Autumn Peltier

It was 2016, at a gathering of the Assembly of First Nations.

A twelve-year-old girl gave the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, a copper water pot.

Then she told him she was very unhappy with the choices he had made.

He answered that he would protect the water.

Her name was Autumn Peltier.

She had been born on September 27, 2004, on the unceded territory of Wiikwemkoong, on Manitoulin Island, Ontario.

Even before she turned eight, she went to water ceremonies.

At around eight, she went with her mother to a ceremony at Serpent River First Nation. There she saw signs. They said the water was toxic.

In that community, a boil-water advisory had been in place for twenty years.

She had a great-aunt, Josephine Mandamin, Chief Water Commissioner of the Anishinabek Nation.

Her gesture before the prime minister inspired the Assembly of First Nations to create a water fund, the Niabi Odacidae fund.

In March 2018, she was thirteen. She addressed the United Nations General Assembly, at the launch of the International Decade for Action on Water.

She said:

In September 2018, Ottawa Riverkeeper gave her its award.

In February 2019, Josephine Mandamin died.

In April 2019, the Anishinabek Nation named Autumn Chief Water Commissioner. She took her great-aunt's place. Grand Council Chief Glen Hare said she had nibi giikendaaswin, water knowledge.

She was fourteen.

That year, she took part in the Global Landscapes Forum at the United Nations. The Union of Concerned Scientists named her a Science Defender. The BBC counted her among its 100 Women of the year. In December, Maclean's magazine put her first among twenty people to watch in 2020.

Three times, in 2017, 2018 and 2019, she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, the problem remained. In February 2020, sixty-one long-term drinking water advisories remained in effect in First Nations communities. Eighty-eight had been lifted since 2015.

In December 2020, the federal government acknowledged that its goal of ending them by March 2021 would not be met.

Autumn kept going.

In 2023, she received the Community Hero Award from Canada's Walk of Fame.

This water knowledge comes from the Anishinaabe tradition. This way of living in the world echoes Ubuntu, without being the same: we exist with others, and with the water that keeps us alive.

There was a little girl in front of signs, at Serpent River.

Then a teenager before the United Nations, speaking for the water.

Between the two, a copper pot, once given to a prime minister.