Walking with the Water: The Anishinaabe Grandmothers Who Walked the Great Lakes


In the spring of 2003, as the ice thawed and the first signs of renewal stirred in the North, a quiet but powerful journey began. A group of Anishinaabe grandmothers; Indigenous people of the Great Lakes region, whose traditional territories span parts of what is now Canada and the northern United States, set out to walk around the Great Lakes. They did not walk for fame, nor for protest signs or cameras. They walked for the water.

Their journey was an act of love and ceremony, a response to the pollution and misuse of the Great Lakes, a system that holds nearly 20% of the world’s surface fresh water. Led by Josephine Mandamin, an Anishinaabe grandmother and water protector, they walked thousands of miles with copper pails in hand, offering prayers to the water at every step.

This movement, known as the Mother Earth Water Walks was not just a response to environmental degradation. It was a restoration of responsibility. A return to a sacred relationship. A reclaiming of Indigenous women’s traditional roles as water carriers and caretakers.

Why Walk?

“We are not just walking for the water,” Josephine said. “We are walking with the water.”

This distinction speaks to the heart of ecofeminism, where environmental justice and gender justice are deeply intertwined. In many Indigenous cultures, women are the protectors of water. Water is life, fluid, life-giving, feminine. And like women, it has been exploited, commodified, and ignored in modern industrial society.

But in walking, these grandmothers reasserted water as a living relative, not a resource to be owned, but a being to be honored. Their act of endurance became an act of resistance. Against pollution. Against colonization. Against forgetting.

The Power of Grandmother Wisdom

Ecofeminism often uplifts stories of grassroots caretaking, women tending gardens, defending forests, healing broken systems with community-rooted love. The Anishinaabe grandmothers embody this fully. In a world that often seeks quick fixes and tech-driven solutions, their answer was old, slow, and profoundly human: walk.

With each footfall, they reminded the world of the Anishinaabe prophecy that warns of a time when the waters will become so poisoned that animals will die, and people will fall ill—unless action is taken. Their walk was prophecy in motion. Hope carried in moccasins. Ceremony on the move.

Lessons for Our Time

In 2025, as we face global water shortages, pipeline battles, and climate upheaval, the message from these women is more urgent than ever:

Protect the water. Listen to the grandmothers. Slow down. Walk.
Their journey wasn’t just around the lakes; it was a loop back to balance.

As ecofeminists, storytellers, and earth-lovers, we owe it to them to remember, retell, and rewalk, maybe not in miles, but in mindset. Their legacy teaches us that activism isn’t always loud. 

Sometimes, it’s soft footfalls on sacred ground. A copper pail. A whispered prayer.





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