Title: What Once Held Me Steady Is Now Asking for Care

My Water Narrative

At first, in 2003, shortly after immigrating to Canada, I found myself nearby the shores of Lake Winnipeg, just north of the city. Along the shore, the lake stretched wide and steady, and in the foreground the water appeared cold, calm, and unwavering. During that time, everything in my life felt uncertain—language, culture, belonging—but the lake offered something solid. The sharp wind cut through my thoughts, slowing them, while the open shoreline created space for reflection. The water did not demand anything from me; it simply existed. That quiet presence grounded me during a period of displacement and emotional instability. Even then, without fully realizing it, Lake Winnipeg became part of my internal sense of safety and balance.

Earlier in my life, before Canada, water played a similar role. I grew up in Iran’s Gilan province, near the Caspian Sea, where water shaped daily life, culture, and spirituality. Previously, swimming, fishing, boating, and observing wildlife were ordinary experiences, deeply woven into memory and identity. When I encountered Lake Winnipeg again years later, those memories resurfaced. Meanwhile, although the two waterbodies are thousands of kilometers apart, they share similar stories of environmental stress and neglect. At the same time, standing beside Lake Winnipeg created continuity between past and present, reminding me that water carries memory across borders and generations. When water degrades, it is not only ecosystems that are harmed, but also culture, identity, and inherited ways of understanding the world.

Beyond the shoreline, Lake Winnipeg is not only personal—it is communal. Within the community, it is one of Canada’s largest freshwater lakes and central to Manitoba’s ecology, food systems, and recreation. Surrounding the lake are towns, farms, beaches, and Indigenous communities whose lives are deeply connected to its health. Nearby, families fish, swim, and gather, while across the region the lake supports tourism and local economies. However, this shared space is increasingly contested. Harmful algal blooms, driven by nutrient pollution, have become a recurring threat, making parts of the lake unsafe for swimming and fishing. These conditions directly affect community health, food security, and cultural practices, particularly for Indigenous Nations with longstanding relationships to the water.

Interlocking responsibilities among governments, industries, and communities have allowed accountability to weaken. Lake Winnipeg’s shallow depth makes it highly vulnerable, connected to overlapping agricultural drainage systems that accelerate nutrient runoff. As a result of prioritizing agricultural productivity, fertilizers and wastewater enter the lake faster than it can recover. These environmental pressures are also connected to policy decisions—weak enforcement of runoff regulations, inadequate wastewater infrastructure, and financial incentives that favor short-term economic gain over long-term ecological health. Water is treated as a resource to be managed rather than a living system that sustains life.

Moreover, learning that Lake Winnipeg lies on Treaty 1, 2, 4, and 5 lands fundamentally reshaped my understanding of responsibility. Historically, Indigenous Nations have maintained water teachings grounded in reciprocity, respect, and relational accountability. As long as colonial governance systems continue to marginalize Indigenous water laws, pollution and neglect persist. Consequently, Indigenous communities face disproportionate impacts: unsafe drinking water, declining fisheries, and disrupted cultural and spiritual practices. These realities reflect environmental injustice rooted in ongoing colonial structures.

Eventually, the causes of Lake Winnipeg’s degradation extend far beyond local choices. Industrial agriculture, economic growth models, and colonial governance systems operate at national and global scales. Climate change intensifies these pressures by increasing rainfall, runoff, and water temperatures, worsening algal blooms. In the future, awareness alone will not be enough. Protecting Lake Winnipeg requires systemic change—policy reform, Indigenous-directed water governance, and collective responsibility that values ecological sustainability over extraction and convenience.

To end with, Lake Winnipeg stands at a crossroads. If current patterns continue, the lake will face ongoing ecological collapse, loss of biodiversity, and deepening social injustice. Unless meaningful action is taken, future generations may inherit a waterbody remembered more for warning signs than for life. Yet if protected—through respect for Treaty obligations, Indigenous leadership, and long-term ecological planning—the lake can recover. What once steadied me during uncertainty now asks for care in return. Water remembers how we treat it—and it will reflect those choices back to us.