We need fresh, clean water and landback for healing so we’ll find the strength and wisdom needed to guide the way on a Just Transition to a fossil fuel-free planet.

Throughout the year, Keepers of the Water gathers to celebrate and honour our life-sustaining waters and to work on watershed stewardship plans to protect the Arctic Ocean Drainage Basin. Since our formation in 2006, Keepers of the Water has co-hosted an annual gathering in different Indigenous Communities in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and N.W.T.

The solutions to the climate crisis we are all facing are embedded in our Creations stories, collective histories, original languages, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or Indigenous Science.

Throughout our years of work, we’ve helped lead other public events, like the Tar Sands Healing Walks, lifted up Indigenous Voices at RBC AGMs, advocated for the legal protection of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and FPIC in International negotiation spaces like INC4, COP Biodiversity, and COP Emissions, actively seeking Personhood for Rivers, and supported community-led initiatives and direct actions to protect and enforce Indigenous rights.

If your community is interested in learning about hosting a gathering or wants to work with us on an event, fill out this form.

We will never stop talking about the importance of water.

Keepers of the Waters’ Annual Gathering is vital to ensure ongoing communication is occurring and supported in Indigenous communities about Water, traditional knowledge and how to move forward. These are meaningful, not only for the community that hosts the Gathering but to the many others who travel to attend these gatherings. This has helped KOW to build unity and a stronger voice.

Every year, there is a different theme, depending on the community and the issues, concerns, or topics the community would like to discuss. We open our gatherings in Ceremony and close them the same way. Often, the Gathering lasts two or three days and includes land-based education, report back on research, introduction of solution-based water and land management techniques to respond to climate change, cultural events and community connections. There is always a focus on Indigenous Governance of watersheds, and we look to communities to provide the solutions and direction for managing their watersheds, with KOW offering support.

The annual gathering offers support to the community in many ways. It always allows the community to tell their story, and KOW has worked with communities on projects like independent research studies, water and soil testing, health studies, amplifying voices and messages of Indigenous rights, inherent rights and treaty rights, and helping to amplify their concerns and messages, in relation to the water issues at hand. In the bigger picture, it is not just a gathering but a network-building, knowledge-sharing, and cultural exchange for immediate and future support to Indigenous communities most impacted by resource extraction, consumerism, and the modern single-use society-driven climate change.

Don't hesitate to contact us if your community is interested in co-hosting a Keepers of the Water Gathering, or you can fill out this form to apply directly.

Mother Earth has never needed us to heal herself but we need her to heal ourselves.