SOMBA K’E/YELLOWKNIFE
Teenager Shane Jamieson, from Beausoleil First Nation in Ontario, took having access to fresh water for granted, but he has since become hyper-aware of its importance through a program that brought him, along with 15 other youth, to Yellowknife this week.

Sixteen youth from four First Nations across Canada were in Yellowknife this week to learn about water and the issues surrounding it. Pictured in the photo are representatives from each First Nation, and program facilitator Shianne McKay, left, with the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, which is sponsoring the project, along with Rebecca Mandamin, Shane Jamieson, Nicola Terbasket and Alex Marie in front. - Erin Steele/NNSL photo

The program, entitled Water I <3 You (Water: I Love You) is created by the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER), which is a First Nation-directed environmental non-profit organization, based in Winnipeg, Man. Visiting youth were from four communities across the country, including Fort Smith.

“Water is being treated very badly considering we're dependent on it to survive,” said Jamieson, whose island community has watched water levels drop, making its ferry difficult to operate.

In Yellowknife, the group visited the Giant Mine site, from which arsenic tailing are currently frozen underground.

Through the program the youth are visiting three other places in Canada. Some of the youth are from Iskatewizaagegan No. 39 Independent First Nation, in Ontario and Manitoba, on Shoal Lake where the city of Winnipeg gets its water but doesn't pay for it, said Nicola Terbasket.

“We live in a wild rice place and use plants for medicine,” said Nicola Terbasket, who is from that community, adding oil pipelines are threatening that lifestyle.

Because of overuse of the lake by cottagers making the water unfit to drink untreated, the community now has to rely on bottled water, said Alica Kejick, another youth from that community, in a news release about the Yellowknife visit.

The program started September 2013 and wraps up later this year.

All four youth interviewed by Yellowknifer agreed that education is a key component in helping people learn to care about water.

“They just need to be informed and have all the information,” said Jamieson.

After the group wraps up its visiting, they will come up with action plans that they will bring back and implement in their respective communities.

“Youth have more of a voice on environmental issues,” said Shianne McKay, program faciliator and research associate with CIER, adding that oftentimes adults voices can drown one-another out.

“The youth is the next generation,” added Terbasket.

“It's going to be us who use that water (of the future) and we don't want to use contaminated water.”