Photo of Emmett Lockwood
Content warning: this post discusses disturbing topics including environmental disasters, wildfires, Indigenous residential schools, death, and educational abuse of Indigenous children.
Our bodies bear the scars of the land and the land bears the scars of our bodies. I use this phrase when trying to explain how I conceptualize my own embodiment. I am a mixed white and reconnecting Pimicikamak Cree person. I am also a disabled, Crip, and Mad person. I find that Cree cultural beliefs help me frame my embodiment. The ongoing climate crisis shows us how warfare and environmental collapse are making us all more disabled. While this awareness is important, it is worth noting how for many Indigenous people, our bodies and the land can’t be nicely separated.
Our bodies bear the scars of the land. This summer I watched in horror as wildfires ripped through Pimicikamak Cree Nation reservation land. While I grew up disconnected from the community living in the U.S., the images left me grieving. Pimicikamak people were forced to evacuate down to Winnipeg, nearly 500 miles away. Evacuees did not know what would be left of the community or whether the Kichi Sipi, the river running from ᐄᐧᓂᐯᐠ Wînipêk (Lake Winnipeg) to ᐐᓂᐹᒄ Wînipâkw (Hudson Bay), would keep out the fire.
These fires were life threatening. The primary road route to Winnipeg, highway MB-6, went directly through the path of the fire. For many people, the quickest way to escape was by plane. While the tribal government stepped in to arrange hotel accommodations and priority evacuation for those with asthma, pulmonary conditions, or other disabilities that would be exacerbated by the smoke and fire, the wildfire smoke spread throughout the province, affecting air quality for everyone.
The tribal government had to scramble to cover the medical and food costs for over 800 of the wildfire evacuees, and external organizations attempting to replace medications and medical devices encountered delays. Evacuation and wildfires are especially dangerous for disabled people who often experience the worst effects of smoke, lack accessible communication about planned evacuations, and face barriers to medical care during protracted evacuations.
Destruction of land is not new. Indigenous land, whether it be through wildfires or flooding, has disproportionately faced the environmental impacts of settler colonialism for centuries. For instance, in 1979, Manitoba Hydro built the Jenpeg dam right off Pimickimak Cree reserve land as part of a larger hydroelectric project. This dam led to flooding of treaty land, including land often used for traditional ceremonies.
This destruction doesn’t just disable the land, but disables us along with it. Environmental exposure to wildfire smoke fills our lungs. The loss of our land is a form of generational trauma. Colonization keeps burning and flooding our homes and our bodies along with it.
The land bears the scars of our bodies. In 2024, ground-penetrating radar was used to locate mass graves of children. These children, many of whom were Pimicikamak, were killed while attending the Cross Lake residential school. The Cross Lake residential school was run by the Catholic church from 1915 to 1969. 187 ground anomalies were found in a survey of school grounds and other areas formally held by the residential school.Each anomaly was a child’s body. Before the use of radar, there had been records found that suggested 85 students died while attending the school. The radar discovered close to 200 children’s bodies, found without names.
These children’s spirits, descendants, and communities do not have any closure. The land holds our children. The land holds our ancestors deep in its dirt. The land keeps their small bones safe from the elements. The land waited for us to one day discover the scars in the land. The land waited for us to acknowledge the trauma we all carry as First Nations people from the brutal history of residential schools.
My body and history can’t be dissected from the land. ᐊᐧᐦᑯᐦᑐᐃᐧᐣ wahkôtowin is a Cree belief that we are in relation with the land, plants, animals, each other, spiritual beings, our ancestors, and our descendants. Wahkôtowin includes understanding that violence against the land harms people and vice versa. As we work towards decolonial disability justice, we can’t keep using conceptions of disability that continue to locate disability only in the body. We must remember that our bodies and the land are connected, and we must build systems that honor that truth.
Emmett Lockwood (he/they) is a mixed white and Pimicikamak Cree, queer, disabled, Mad and Crip scholar and current graduate student at York University pursuing an M.A. in Critical Disability Studies. Lockwood was a 2024 AAPD Summer Intern and has served in various non-profit and legislative disability policy roles. Their current research interest is looking at how Indigenous Data Sovereignty and data privacy play out in healthcare systems that are increasingly driven by artificial intelligence.