The early biologists and other people who were doing wildlife science, would come and
visit with him he identified bat caves that are now named after him. There's a special
conservation area where piping plovers were nesting that he identified.
I was around watching while he helped these people do their work.
He did it because he loved this place and he wanted it to be protected.
I never realized how much a part of me that was until I moved away.
As a teenager I went to high school in the city,
and I realized the experiences that I had and the connections that I have
to this place are what so many people miss.
It’s my job to represent the people of the Cree Nation.
The main issues that we're working on have to deal with protected areas management,
land use planning, especially in regards to forest management and forestry operations in our territory.
There's been talk of a national park here for many, many years.
I think the first studies might have been done in the 1990s.
The local community wasn't much involved. And some of our leaders put a stop to that.
If it's going to be done, it's going to be done right, and it's going to be to the benefit
of our Misipawistik Cree Nation.
Protecting the land and protecting the water is like protecting ourselves too.
Because that's what sustains us here. And that's what sustained us here for generations and--
really we don't own the land, and we don't own the waters.
We don't have inherent right to destroy it.
We have certain rights to be able to sustain ourselves and to live, but we also have responsibilities
to respect and to protect so that our children can continue to live
and to flourish in a place like this.
There's so much there that is beautiful and that is kind and loving.
You can really feel the love of the Earth, our mother
That's what creates us.
That’s what sustains us.
That's what brought us here.
That's what keeps us here.
That's what will take us when we're no longer here.
And it's good to know that.