Healing Walk

The 5th Annual Tarsands Healing Walk

July 3, 2014 Mike Hudema, www.greenpeace.org Resist! Healing Walk, Indigenous Rights, Resistance, Tar Sands

It was a walk of prayer and healing. It was a walk to heal the land, a walk to heal ourselves and a walk to give the earth the strength to resist the damage that is being done to it. Once a year for the past 5-years we have gathered. The first year it was those most directly affected by the tar sands beast joined by a few allies. It was started as a way for the communities most directly impacted to speak in a way that respected their culture and traditions. It was not a protest but a walk of healing. Each year afterwards the healing walk grew. The fifth healing walk brought people from all four coasts – from the Gulf to the Northwest Territories, from B.C. to New Brunswick. From all the pipeline fights (KXL, Northern Gateway, KinderMorgan, Line9, Energy East etc.) we came together in the belly of the tar sands to pray, heal and unite. As tar sands destruction grows so do the movements against it. The routes of pipelines become maps of resistance. They show the Nations and communities to connect to, the struggles to unite, and places to come together. This year, the healing walk joined many of them - a walking tribute of the unity that has been built.

The Final Tar Sands Healing Walk

June 17, 2014 Jonathan, www.onerivernews.ca Resist! Healing Walk, Indigenous Rights, Protest, Religion, Tar Sands

The fifth and final Healing Walk represents a milestone for local communities affected by Oilsands development. The final Healing Walk does not mean the problems faced have been solved, rather organizers say they have achieved the goals set out from the original Healing Walk, and it is time to move forward. The Healing Walk has successfully let local communities know they have support in facing the rapid industrialization of their home territories, as well as raised local and international awareness, and brought people together to pray for the land. Organizers feel it is time to support communities both in and now beyond the Athabasca. The Healing Walk this year will help move discussions forward and will include planning for events in new communities next summer, and planning on how to support more communities. Co-organizers R.A.V.E.N trust say, “While this may be the final Healing Walk in Fort McMurray, it is the beginning of the next stage of the journey.” They ask that as many people as possible please come and join help plan for the future.

Final ‘Tar Sands Healing Walk’ Simply A New Beginning

May 30, 2014 Derek Leahy, www.desmog.ca Strategize! Canada, Healing Walk, Tar Sands, Water

Organizers of the Tar Sands Healing Walk, a 14-kilometre spiritual walk through lands impacted by oilsands (also called tar sands) extraction in northern Alberta, have announced this year’s Healing Walk on June 28th will be the last. “It was a difficult decision to make,” admits Jesse Cardinal, co-organizer of the Healing Walk. “We felt the original goals of the healing walk of letting local communities know that they had support for the issues of mass industry in the territory and gaining further attention of the issues of tar sands development in a way that was non-aggressive were achieved.” “Our work will continue in the territory, with the people and communities, but, will look different, so I wouldn’t really call it an end, as a new beginning,” Cardinal told DeSmog Canada. Cardinal is a member of the Kikino Metis Settlement in northeastern Alberta. The Healing Walk is the only grassroots event to bring people face to face with Canada’s oilsands, one of the largest oil reserves and industrial projects in the world.

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